Fine Books and Manuscripts

The Fine Books and Manuscripts sale on 11 December in New York has an unusually wide range of significant printed books from across five centuries. The sale begins with a selection of astronomy and celestial atlases from the library of Chicago collector Gerald F. Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s collection ranges from the incunable period to man’s landing on the moon. Among the numerous highlights are 1661 and 1708 editions of Cellarius’s Harmonia macrocosmica; a set of counter-proof gore sheets for a concave celestial globe by Coronelli, ca. 1698; and the 1610 Frankfurt printing of Galileo’s momentous Sidereus nuncius magna.

The balance of the auction offers treasures from the entire spectrum of the bibliophile’s universe, including English literature (first editions of Mansfield Park and Emma); bookbinding (a very early example, 1927, by Paul Bonet); science and medicine (Ratdolt’s 1492 edition of Euclid’s “Elements”); drama (Cervantes’s notoriously rare Ocho comedias of 1615); and travel and exploration (a full set of Ramusio’s celebrated collection of voyages).

Nor are manuscripts unrepresented. Two of the more intriguing examples are a collection of 21 autograph letters, incorporating four ink sketches, from Winslow Homer to M. Knoedler & Co., 1900; and a leaf of autograph manuscript from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.