An independent Audubon Society has decided to de-accession one of the great masterpieces of 19th century natural history book illustration. The Society has a mission: to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity. Maintaining rare and valuable books is not necessarily a part of that mission. As a result, the book collecting world has an opportunity to admire and perhaps acquire the complete first edition of Audubon’s Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America.… Read More
Author Archives: Devon Eastland
Massachusetts is home to a wealth of institutional rare book libraries and special collections, private and public. Collecting groups, college and town libraries, historical societies, and museums contain an astonishing depth of irreplaceable monuments to our collective social and intellectual history. Consider the Emily Dickinson collection at the Houghton Library at Harvard; the original holograph manuscript of Henry David Thoreau’s Walking held at the Concord Free Public Library; the Hemingway archive at the John F.… Read More
A rare book can lose a significant amount of value if it’s missing even a single page of text. If what’s lacking is a title page, illustration, or map, the price will drop like an anvil in a cartoon. The same goes for a set of books that happens to be missing one or two volumes. And yet every day in the Skinner Fine Books & Manuscripts department we see plates, maps, title pages, and text leaves removed from valuable books.
I got a phone call last August about a potential book collection. Nothing unusual there, my job allows me the privilege of responding to queries about book collections every day. The description of the collection was brief but promising: about 125 books on the history of science, from the sixteenth to nineteenth century.
I had a few days to ponder the possibilities. I am painfully optimistic, but I tried to temper my enthusiastic imagination.… Read More
Determining the value of a book collection is a tricky proposition. Not only do many people have large quantities of books, but libraries and collections can have widely varying characteristics. First, let’s decide what kind of a library you have. Take a look at these three major types of collections.
Rare Book Collection
This group of books was methodically assembled by a book lover with a plan. A rare book collection is formed with intention.… Read More