Second hand books

If you think second hand books are cheap - think again.  Here is Abe Books (a book site specialising in second hand books) most expensive books of 2011.

AbeBooks' Most Expensive Sales in December 2011

1. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer - £6,708
A single leaf from the 1476-1477 first edition printing by William Caxton – the first press to operate in England.

2.  The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut - £5,416
A first edition copy from 1961 signed by Vonnegut, with a self-caricature; one of the most rare Vonnegut first editions owing to its limited printing of only 2,500 copies. 

3. Jacques Mesrine: Le Tir (The Shot) by Alain Bizos- £4,715
A sequence of three gelatine silver prints taken of Jacques Mesrine who was the #1 public enemy in France at the time.  This set was limited to 25 prints, each of which was signed by Bizos in black ink on the back.  This photo sequence was taken in January 1979; in November of that same year Mesrine was shot to death by French Police in Paris.

4. Opera Chirurgica: a docto viro, plerisque locis by Ambroise Pare’ - £4,308
 Ambroise, who began his career as a military surgeon, has been called the father of modern surgery based on his development of several techniques and theories including his belief that the phantom pain soldiers suffered from occurred in the brain and not the remnant of the limb.  Published in the 17th century, this second Latin edition of his complete works includes over 315 illustrations. 

5. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman - £4,061
First edition of the entire three-volume trilogy with each of the volumes being signed by Pullman. 

6. La Peste by Albert Camus - £3,817
Original French issue of Camus’ novel The Plague, first published in 1947. This was one of 215 numbered copies printed on vellum paper. 

7. Historiae celebriores Veteris [et novi] Testamenti iconibus repraesentatae et ad excitandas bonas meditationes selectis epigrammatibus exornatae, in lucem by Luyken, Meloni, and Weigel - £3,334
Published in 1708 in Nuremberg this first edition, two-volume set includes various illustrations inspired by the bible’s old and new testaments.

8. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter, and the Prisoner of Azkaban - £3,340
The first three Harry Potter titles, all deluxe editions, each signed by the Rowling.

9. Autographed Letter by Mark Twain - £3,184
A two-page letter written and inscribed by Mark Twain to Henry Chandler Bowen, who was the editor of the New York Independent; in the letter Twain asks Bowen for assistance in locating a poem by Caroline Mason that had been previously published in the paper.

10. Fable by John Baldessari - £3,184
The first and only edition of Baldessari’s rare artist book, published in 1977 by Anatol A V Und Filmproduktion, this book folds out accordion-style in four directions and is housed in a simple titled sleeve.