Auction Preview: October

- On 6 October, PBA Galleries will sell Fine Literature & Books in All Fields, in 406 lots. The expected high spot is a (somewhat restored) first edition Leaves of Grass with an (unconnected) postcard written by Whitman (est. $60,000-90,000). A Jessie Bayes illuminated manuscript of two Shelley poems is estimated at $25,000-35,000, while a first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz could fetch $20,000-30,000.

- Also on 6 October, Bloomsbury holds a Bibliophile Sale, in 413 lots.

- At Bonhams on 10 October, Fine Books and Manuscripts, in 271 lots. A 1776 John Adams letter to William Cooper about the construction of Navy vessels rates a $50,000-80,000 estimate, while a first edition of McKenney and Hall is estimated at $40,000-60,000. A copy of the leaf book A Noble Fragment with the original Gutenberg Bible leaf is estimated at $30,000-50,000. Rating the same estimate is a suite of Robert Furber's 1730 Twelve Months of Flowers. A Nuremberg Chronicle could sell for $20,000-30,000. A second edition of William Wood's New Englands Prospect (1635) rates the same estimate.

- Swann has a sale of Early Printed, Medical and Scientific Books on 17 October, in 304 lots.

- Bonhams will sell The Robert H. and Donna L. Jackson Collection Part I: 19th Century Literature on 18 October, in 251 lots. Expected top sellers include an autograph manuscript leaf of The Pickwick Papers ($70,000-100,000); a rare complete copy of Trollope's Ralph the Heir in parts ($50,000-80,000); a first edition Middlemarch in parts ($50,000-70,000); complete sets of Pickwick Papers and David Copperfield in parts ($30,000-50,000); a copy of Audubon's Quadrupeds in the original parts ($45,000-55,000); and George Eliot's brother's copy of her Scenes of Clerical Life ($20,000-30,000).

- Sotheby's has just one book sale this month, but it's a whopper. The Library of an English Bibliophile, Part II (my report on Part I is here) comprises 155 lots, eight of which are estimated at more than $100,000. The Shakespeare First Folio, not surprisingly, rates the top estimate, at $600,000-700,000 (a Third Folio could fetch $350,000-400,000). A particularly lovely first edition of Joyce's Ulysses with presentation inscriptions by publisher Sylvia Beach could sell for $450,000-500,000, while a first printing of Poe's Tales (1845) rates a $200,000-250,000 estimate (The Raven and Other Poems, published the same year, is estimated at $140,000-180,000). Joyce's Dubliners could sell for $150,000-200,000. A first printing of The Great Gatsby in a second-state dust jacket is estimated at $150,000-180,000, and a first issue Leaves of Grass could reach $140,000-160,000. That's just a teaser of all the goodies in this sale, which one hopes will realize some really impressive figures (it certainly has the potential to).

- Also on 20 October, Bloomsbury sells Books from the Library of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, in 171 lots. The expected high spot is Johannes Kip's Nouveau Theatre de Grand Bretagne (1713-1728), in three volumes (est. £30,000-40,000).

- PBA Galleries will sell Nevada, California & Americana: The Library of Clint Maish, with additions, on 20 October. No preview yet available.