We've already commented on the sale of Ernest Hemingway's plainly presented first edition copy of Three Stories and Ten Poems which went under the hammer in a Californian rare books auction.
But there were a number of other great classics in the auction, of interest to collectors of great writers, art and Americana alike.
Willa Cather is certainly a name more familiar to Americans than further abroad. The Pulitzer prize-winning author is best known for her novels presenting frontier life such as O Pioneers! and The Song of the Lark.
One of 50 specially-bound copies printed on Japan vellum and bearing Cather's autograph sold for $16,250, establishing a world record for the title.
 Willa Cather's Death comes for the Archbishop |
"This is a beautiful copy of one of the rarest finds in the Cather canon," noted auctioneer James Gannon.
Perhaps more universally known - and remembered on Halloween by everyone - is Edgar Allan Poe, whose eerie tales have sent many millions of shivers down as many spines. Poe is a particular favourite of some book collectors, notably actor Johnny Depp.
In this case, one of 750 Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (Poe's first prose collection) sold for $21,250.
 The front page of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque |
Whilst Tenniel's illustrations of Alice in Wonderland are celebrated only a few will know that 2,500 copies of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland had a more famous illustrator: Salvador Dali. One of these sold for $7,500.
Collectors on the look out for an original sketch by Dali will be intrigued to know that we have a very rare example in our stock right now.
