Autograph letter signed to Miss Thurston. No place, [c. 1868 or possibly later]

Louisa May Alcott discusses the impact of Little Women and its place in children’s literature. She observes that “My ‘Little Women’ have much astonished their Momma by making many friends for themselves, & she can only account for it by the grain of truth that lay at the bottom of the little story.”

$38,000

Autograph letter signed as President to Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas [with] American flag bunting from Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theatre. Washington, Executive Mansion, May 27, 1861

Abraham Lincoln, writing at the outset of the Civil War, recommends that the Army admit three volunteers from the highly divided city of Baltimore. He advises Adjutant General Lorenzo Thomas, “I hate to reject any offered from what is called a Southern State.” [offered with] Bunting from the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre.

two items: $275,000

Leaves of Grass [with] Whitman’s own copy of his 1860 portrait. Brooklyn, New York, 1855

First edition, first issue, one of only 337 copies of the first issue, distinguished by its elaborately gilt-stamped cloth binding prepared in June/July 1855. Whitman reported that only 800 copies were printed; this copy is from the first group to be bound. The copies bound later did not have the extensive gilt stamping. Whitman paid for the book, supervised its production, and even set a number of pages in type.

two items: $160,000

Profile bust portrait of Charles Darwin, signed by Cameron. London: Colnaghi, 1868

The great Darwin portrait, Julia Margaret Cameron’s 1868 profile of Darwin is probably the most famous photograph of a 19th-century scientist. Darwin remarked, “I like this photograph very much better than any other which has been taken of me.”

$52,000

The French Revolution, a History. Boston: Little & Brown, 1838

First American edition. A splendid presentation copy inscribed by Ralph Waldo Emerson to his brother: “Wm. Emerson from his brother Waldo.” The inscription is in pencil in the second volume. Emerson used this intimate signature only with his immediate family. Page 270 of the first volume bears a pencil correction apparently in Emerson’s hand.

$30,000

Autograph note signed to Robert Watt with original albumen print photograph. No place, July 16, 1874

Mark Twain the humorist. Samuel Clemens sent this delightful humorous note with the accompanying half- length standing portrait of the debonair author.

$18,000

Autograph manuscript on Ralph Waldo Emerson. No place, [ca. 1870s]

In this fine manuscript Whitman writes, “It is very plain after reading Emerson’s forenoon essays, and then those of his elder age that the latter are not the consecutive fruits or crowning results of the former.”

$28,000

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

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