Sale Overview
Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts, taking place online from 23 November through 7 December, comprises a wide range of material celebrating the written word. Notably, the sale features a group of 110 lots—The Collection of a Lady—being sold to benefit Historic Deerfield. These include a choice selection of incunabula and early modern books, as well as books with important (often female) provenance, works of natural history, travel and exploration, and American literature. Two great highlights include an extraordinary contemporary manuscript sammelband of John Donne's poetry, one of the only contemporary Donne sources in private hands, and a presentation copy of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, inscribed for Hattie McDaniel. The sale also features the correspondence of Jack Kerouac to his good friend Ed White, who would, among other things, strongly influence his writing style. Mostly unpublished and with the majority written before the publication of On the Road, the letters are a crucial companion piece to Kerouac's 1957 book, and in many ways the rough drafts he said he didn’t believe in writing. Rounding out the sale are fine copies of Description de l'Egypte and John Gould's The Birds of New Guinea; an unpublished interview with Ernest Hemingway, with his annotations; a notebook from artist Edvard Munch; and a range of modern literature, from Hemingway's Sun Also Rises to a signed Harry Potter.