Star Chart, flown and used on the Apollo 11 mission, annotated and signed by Command Module Pilot Michael Collins.. NASA, 1969

A key navigational aid in taking man to the Moon and back to Earth. The astronauts of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, used this very star chart to find their way to the Moon and back in July 1969. Collins has extensively annotated this star chart and written on it, “During the flight of Apollo Eleven, I used this chart to help me locate stars. (The numbers were entered into the Command Module Computer) Michael Collins CMP.”

$275,000

The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New: Newly Translated. London: by Robert Barker, 1613-1611

The Great “She” Bible, the “authorized version” or King James Bible, one of the greatest monuments of English literature.

$270,000

Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America . . . the third edition [bound with:] Large Additions to Common Sense. Philadelphia: R. Bell, 1776

FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING sheets of Common Sense, here with the third edition title page and prefatory leaf. “It is not too much to say that the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, was due more to Paine’s Common Sense than to any other single piece of writing” (Streeter).

$250,000

Important Darwin family photograph album, assembled by Emma Darwin.. No Place, Ca. 1860s-1870s.

$175,000

De Architectura. Venice: Giovanni Tacuino, 22 May 1511

First illustrated edition of Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture, a landmark in the history of architecture. This is the only work on architecture to survive from antiquity. It was Vitruvius (ca. 90-20 BC) who famously declared that a structure must be durable, useful, and beautiful. His terms for order, arrangement, proportion, and fitness for purpose have guided architects for centuries. Vitruvius served in the campaigns of Julius Caesar, and he was involved in the restoration of Roman aqueducts. In ancient Rome, architecture encompassed not just the design of buildings but also civil and mechanical engineering, construction, military engineering, and urban planning.

$95,000

Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General, traduit de l’Anglois.. “Londres [Paris]: Fletcher Gyles”, 1755

First edition of the book that is, “more emphatically than any other single work, the cradle of political economy”

$75,000

Aristoteles Master-piece, or, The Secrets of Generation displayed in all the parts thereof.. London: J. How, 1684

First edition of Aristotle’s Masterpiece, “the most popular book about women’s bodies, sex, pregnancy, and childbirth in Britain and America from its first appearance in 1684 up to at least the 1870s” (Treasures, Library Company of Philadelphia).

$75,000

The Pocket Book of Baby and Child Care. No Place, [ca. 1946.]

Spock’s book helped to revolutionize child-rearing in post-war America. Within one year of its first publication the book sold 750,000 copies, and it has since sold more than 50 million copies in ten editions and more than 40 languages. “When it appeared in 1946, the advice in Dr. Spock’s now classic book was a dramatic break from the prevailing ‘expert’ opinion. Rather than force a baby into a strict behavioral schedule, Spock, who had training in both pediatrics and psychiatry, encouraged parents to use their own judgment and common sense” (NYPL Books of the Century).

$35,000

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.. London: Strahan and Cadell, 1776-1788

First editions of all six volumes of the most celebrated historical work in English literature. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall covers the thirteen centuries from the age of Trajan to the fall of Constantinople with unmatched erudition, clarity, and organization. “Gibbon brought a width of vision and a critical mastery of the available sources which have not been equaled to this day; and the result was clothed in an inimitable prose” (PMM).

$28,000

La Historia di Italia. Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1561

FIRST EDITION. A “masterpiece of scientific history,” Guicciardini’s History of Italy was “undoubtedly the greatest historical work that had appeared since the beginning of the modern era. It remains the most solid monument of Italian reason in the 16th century, the final triumph of that Florentine school of philosophical historians which included Machiavelli …” (Britannica, 11th ed.).

$28,000