The November 29 auction of art, press and illustrated books, and Nineteenth and Twentieth Century literature at Swann Galleries featured many exciting highlights, including a signed advance-proof copy of Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls †the first copy of its kind ever to surface. The proof contained Hemingway’s handwritten corrections and was signed and inscribed to longtime friend and employee Toby Otto Bruce. It sold for $96,000.
Other Hemingway highlights included The Judgment of Manitou , his first published short story, contained in a school yearbook from Oak Park, Ill., 1916, $10,200, and Across the River and Into the Trees , first edition, inscribed and signed, New York, 1950, $20,400.
Among record-setting literary examples were Joseph Conrad’s Victory, first English edition, first issue, in the rare dust jacket, London, 1915, $4,560; and William Faulkner’s Go Down Moses and Other Stories , first edition, one of 100 signed copies, New York, 1942, $18,000.
Important Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century works that brought strong prices included Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale , first American edition, New York, 1851, $16,800; The Political Life of the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone Illustrated with Cartoons and Sketches from Punch , three volumes, extra-illustrated with 68 original pencil drawings by Sir John Tenniel, famed illustrator of Alice in Wonderland , London, circa 1896‹8, $24,000; and Henry David Thoreau’s Writings& Manuscript Edition, 20 volumes with an original manuscript leaf, Boston, 1906, $19,200.
Later literary highlights included J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit or There and Back Again , first edition, first issue, London, 1937, $13,200; Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory , first edition in the dust jacket, London, 1940, $11,400; and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, first edition, New York, 1960, which more than tripled its high estimate to bring $19,200.
Among the art, press and illustrated books were several record-setters. These included a pair of architecture books: the lavish monograph The Architectural Work of Graham Anderson Probst & White , Chicago, two volumes in morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, one of 300, London, 1933, $4,320, and Eliezer Lissitzky’s Anrkhitektura sovremennogo zapada (Western Architecture Today), Moscow, 1932, $2,040. Also among Russian highlights was Louis Lozowick’s Modern Russian Art , which provides a history of the Russian avant-garde movement, New York, 1925, a record $1,440.
Among the fine press and illustrated books that achieved record results was one of 300 copies of John Cage’s broadsheet Haiku, the first and only piece published by the Black Mountain College Music Press, 1952, $2,400.
Rounding out the highlights were Dalí: A Study of His Life and Work , Greenwich, 1958, inscribed and signed and with a two-page ink drawing by the artist, $26,400; and rare works by Surrealists, especially Guillaume Apollinaire’s “Calligrammes; Poèmes de la Paix et de la Guerre” (1913‱916), inscribed to Maurice Raynal, and initialed in a calligram, Paris, 1918, which sold for $15,600.
Prices reported include the buyer’s premium. For information, 212-254-4710 or www.swanngalleries.com .
