Grand Concert in Aid of the Russian Jewish Refugees, Monday Eve’g, March 27, ’82, by the Handel and Haydn Society, in conjunction with Salem Oratorio Society, Lynn Choral Union, Taunton Beethoven Society, A Grand Orchestra…. Boston: Printed By Jewish Watchman Print[ers], 1882

This is the rare original announcement and program for a major early benefit concert supporting Jewish refugees from Russia. The concert was held at Mechanics Hall in Boston in 1882. The featured conductors are Carl Zerrahn and George Henschel. Henschel had become the first conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra a year earlier. Here he leverages his position to support Jewish refugees.

$1,900

Liberty’s Torch in Madison Square Park. no publisher, negative ca. 1876, made from a print, late 19th century.

The torch of the Statue of Liberty was exhibited in Madison Square Park, New York to raise funds for the statue’s completion.  The torch remained in the park from 1876 through 1882.

$1,800

Notes and Fragments: left by Walt Whitman and now edited by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke, one of his literary executors. Printed for Private Distribution Only, 1899

FIRST EDITION. One of 225 numbered copies signed by Bucke. This work prints an extensive collection of manuscript fragments discovered among Whitman’s papers on his death.

$1,800

Collection of papers of John M. Bailey, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, concerning the convention. Various places, 1968

The 1968 Democratic National Convention of 1968, held in Chicago, was a landmark event in American political history. John M. Bailey of Connecticut, who had helped to orchestrate Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964, oversaw the contentious presidential campaign of 1968, in which Robert Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, and others sought the Democratic nomination. This is a collection of papers to and by longtime Democratic National Committee Chairman John M. Bailey.

$1,800

Idolatry & Confusion. London Gallery Editions, [1944]

Inscribed to René Magritte: “A René Magritte, ces textes mal informés en 1944, écrit en hâte, mais prophétiques. E. L. T. Mesens.” This scarce English Surrealist tract attacks the so-called resistance poetry of Paul Eluard and Aragon as “conformist.”

$1,700

Collection of six original views of “Strand Theatre at Work” signed by the artist. London, 1984

These delightful views depict scenes at the Strand Theatre (now the Novello Theatre) in London’s West End. They range from views of the boxes and theater-goers to the box office to backstage scenes. The box office advertises the original production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, which ran at the Strand from 1982 to 1985.

$1,700

Why War?. Paris: International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, League of Nations, 1933

First edition in English, one of 2000 numbered copies. Translated from the German by Stuart Gilbert.

$1,600

The Indo-Iranian borderlands: their prehistory in the light of geography and of recent explorations. The Huxley Memorial Lecture for 1934. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1934

First separate edition. This is Stein’s lecture delivered on the occasion of being awarded the Society’s Huxley Medal.

$1,500

The Fight Against War. New York: John Day, (c.1933)

FIRST EDITION.

This scarce collection of Einstein’s writings on war and peace was published in 1933, the year the Nazis took power in Germany and the year Einstein left Germany for the United States. In his prefatory note, Einstein writes, “Mr. Lief [the editor, Alfred Lief] has taken great trouble in collecting utterances of mine having pacifistic content and he presents them with my authorization. … I consider it my duty to confess my pacific conviction publicly. May the seriousness of my purpose be transferred to you, my readers! A. Einstein.”

$1,500

The Penn Club requests the honour of your company at a reception to be given to Mr. Walt Whitman …. Philadelphia, March 27, [1880]

This is a rare invitation to an event held in Whitman’s honor at the prestigious private Penn Club in Philadelphia. Whitman, who wore a shabby coat festooned with dozens of pins, did not disappoint the curious.

$1,500