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Productive Arts
Bratenahl, OH
Original cigarette box for Kino cigarettes. Graphic design by Aleksandr Rodchenko. 1924. Conserved to lie flat. Includes tax label.
Rulon-Miller Books
St. Paul, MN
The earliest commercial transaction between Japan and The United States.
[Perry, Mathew Calbraith.]. Statement for supplies taken aboard the Powhatan, the Southampton, and the Mississippi during the Perry Expedition to open the country of Japan. [Hakodate, Japan: May 18, 19, 21, 22, 24 and 26, 1854]. This financial statement, certainly one of the first, if not the first record of a commercial transaction between Japan and The United States, is for items taken aboard the Powhatan, Southampton, and Mississippi at Hakodate in May of 1854. Written in neat kanji and hiragana, often with phonetically spelled American words (“totaru” for total, “Mishishippi” for Mississippi), the statement lists supplies taken on board by date, along with prices and a grand total in the amount of 3,684 gold coins and 29 mon, the Japanese currency before the yen. $25,000.
Serendipity Books
Berkeley, CA 94702
John Steinbeck. Manuscript draft of Lyndon Baines Johnson’s 1965 Presidential Inaugural Address, the “Great Society” Speech. John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas. At the time John and Elaine Steinbeck were in Warsaw, Poland; the two wrote Mrs. Kennedy their condolences on November 24, and on the same day John wrote Johnson a letter of support, indicating that he and his wife were in Poland moving about behind the Iron Curtain, at President Kennedy’s request, and that they would continue their “non-diplomatic mission.” In fact, the Steinbecks’ mission was to “spend as much time as they could with dissident writers’ groups in small clandestine meetings, often late at night.” On July 1, 1964 Steinbeck telegrammed the White House, c/o Jack Valenti, in thanks. LBJ had conferred upon him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civil honor conferred by the President of the United States for service in peace time. Now the epistles cease. But clearly, LBJ, and the White House staff, and quite probably the widow of John F. Kennedy all asked Steinbeck to draft LBJ’s inaugural speech. Into which he could pour the distilled essence of those thoughts he had of the meaning of the United States and its leadership. He did. The letter to Eric Goldman is apparently unpublished, as is the manuscript in its entirety. $90,000.
James Joyce. Broadside and Admission Ticket for his first public reading in France, with the original, earliest, and previously unknown typescript of the Schema of Ulysses, inscribed to Valery Larbaud. Typescript, single sheet 29cm x 79cm, formed by overlapping and pasting two 29cm x 41.5cm lined sheets together, typed text on one side only. Both sheets are watermarked “Ambrogio Binda.” Typescript has heading Ulysses, beneath which are 18 rows and 10 columns laying out the structural elements of the novel. Sheet has been folded both vertically and horizontally. When folded, outside verso fold reads, in mss. “à M. Larbaud.” $125,000.