Le Deuxieme Sexe [The Second Sex]. Paris: Gallimard, 1949

FIRST EDITION. One of 2000 numbered copies (from an edition of 2,150).

$3,500

[Plan of London.] Urbium Londini et Westmonasterii nec non Suburbii Southwark. Nuremberg: Homann Heirs, 1736

This famous three-sheet plan of London, Westminster, and Southwark gives names of streets, drainage, parish boundaries, buildings, parks and other places. The right sheet has inset views of St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. James Square, Custom House and the Royal Exchange on right sheet.

$3,200

Autograph letter signed to “My dear Friend.”. Danvers, March 28, 1882

Whittier poignantly writes, “Thy word of sympathy in view of the death of dear Longfellow was very welcome. It is a mighty loss to us all. It leaves me with a feeling of loneliness, as if I had outlived the world. …. All English-speaking people have a common interest in the great world-singer. I am very truly thy friend John G. Whittier.”

on hold

Specimens of American Poetry, with Critical and Biographical Notices. Boston: S.G. Goodrich, 1829

First edition. This important work, which contains the first mention of Poe’s work in a book, is the earliest bibliography of American poetry. This set includes the work of nearly 200 poets up to 1829, with Kettell supplying biographical sketches for each writer, ranging from Cotton Mather to Francis Scott Key, Washington Irving, and Sarah J. Hale. The Catalogue of American Poetry at the end lists “Tamerlane, and other poems, by a Bostonian, Boston, 1827”—the first mention of any work by Poe in a printed book. According to Roger Stoddard, this catalogue is the beginning of the bibliography of early American poetry.

$3,000

A Tramp Abroad. Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1880

$3,000

Rendezvous of Gemini 6 and 7, signed by Thomas Stafford and Wally Schirra. NASA, 1965

This spectacular mammoth photograph shows the first manned space rendezvous, as GEMINI 6 goes nose to nose with GEMINI 7, the Earth in the lower right. Signed and inscribed by Mission Pilot Thomas Stafford (“First rendezvous / Gemini 6+7 / Dec 1965 / Tom Stafford, Plt.”) and signed by Command Pilot Wally Schirra (“Wally Schirra Cdr.”).

$2,800

An Explanation of the Map of the City and Liberties of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Printed for the Author and sold by Nicholas Brooks, 1774

FIRST EDITION. This pamphlet was published in conjunction with “Reed’s Plan of First Purchasers,” a large and now rare landownership map, documenting the “First Purchasers” of Pennsylvania. The text includes copies of the original abstracts of communications from William Penn to the “first adventurers and purchasers in Pennsylvania,” abstracts of the charter of the city, reasons why the plan of the city was altered by Benjamin Eastburn, an alphabetical list of the first purchasers, and the courses, distances and dates of surveys of all the lots in the city of Philadelphia. Reed prepared this valuable document to bolster his family’s claims to land in the Philadelphia area.

$2,800

A collection of 3 Wall Street cartoons in The Daily Graphic. New York: The Daily Graphic, 19 July 1880, 1 March 1882, 27 June 1882

These splendid front-page illustrations show the great bogeymen of Gilded Age Wall Street during the era of the robber barons.

$2,800

Michael Faraday. Ipswich, [1851]

This is a rare early state or proof copy of this lovely portrait of Michael Faraday, the greatest figure in the history of elecromagnetism.

$2,800

Esquisse d’un Tableau Historique des Progres de L’Esprit Humain. Paris: Agasse, 1795

A distinguished mathematician and friend of Voltaire, d Alembert, and Turgot, Condorcet played a major role in promoting the Revolution s democratic principles. In the Esquisse (An Historical Outline of the Progress of the Human Mind), he traces the history of man through ten epochs.

$2,800