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

The Works. With Notes Critical and Explanatory and a Biographical Memoir by W. Gifford Esq. With Introduction and Appendices by Lieut.-Col. F. Cunningham. London: Bickers, 1875

Gifford’s edition of Jonson’s works played an important role in the Jonson revival.

$900

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

Chinese Sketches. London: Trubner, 1876

FIRST EDITION. Sinologist Herbert A. Giles began his distinguished career was a British diplomat in China. There he wrote these literary and historical sketches to show that, contrary to prevailing Western views, “the Chinese are a hardworking, sober, and happy people, occupying an intermediate place between the wealth and culture, the vice and misery of the West.” Giles later became professor of Chinese at Cambridge for thirty-five years.

$1,200

Leaves of Grass. Camden, NJ: [for Walt Whitman], 1876

The 1876 Author’s edition, sometimes called the Centennial edition, features two portraits of the poet, young and old, and the author’s signature on the title of some copies. The increasingly cash-strapped Whitman published these himself, binding and printing them in different forms to meet demand.

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Autograph letter signed to [Fanny Kellogg]. Down, Beckenham, Kent, April 13, 1879

Darwin discusses the hereditary transmission of behavior and a vivid example of the phenomenon from the opening chapter of The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

$18,000

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

Original drawing of Walt Whitman. no date, no place, 19th century

This original pen and ink drawing of Walt Whitman is mounted at the front of an 1888 edition of Leaves of Grass. The likeness of a jaunty, casual, Whitman wearing his trademark slouch hat takes its cue from the famous 1855 Hollyer engraving, but here we see an older Whitman with a full beard.

$4,800

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

Poems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882

Presentation copy inscribed by the author and artist Celia Thaxter: “Mary Mapes Dodge with much love. Illustrated by Celia Thaxter 1882.”

$22,000