Wednesday 30 January 2019

Sam Walter Foss

“The woods were made for the hunter of dreams,
The brooks for the fishers of song;
To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game
The streams and the woods belong.
There are thoughts that moan from the soul of pine
And thoughts in a flower bell curled;
And the thoughts that are blown with scent of the fern
Are as new and as old as the world.”
― Sam Walter Foss
Art Meraylah Allwood.

Sensational First Editions from the 1960s

The 1960s witnessed the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the eruption of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the invention of the mini-skirt. The decade was politically and culturally explosive and its literature is no different. Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird made its controversial debut in 1960, setting the tone for the decade's book scene. The 1960s produced contentious classics like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (1962) and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962), titles that have appeared on countless banned book lists alongside Lee's only novel. Catch-22 (1961), Slaughterhouse-Five(1969) and The Bell Jar (1963) are no strangers to banned-book lists either, making the 1960s a very controversial decade for books, indeed. ...
 

First Editions from the 1960s

Tuesday 29 January 2019

Henry Beston

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
― Henry Beston.

Image may contain: 1 person, outdoor

Loxley Chapel

Spiritus Sanctus - Paranormal Urbexing added 16 new photos to the album Loxley Chapel.
Loxley Chapel
Built in 1787, it served its local community for more than two centuries – but it is now a scene of destruction after arsonists set it on fire in 1996. Loxley Chapel in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, was closed in 1993, and now sits among overgrown plants as an eerie abandoned place of worship.
The Grade II-listed church, once known as Loxley Methodist Church and Loxley United Reformed Church, has been left in a shocking state of disrepair. The surrounding cemetery is also overgrown with graves being lost in the foliage - provoking outrage amongst families of the deceased.
The chapel was constructed in 1787 by Curate of Bradfield the Reverend Benjamin Greaves, along with some of his friends. Upon completion in the 18th century, its consecration was refused because builders would not install an east-facing window for unknown reasons.
It was eventually sold at auction for £315 and became an independent chapel, but had an average congregation of 200 worshippers by 1851. However it soon recovered because according to the Religious Census of 1851 the average congregation at an afternoon service was 200.
But the congregation had collapsed to an unsustainable amount by the early 1990s, which saw the chapel’s closure. Many of the 240 victims of the 1864 Great Sheffield Flood, one of Britain’s worst man-made disasters, are buried in the cemetery. The flood occurred when the Dale Dyke Dam broke as its reservoir was being filled for the first time. It sent 650 million gallons of water cascading into central Sheffield while people were sleeping in their beds.
For more info on this please visit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sheffield_Flood
Amongst the bodies that are buried here are the Armitage family, who lost 12 members including five children.
RMS Titanic chief officer Henry Tingle Wilde - who is thought to have killed himself as the ship sank in 1912 - was baptised at the chapel.


Cabbage, sultana and nut pasta bake

Priced at Asda using mySupermarket, January 2019
Serves 4 generously
Priced at Asda January 2019
125g dried macaroni, 65p/500g, 16p
tin value baked beans, drained and rinsed, 23p
2 tblsp butter, £1.49/250g, 18p
1 tblsp oil, £1.09/litre, 2p
1 onion, chopped, 5p
2 cloves garlic, 5p
450g cabbage, 65p/kg, 29p
Smartprice 75g sultanas, £1/500g, 15p
50g salted cashews 75p/125g, 30p
120g cheddar, grated £3.69/825g, 54p
Total cost £1.97, per serving (4) 49p
Total nutrition 2296 calories, 272g carbs, 99g fat, 92g protein, 36g fibre
Serves 4 generously. Per serving (4) 574 calories, 68g carbs, 25g fat, 23g protein, 9g fibre
This has a total of 12 portions of fruit and veg, so that’s 3 portions each in one go! Plus almost a third of your daily dietary fibre needs (30g each per day), and coming up to half your protein requirements (56g for an average sedentary man)
Cook the macaroni in salted water until tender. Drain well and stir through one tblsp of oil to stop it clumping into one solid lump.
Put the butter and 1 tblsp of the oil in a pan and saute the onion until tender. Add the garlic, cabbage and sultanas. Cover and cook gently until the cabbage is cooked through. If it’s starting to look dry, add a splash of water. Season with salt and pepper.
Mix the vegetables, macaroni and drained, rinsed beans together. Top with the grated cheese. Bake at 180c for about 20 minutes until golden


Friday 25 January 2019

Most Expensive Sales of 2018 - Abe Books

Our list of the most expensive sales of the year never fails to be diverse. 2018's top sales ranged from one of the great scientific minds of the 17th century to a 21st century screenprint of a cartoon mouse. There is human and equine medicine, music, Canada's iconic red-haired orphan, the novella that modernized Christmas, and a Jewish scroll plus classics from Harper Lee and Ernest Hemingway.

