Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist. Evanston: Library of Living Philosophers, 1949

FIRST EDITION. One of 760 numbered copies signed and dated by Einstein.

$18,500

How to Form a Mark Twain Club. [Mayfield, California or Webster Groves, Missouri: Mark Twain Society], no year

First and only edition. This document provides guidance for forming local Mark Twain clubs from the Mark Twain Society, founded by Cyril Clemens in 1930.

Scarce: WorldCat locates only the copy at University of Virginia.

$200

Photo Album Operation Greenhouse. Hollywood, California: United States Air Force Lookout Mt. Laboratory, [1951]

This rare album documents Operation Greenhouse, the first series of tests in the nascent American thermonuclear weapons program. The four tests were performed in April and May 1951 at the Enewetak Atoll of the Marshall Islands. Following the Soviet Union’s successful test of an atomic bomb in August 1949, the United States made the controversial decision to proceed with the development of thermonuclear weapons. These fusion weapons (the “Super” or hydrogen bomb) would be orders of magnitude more destructive than the fission weapons used against Japan.

$17,500

Original drawing, “3rd Stage Satellite Vehicle (landed),” signed and dated 1952.. Huntsville, Alabama, 1952

This is an original signed drawing of a space ship by Wernher von Braun. The father of the American space program, Von Braun made this drawing for the epochal series “Man will Conquer Space Soon.” This publication played a central role in inspiring a generation of American rocket scientists and convincing the American public of the possibility of space exploration.

$35,000

Molecular structure of nucleic acids.  A structure of deoxyribose nucleic acid.. Nature, 1953

The discovery of the structure of DNA, the cornerstone event in modern genetics and biology and one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time.

$60,000

A complete set of the 1955 Library of Congress Whitman Centennial Recordings. Library of Congress, 1955

This is a complete set of these recordings of talks by leading scholars at the Library of Congress during the 1955 Leaves of Grass centennial celebration.

$450

Typed Letter Signed as President to Lewis L. Strauss, Chairman, United States Atomic Energy Commission. The White House, Washington, DC, 7 June 1955

This is the document by which Eisenhower and the United States allowed Israel to become a nuclear power. Through Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace initiative, the United States shared atomic energy material and technology with several countries. One of the first of these agreements was the one sharing the secrets of atomic energy with Israel, as authorized by Eisenhower in this letter. This document laid the foundation for Israel’s ultimate deterrence against destruction by its enemies. It was perhaps the greatest gift possible to the new Jewish state from its greatest ally, the American people.

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The Supreme Court. Washington, D.C.: Ed Clark, 1956

Completed in 1935, the magnificent neoclassical Supreme Court Building features the motto “Equal Justice Under the Law” on the west facade. This splendid, enormous color photograph was taken by famed LIFE magazine photographer Ed Clark: “Black Church Leaders pray on the Supreme Court steps for integration to succeed” (Herrera, Frank, Ed Clark: Decades).

$2,200

Interstellar and Interplanetary Communication by Optical Masers. Washington, February 27, 1961

PRE-PUBLICATION RARITY. “The classic paper published in Nature that started it all” (coseti.org), this is the founding work of optical SETI. This pre-publication form is dated more than a month before the article’s publication in Nature. For years SETI research focused on radio transmissions, but the development of powerful lasers has made Optical SETI (OSETI) a highly promising area of research. Townes’s prescient proposal is even the more remarkable given the very limited power of masers and lasers at the time this paper appeared.

$8,500

Carving a Statue. A play in two acts. London: Dr. Jan Van Loewen Ltd, printed by Franell Enterprises, [c. 1964]

This is a rare original script for Graham Greene’s play Carving a Statue which opened on September 17, 1964 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The production, directed by Peter Wood and starring Ralph Richardson, closed after a month. Greene blamed Richardson’s “humourless” interpretation of the main character for the play’s failure.

$2,200