Sotheby's (New York)

(31 cm), [452] pp., illustrations (most in colour). Lots numbered 1-308. List of prices realised loosely inserted. Publisher’s printed cloth. - A collection assembled over about twenty years by two “enigmatic” residents of Cambridge, MA, and stored in a local bank vault; a total of $16.3 million was realised. Preface “On the mystery of the book” by Haven O’More. Many books realised high prices, in some cases ten times what had been paid for them. The 1502 Aldine Cicero on vellum ($200,000), the Luther New Testament ($320,000), the 1605-1615 double first of Don Quixote ($1.5m), and “Copy D” of Blake’s Songs of Innocence (1.2m) were all remarkable. Nicholas A. Basbanes has contended that “Haven O’More” is one Haven Moore, born in 1924 in Beaufort County, North Carolina (A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, New York 1995, pp.260-261). ¶ Unmarked copy.