More Highlights From the Upcoming Library of an English Bibliophile Sale

by Stephen J. Gertz

Estimated $70,000-$90,000.

Our pre-sale coverage of Sotheby's-NY Library of an English Bibliophile Sale Part II, October 20, 2011 concludes with a look at four great books with great big estimates.

The Campbell-White copy of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises has returned to Sotheby's auction block where it last sold on June 7, 2007, lot 106, for $99.000. It's a beautiful first edition, first issue ("stopped" on p. 181, line 26, misspelled as "stoppped) in the rare and un-restored first issue dust jacket ("In Our Time" misprinted as "In Our Times). The estimate for this go-round is $70,000 - $90,000.

Estimated $60,000 - $80,000.

It's no mystery why a copy of the first separate edition (originally appearing in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887) of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1888), which introduced Sherlock Holmes, is estimated to sell for $60,000 - $80,000. Though a second impression (with "younger" misspelled as "youger" in paragraph two, line three of the Preface), it's in the original flimsy wrappers and possesses the called-for ads at rear. Scarce thus, it is usually seen rebound or the wrappers an unmitigated wreck. The last time this copy came to auction was in 1981, when it sold for $15,000.

Estimated $50,000 - $70,000.

The last time the Jordan copy, fine in fine dust jacket, of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury was seen at auction was at Sotheby's-NY, June 18, 2004 as lot 295, where it sold for $55,000. It is now estimated to sell for $50,000 - $70,000.

Estimated $15,000 - $25,000.

If you're Stephen Crane and you self-publish your novel, Maggie A Girl of the Streets (A Story of New York), in 1893 under a pseudonym in a first edition of 1,100 and sell only two - two! - copies through Brentano's, it will give you great posthumous nakhes to learn that it is estimated to sell for $15,000 - $25,000, not that it will do your bank account any good. Rejected by all publishers he submitted it to and poison to retailers because of its frank subject matter, this, the fine, unopened Estelle Doheny copy, is one of only approximately thirty-five known to have  survived. It last sold at Christie's-NY, October 17, 1988, as lot 1220, for $9,500.

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Images courtesy of Sotheby's, with our thanks.

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Hemingway Letter Recounts Near-Fatal Plane Crash

by Stephen J. Gertz

A signed autograph letter written by Earnest Hemingway in the aftermath of two separate 1954 plane crashes in Uganda, in which he and wife, Mary, were injured while on safari, has come to auction.

The letter is addressed to Kit Figgis, who, with her husband, Larry, assisted the Hemingways in the aftermath of the accidents and contributed to an article about their safari that was published in Look magazine, as Hemingway notes. British citizens who lived in Africa during the 1950s, Larry and Kit Figgis were  parents to noted film director, Mike Figgis, who, though born in England, grew up in Africa.

Here, Hemingway provides a  proud laundry list of his injuries while in recovery. The letter, dated March 17, 1954,  reads in part:

"Dear Kit: 

I must have been pretty punchy when I wrote you the enclosed. Sent it as a curiosity you can always sell it for the children. I'll get you the name of a dealer. What I sorted out to, according to…doctor, very practical type, was: major concussion, rupture one kidney, damage liver, collapse of intestines, Paralysis sphincter, 3/4 lost sight in one eye (left) (never any good anyway), Burns head, Brush fire = burns on lips (light), left hand severe, right forearm ditto, abdomen (light), legs (Light). Am beating all raps OK. But you can't beat lives many…Had cable from Bill Lowe that everything sold and 1st installment in Look April 20th on the newsstands…Kit this trip has been a little rugged. All the effects were delayed. Good thing we did the piece when we did although we could have done it the worst days ever saw…If I haven't paid Major…(there are about 2 blank weeks) give him my permanent address 90 Guaranty Trust Co of N.Y. 4 Place de la Concorde, Paris, France and tell him to bill me there…Please kiss my godson…Love Papa."

Of note is that Hemingway is aware that his letters are collectible - within his lifetime; most unusual - and that he knows a dealer who sells them.

Bidding closes today, January 27, 2011 at 5PM at Nate Sanders Auctions, details here.

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Image courtesy of Nate D. Sanders Auctions, with our  thanks.
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In Paris With Scott, Zelda, Kiki, Ernest, Gertrude, Etc., and Georges Barbier

by Stephen J. Gertz

"All gods dead, all wars fought, all faith in man shaken," I  said to Zelda. The novel was killing me. I didn't know where to begin, what it was about, nothing, and needed  madness to fan my flaming youth and fuel the typewriter. So we went to the Artists and Models Ball. It was the Jazz Age. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

Kiki looked ravishing in a gown that Man Ray spent the entire evening underneath, ravishing Kiki from within what he called “my darkroom of delights,” where, he boasted, interesting things always developed. When the lights were low, you could see its red light faintly aglow; she was a walking brothel. Zelda and I were pleased that Kiki resisted his entreaties to wear the violin ensemble; he would have fiddled with her f-holes all night. Man is a shameless satyr. Would it kill him to engage the f-stop every now and then?