Top 25 Most Expensive Sales of the Year:


Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche by Galileo£63,250
A 1638 first edition of Galileo's last and greatest work, the "Discorsi" (Discourses on Two New Sciences), which is considered to be the first modern physics textbook and the foundation of modern mechanics. The two new sciences that the book describes are the engineering science of strength of materials and the mathematical science of kinematics - the physics of bodies in motion subject to the force of gravity. One of the great science books ever produced, this copy is bound in contemporary vellum. In very good to near-fine condition throughout.

Mickey by Damian Hirst£38,200
Screenprint of Mickey Mouse
A screenprint of Mickey Mouse, reimagined by British artist Damian Hirst. This artwork was first created in 2012 as an oil painting to be auctioned in aid of Kids Company, a London-based charity that supports vulnerable inner-city. Signed in pencil by the artist.

Discours de la Méthode by Descartes£25,000
Discours de la Methode by Descartes
This is a famous philosophy book first published in 1637 but this copy is special due to its artwork produced by Victor Vasarely (1906-1997), a French-Hungarian artist described as the father of the Op Art movement. He used geometric shapes and colorful graphics to create illusions of spatial depth. He was heavily influenced by Bauhaus design, the works of Vasily Kandinskii, and Constructivism. Vasarely experimented with surrealist and abstract expressionist styles during the 1940s before arriving at his hallmark checkerboards. One of only 15 copies reserved for Vasarely, which he signed.

Cours d'hippiatrique
Published in 1772 in Paris, this is a first edition of a French book on equine medicine and anatomy. Contains 56 hand-colored engraved plates. A beautiful and important veterinary book.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand£21,500
A signed first edition owned by Rand's secretary, who typed parts of the Atlas Shrugged manuscript. This 1957 novel was Rand's fourth and final novel, and is considered to be her magnum opus.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis£18,500
A complete set of British first editions - all seven books in first issue dust wrappers with no repairs. The first five books of this classic series were published by Geoffrey Bles. The final two were published by The Bodley Head. They all contain the marvelous illustrations of Pauline Baynes. The series began with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950, and concluded with The Last Battle in 1956.

An Ester Scroll£18,500
An Ester Scroll
An engraved vellum scroll from 1700. The Book of Esther is a key Jewish document, the third section of the Tanakh, (the Hebrew Bible). Also called The Megillah, the book is the basis and an integral part of the Jewish celebration of Purim. Esther was a queen of Persia who saved her people from genocide. This scroll was engraved by Shalom Italia, who was a Jewish artist born in Mantua, Italy. In 1641, in his early twenties, he arrived in Amsterdam and settled among the local Portuguese-Jewish community. Italia came from a family of Hebrew printers and most likely was trained as a draftsman and engraver by his uncle Eliezer d'Italia. In Amsterdam Shalom Italia perfected his craft and decorating Esther scrolls became his key skill. Despite Italia's many surviving works, which have been prized by private collectors and museums for centuries, only a few are dated and little is known about the artist. He created a number of different types of decorated Esther scrolls over the course of the 1640s. These were produced in multiple copies using the technique of printing on vellum. The Book of Esther's text is read aloud twice during the Purim celebration, in the evening and again the following morning. Besides Song of Songs, it is the only book in the Bible that does not explicitly mention God.

The Natural and Civil History of the French Dominions in North and South America by Thomas Jefferys
A 1760 first edition of an important book on geography and cartography. Two parts in one volume. Contains 18 fine engraved folding maps and plans, and bears the engraved bookplate of Amos Binney (1803-1847), founder and president of the Boston Society of Natural History. In part one, Jefferys describes Canada and Louisiana. He includes detailed plans of Quebec, Montreal and New Orleans. In part II Jefferys describes the West Indies and South America, with maps of Quadaloupe and Grenada.

De Humani Corporis Fabrica by Andreas Vesalius£16,440
The title translates as On the Fabric of the Human Body. Medical students affectionately call it 'The Fabrica' and this medical textbook is still referenced today. It was first published in 1543. This is the second edition from 1555. It contains around 200 woodcut illustrations and a portrait of Vesalius, the Belgian physician, who was 28 years old when he published it. The Fabrica has been called the book that sparked the scientific revolution. The second edition was heavily revised, with hundreds of alterations to the text, both stylistic, for clarity and comprehension, as well as for content and context. Vesalius had continued to study, and many of the changes to the 1543 edition were made to his own assertions, which he now knew to be incorrect. He made numerous mistakes. He thought the heart had a small bone at its center, that the kidneys did not function as filters, and that nerves served no real purpose.

Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft by Friedrich Nietzsche£15,875
Fröhliche Wissenschaft by Friedrich Nietzsche
A signed first edition from 1882. The title of this influential philosophy book translates as The Joyful Wisdom but it is better known as The Gay Science. Nietzche considers the notions of power and value in this book.

Sheet music. Opp. 18, 59, 74, 95, 127, 130-133, and 135 in first and early editions. This set was begun in 1798, composed primarily in 1799 and 1800, and published in 1801 with a dedication to Prince Lobkowitz, a Bohemian aristocrat and a patron of Beethoven.

A Collection of Notebooks by Max Newman£15,600
A Collection of Notebooks by Max Newman
Newman (1897-1984) was a British mathematician and a pioneer in modern computer science. During the World War II, he joined the government code and cypher school at Bletchley Park where he worked with Alan Turing. From 1945 to 1964 Newman was the Fielden professor of mathematics at Manchester University, where he established the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory, which produced the first working stored program electronic computer in 1948. The collection features 29 items, including three printed books, one manuscript notebook, and one autograph album.

A Christmas Carol and Four Other Christmas Books
An unrestored first edition of A Christmas Carol published by Chapman and Hall along with The Chimes (1845), The Cricket on the Hearth (1846), The Battle of Life (1846) and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. (1848).

Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone & Robert Bell£14,375
Commentaries on the Laws of England
The first American edition of this influential treatise on English law. Five volumes published from 1771 to 1772. This book describes and explains English law, and it was used as a basis for the early versions of American law.

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery£13,100
Anne of Avonlea
A 1909 first edition. This is the most expensive L.M. Montgomery book that has ever sold on AbeBooks. A first edition of Anne of Green Gables sold at auction in 2009 for $37,500. Published a year after the original Anne story, this book follows the Canadian heroine during the two years that she teaches at Avonlea school.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway£13,050
1940 first edition, first printing, inscribed by Hemingway on the front free endpaper, "To Julia Quesada, with all good wishes. Ernest Hemingway. June 18 1953. San Francisco de Paula, Cuba." Hemingway's Cuban house, Finca Vigía, is located in San Francisco de Paula, a suburb of Havana. This became his primary residence after World War II.

Umbra Vitae by Georg Heym£12,950
An illustrated book of Georg Heym's poetry published in 1924. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner provided the Expressionism art via 47 woodcuts. Only 500 copies were produced.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum£12,750
A 1900 first edition in fine condition. A beautiful copy bound in the publisher's light green cloth stamped in red and green. All 24 color plates are present.

Opere by Galileo Galilei£12,500
Two volumes. First edition of the collected works of Galileo, published in 1655 and 1656. The Italian died in 1642 after helping kick-start the age of modern science. His work stretched across astronomy, physics, engineering, philosophy, and mathematics.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee£12,350
A 1960 first edition of Harper Lee's classic novel, signed by Lee on a bookplate. The book and its dust jacket are both in very good condition. A copy of Mockingbird usually appears on AbeBooks' annual list of most expensive sales.

La Villanella Rapita Ou La Villageoise Enlevée by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart$15,300
The engraved sheet music to a Mozart opera published in 1789 and signed by the publisher, Jean-Georges Sieber. Bound in contemporary green half leather. The opera was first performed in Vienna in 1785.

Photographs of Mexico by Paul Strand£12,000
Photographs of Mexico
A famous photography book published in 1940, featuring 20 hand-pulled photogravure plates of Mexico and its inhabitants. Strand, a pupil of Alfred Stieglitz, made several trips to Mexico in 1933 and 1934 to capture scenes. The book was published under the imprint of Virginia Stevens, Strand's second wife. This is one of 250 signed copies.

Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum by Leonhard Euler£12,000
A 1748 first edition of Euler's important textbook on mathematical analysis - a keystone in the study of modern mathematics. Many people argue this book could be taught today, and still be relevant.

Catalog Raisonne of Pablo Picasso
31 of 34 volumes of Picasso's work - a rare collection edited by Christian Zervos.

Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder £11,100
The rare first illustrated edition of Pliny's famous scientific encyclopedia and a fine example of early 16th century Italian typography featuring 38 woodcuts, including maps of Europe and Africa as well as representations of mining, handicraft, medicine, and music. Naturalis Historia is the starting point for modern encyclopedias. A Roman who lived in the first century AD, Pliny was a naturalist and also a military commander.