Booksellers’ Best

A Colorful Nuremberg Chronicle

Any time a bibliophile has the chance to see Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum, printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger in 1493, he or she is certain to be delighted as it is “one of the greatest and grandest of incunabula.” In this case, perhaps the more so, considering the beautiful contemporary coloring (and annotations) applied to this large folio first edition by Johann Kruyshaer of Lippstadt (1484-1555), a.k.a. Joannes Cincinnius, a Westphalian humanist scholar with a flair for color. The “Constancia” woodcut, for example, shows different shades of blue and green. Elsewhere, the catalogue copy notes, “Very nasty looking spiders added to portraits of heretics and other grave malefactors.” Sokol Books in London sold it to a library for the equivalent of $300,000.

Book Image Courtesy of Sokol Books.

Inscribed Highsmith First

What makes this 1950 first edition in dust jacket of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train particularly interesting is that she inscribed it to Otto Penzler, her editor and publisher for six years. Penzler, the proprietor of New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop, said, “My favorite part is that she misspelled my name!” Indeed, Highsmith inscribed it as follows: “For Otto Pentzler [sic] I am surprised!!! to see this collector’s item—on 22 Oct. 1984. Pat Highsmith.” A fellow bookseller nabbed it for $9,500.

Courtesy of The Mysterious Bookshop.

Courtesy of Priscilla Juvelis.

Vollmann Limited Edition

One of only ten copies of The Book of Candles (2006), a limited edition manuscript of poetry by National Book Award winner (and onetime Unabomber suspect) William T. Vollmann, was sold by Maine’s Priscilla Juvelis earlier this year to a private collector for $30,000. The 75-page text is a suite of eight religious and blasphemous love poems to prostitutes and was composed in the Philippines in 1995 and relief-printed on Rives de Lin paper by the author over a period of years. According to Juvelis, “The text is Vollmann’s only book of poetry and he has no plans to have it published in any other format.” It is also unlikely, she said, that any of the other nine will enter the market, as most are in institutions, and this one will eventually go to the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.

Standing Rock Artist’s Book

Booklyn, the Brooklyn non-profit that promotes artists’ books, sold artist Brian D. Tripp’s hand-painted book, Round & Round (2018), to the Newberry Library in Chicago for $2,600 this past April. According to Booklyn, Round and Round is “an important example of contemporary Native American (Karuk Nation) artists' book making. And it's the first unique handmade artists' book made by a contemporary Native American acquired for the Newberry's acclaimed collection of Native American material.” Tripp is a member of the Northern California Karuk Tribal community, and he made this book partly as an homage to the Water Protectors at the Standing Rock encampment, where he spent time in 2017.

Courtesy of Booklyn.