"How's the book going," he asked from within.

"Not so great."

I ran into Gertrude Stein. Her gown was a huge thing; you could have hidden a rhinoceros in it. But considering that a rhinoceros was already occupying the premises, it was a moot point. Yet it did have the slenderizing effect she was after; Gertrude was a svelte calf and cut quite a figure.

Gertrude was Gertrude was Gertrude, though she’d deck me if she knew I referred to her in the past tense; she’s got a right like Dempsey. She’s very much into the present, tense if she doesn’t like it and can’t return it for cash or credit. Alice was at home baking who knows what, and Stein was all by herself, doing a whole lot of nothing. “Gert, what gives?” I asked.

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius,” she said, “you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”

“But, Gertrude,” I replied, “if you’re doing nothing by definition you’re doing something. Doing is action.”

“Don’t start up with me, Scotty. I’ll pop you this side of paradise to the other side of hell.”

She apologized immediately for the threat, asked how the book was going ("Lousy"), and offered me an Alice brownie.

"No, thanks," I said, "I prefer my snacks 90-proof."

Thus inspired, I stopped at the bar, had a few snacks, and then casually went looking for Ernest. Couldn't find him.

Saw Natalie Barney. She was in page boy drag, coming on to every woman in the room.

"I am a page of love, sent by Sappho," she said to each one. I've heard worse opening lines. She's been using this routine since 1899 when she threw herself at Liane de Pougy. It's getting old.

When Natalie pitched the line to Zelda, she replied "And I'm the King of Sparta, sent by Alcibiades."

Natalie was taken aback by Zelda's impertinence, which she found so charming that she was taken on her back, right there, by Renée Vivian, whose poetry Natalie knew by heart: the curve of her buttocks, the contour of her hips, the crease of her furrow. Natalie was always forthcoming about her sexuality but preferred coming first; so competitive.

Afterward, Renée said, "I do not belong here. Who will bring me hemlock with their own hands."  The life of the party.

Zelda and I excused ourselves and went looking for Ernest in earnest. I searched all over but for the life of me could not find him. The problem was that Ernest was not Ernest. Or. rather, that Ernest was earnestly trying to find the real Ernest.

Apparently, he did. We finally caught up with him, as he, I guess, caught up with himself, and I never saw him so radiant. He really looked divine, the diaphanous top  of his extraordinary gown highlighting his pecs. It did prove difficult, however, when he left to spar a few rounds on the balcony with an extremely reluctant Ezra Pound, whose stock demurral, “Canto, boy-o,” Ernest repeatedly ignored. His frock got the worst of it; organza wrinkles easily and chiffon is so delicate. It was sheer travesty. Particularly as Ernest had the weight advantage over Pound.

"I'm not going to get in the ring with Tolstoy," Ernest said.

Sure, Tolstoy was dead. Yet he still had an excellent chance against Ernest, who always overestimated his prowess as a boxer.

I asked him, What's with the hat?

Turns out, he'd been assiduously avoiding Gertrude, with whom he'd had a major falling out, and figured the hat would mask his identity, the gown, apparently, too subtle a charade. I'm probably the only one who knows the truth: He insisted that they spar and she kicked his ass; he couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag. Having a woman clean his clock was too much to bear, his clockworks got all bent out of shape, and he never gave her the time of day again.

"Any progress with the book?" he asked, already aware. I didn't bother answering; the schadenfreude was palpable.

"First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes  you," I thought to myself while Zelda was in the ladies room having a transient breakdown. The drink took me over to the bar; it was lonely and wanted companionship. I obliged.

 

Gerald and Sara Murphy paraded by. Sara, a statuesque beauty, led the way, with Gerry as her worshipful  attendant. He was protecting her from the glare of dim light with a parasol from which hung, at first glance, sausages but on closer inspection were actually penises. G & S are the soul of decadent modernity, Paris' favorite fun couple. They have a flexible marriage; he bends to her will, she stretches his tolerance.

"Interesting umbrella," I said to Sara.

"And when there's a gentle breeze," she replied, "it's a heavenly wind chime."

O-kay... I mentally scratched her off my to-do list.

