American Mahogany Butler’s Desk from the Holmes family home at 296 Beacon Street, Boston. American, ca. 1830

Justice Holmes’s butler’s desk from the family home on Beacon Street.

$22,000

Genes, Girls and Gamow. Oxford: University Press, 2001

First edition. A tremendous presentation copy inscribed by James Watson to Francis Crick: “For Francis from Jim.”

$20,000

On the Origin of Species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.. London: John Murray, 1860

SECOND EDITION. On the Origin of Species is “certainly the greatest biological book ever written” (Freeman) and “the most important single work in science” (Dibner).

$19,000

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

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

$18,500

De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae [Calculation in Hazard Games] in SCHOOTEN, Frans van. Exercitationum Mathematicarum libri quinque. … [Mathematical Exercises in five books].. Leiden: Elzevir, 1657

FIRST EDITION. This volume contains the first printing of Huygens’s famous treatise on games of chance, De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae (pp. 521-534), “the first published work on probability theory. It won immediate recognition and became the standard text on probability theory for the next 50 years” (Hald, A History of Probability).

$18,000

Torat ha-Elohim. The Law of God [Five Books of Moses]. Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 5605-6 (1845-46)

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of the Pentateuch translated by a Jew and the first American translation of the Torah. Isaac Leeser was the single most influential Jewish figure in 19th-century America. His many accomplishments include establishing the vernacular sermon as a permanent feature in the American synagogue, publishing the first successful American Jewish newspaper, and founding the first American rabbinical school.

$17,000

The Jewish Manual; Or, practical information in Jewish and modern cookery, with a collection of valuable recipes and hints relating to the toilette. Edited by a Lady. London: Boone, 1846

FIRST EDITION. The first Jewish cookery book in English, this book is a landmark in Jewish social history.

$15,000

The World as I See It. New York: Philosophical Library, (c.1949)

Signed and dated 1950 by Albert Einstein on the front free endpaper.

$13,500

Strategikos in: Scriptores rei militaris [also with military works by Vegetius, Frontinus, and Aelian]. Rome: Eucharius Silber, 1494

First edition of Onosander’s Strategikos , also known as The General. This is “the earliest military treatise wherein so much stress is laid upon the commander’s duties, the morale of the troops, and the ethical side of warfare. It enjoyed much popularity in the Renaissance” (Sarton).

$12,500

Catalogue of the celebrated collection of works of art and vertu known as “The Vienna Museum,” the property of Messrs. Lowenstein Brothers, of Frankfort-on-the-Main. London: Christie, Manson & Woods, 1860

This important volume is “the earliest photographically illustrated auction catalogue” (Gernsheim, Incunabula, 122). It contains 36 photographs on salted paper by Hermann Emden of Frankfurt.

$12,000