On May 4th, 2017, PBA Galleries will offer over 350 lots of enchanting, intriguing, attractive and visually stimulating illustrated books, prints and materials on the decorative arts, along with significant editions of important children’s literature. In addition, rare works by L. Frank Baum and other authors from the Land of Oz, and a selection of fine books in a variety of fields, including finely bound literary and historical sets round out the sale.
Lang’s Complete Works
A highlight of the sale is a complete set of Andrew Lang first editions. The twenty-four-volume set is beautifully bound by Bayntun and includes all thirteen of his fairy books. The binding is full green polished calf, boards bordered in gilt, spines gilt, red morocco labels, gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. The Fairy Books are uniformly stamped on the spines and the others have spine decorations appropriate for their contents. Original cloth bound in at the rear of each volume. (Estimate: $15,000-$20,000)
1728 Dutch Bible
A splendid and uncommon three-volume folio Dutch Bible from 1728, is beautifully illustrated with over 200 spectacular hand-colored copper-engraved plates, nearly 30 of them are double-page, after Bernard Picart, Gerard Hoet and Jacob Houbrahen. The illustrations depict in graphic, and at times, lurid detail the scenes and events of the Old and New Testaments. Picart is the most notable of the three important artists that provided the illustrations and is renowned today for his masterful depictions of religious ceremonies and iconography from around the globe. (Estimate: $6,000-$9,000)
The Emerald City
Featured lots from Children’s Literature include a first edition, first state of L. Frank Baum’s The Emerald City of Oz in the original light blue cloth with pictorial cover label printed in metallic ink, with the rare original dust jacket featuring the same design as the cover label (Estimate: $10,000-$15,000); the rare first printing of the first edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, in the publisher’s original sheepskin binding, expertly rebacked (Estimate: $7,000-$10,000); a scarce limited first edition of Winnie-the-Pooh, one of 350 copies signed by author A.A. Milne and illustrator E.H. Shepard, in the original dust jacket (Estimate: $4,000-$6,000); and. Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, 1843, perhaps his most beloved work, the second issue of the first edition, with “Stave One” on the first page of text (Estimate: $4,000-$6,000).
Carter the Great
Rare oversized color lithographed poster featuring the stage magician Carter the Great (Charles Joseph Carter), in one of his featured acts, his “cheating the gallows” trick, where the shrouded magician would vanish as he dropped at the end of a hangman’s noose. The act originated in San Francisco, where Carter made his home, and the poster includes a crown of shouting and gesturing Asians, evidently from that city’s Chinatown (Estimate: $3,000-$5,000). A limited edition lithograph by Carl Barks, “Sailing the Spanish Main,” with Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and three nephews aboard a rollicking sailing craft is one of 245 signed copies. There are 34 additional Carl Barks lithographs featuring Donald Duck in the sale (Estimate: $2,500-$3,500).
Finally, a scarce 1896 Kelmscott Press printing of The Shepheardes Calendar by Edmund Spenser, limited to 231 copies. There is a wood-engraved frontispiece and 11 plates by Arthur Gaskin. This is the Estelle Doheny copy with her small leather bookplate on the front pastedown. (Estimate: $4,000-$6,000).
The sale will begin at 11:00 am Pacific Time and the public may preview the auction Monday, May 1st, 1-5pm, Tuesday and Wednesday, May 2nd and 3rd from 9am to 5pm and on Thursday, May 4th, 9-11am at PBA Galleries in San Francisco. For more information, please contact the galleries at (415) 989-2665 or [email protected].