A moment later, a woman began a flamenco baile, danced right up to me, stopped, gave me the  once-over, said, "The night is a skin pulled over the head of day that the day may be in torment," handed me a flower, and danced away. "Lighten up, Djuna," I called after her but she was already halfway across the ballroom. My troubled manuscript came to mind. I felt the night pull over my head. Time for another snack, a double double.

"How's the book coming along," someone behind me asked. I turned, and, my God,  it was James Joyce, indescribable in an outfit more out there than his prose. "It is you, Scott, isn't it? Without my fookin' glasses I can't see a fookin' thing."

"Jimmy, all good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath," I said. "And I'm drowning."

"A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk," he said, obliquely, but I  understood, acutely. What's a blocked novel? Corpse of writer.

"I'm ready to put a gun to my head," I lamented.

He leaned in, squinted at me, hard, and said, "I can help.  I've got a gat. It's a hell of a gat, one big giant gat, it's a rich gat, a fat gat, an enigma gat, a gat in a hat and spats, a gat to end all gats.  This gat's be great."

Suddenly, a green light beckoned from across the bay. Two giant blue eyes, faceless, behind a pair of yellowed glasses, winked at me from above a valley of ashes while in the west an egg set as the moon. The drinks had finally kicked in. I felt serene.

Yes,  I  can  write  this  novel, I  thought. I   retrieved  Zelda   from  the   ladies  room,  we  said  our goodbyes, and staggered out into the night. It was tender.

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Apologies to Georges Barbier and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
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All images from Georges Barbier's Vingt-Cinq Costumes pour Le Theatre, Paris: Chez Camille Bloch & Jules Meynial, 1927, and are courtesy of Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller.
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If you enjoyed this bagatelle you may also be entertained by A Decadent Night in Paris With Georges Barbier.

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Catalonia Bans Bullfights, Doré Says "Bull"

Hemingway is turning in his grave. 

"Pussies!"

Ferdinand the Bull is relieved. 

"I can't thank you enough."

Charo is ecstatic.

"Coochie-Coochie!"

 The Spanish province of Catalonia (which includes the capital, Barcelona) has joined that other Spanish province, the Canary Islands, which outlawed it in 1991, to ban bullfights, effective 2012.

Bullfighting has ancient roots. It was a popular spectacle in ancient Rome but it was in Iberia (ancient Spain and Portugal) that the blood sport flourished and developed. After their conquest of the peninsula, the Moors changed bullfighting significantly from the brutish gorefest practiced by the conquered Visigoths to a ritual observed in connection with feast days; the conquering Moors, mounted on highly trained horses, confronted and killed the bulls.

As bullfighting evolved, the men on foot, the toreros, who assisted the horsemen, began to become stars in their own right and the modern bullfight began to take form. In 1726, Francisco Romero of Ronda, Spain, introduced the estoque (the sword) and the muleta (the small, more easily wielded worsted cape used in the final act of the fight). Romero de Ronda founded a  bullfighting dynasty and the modern era of bullfighting began.

Number I: Caida de Picador - Chute d'un Picador

And Gustave Doré chronicled it, c. 1860, with a series of six dramatic lithographs that should impress even the most vociferous critics of the blood sport. In Corrida de Toros, Doré captured the strength and movement of the bull, the tension, the danger in the ring - it almost seems as if the bull has a chance, not just at survival but of actually conquering the men on foot and horseback who are supremely annoying it to rage. The ignominy of the sport is made noble, primarily because Doré appears to sympathize with the bull and the tragedy of bullfighting rather than the glory of the fighters.

Number II: Suerta de Banderillero - Banderillero piquant da Banderilla.

Number III: Suerta de Capa - Banderillero excitant le taureau.

Number IV: Cogida de un Torero - Torero enlevé par le taureau.

 

Number V: Suerta de Pica - Coup de Lance.

Number VI: Estocada - Coup d'epée.

It is all, ultimately, sheer folly.

If I had guys poking lances into my landscape while teasing me, I'd lash out, too. The guy with the sword? Dinner. I have nothing against the torero but I always root for the underdog in this non-contest where the denouement is almost always a  foregone conclusion.

The End.

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DORÉ, Gustave. Corrida de Toros. Paris & New York: Turfis & Duane, n.d.[ c. 1860].
Six original color lithographs, heightened with gum arabic. Sheet size 380 x 550 mm.

Vindel (Estampas de toros; 1931) n°26; pl. 167 à 172. El siglo de oro de la Tauromaquia (1989) p. 168. n° 176.

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Images of this extremely rare suite courtesy of  Sims Reed Rare Books.

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