THE FINEST POSSIBLE COLLECTION IN PRIVATE HANDS"ANDERSEN, H.C.1822-1875. The finest Hans Christian Andersen collection anywhere in the world, containing all the fairy tale collections, all the novels, all the travel descriptions, and a few of the plays - all carefully chosen and in unique copies. It is the largest collection of Andersen-presentation-copies on private hands and only The Royal Library of Denmark and the Andersen-museum in Odense have larger collections of presentation-copies. The collection also contains some of the best letters imaginable from Andersen, e.g. from each of his two trips to England, including the long one from his stay with the Dickens-family. All items are very carefully chosen, aiming at quality, not quantity. This outstanding collection contains so many unique copies that one would never come across otherwise, e.g. one of three known copies of his first work (the only copy known on private hands), the earliest dated inscription from Andersen (1830), the first fairy tale collection in various unique copies, the first illustrated edition of his fairy tales with all five original front wrappers, all inscribed by Andersen, a unique set of New Fairy Tales with all five pamphlets, all in first issues and with the original printed wrappers, etc., etc.USD 1,200,000

FOUNDING THE MODERN ART OF ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONThe extremely rare first edition, presentation-copy, of this highly important work, which shows for the first time Ole Roemer's astronomical instruments by which he was the first to discover and measure "The Speed of Light". Nearly all of Roemer's papers and observations were destroyed in the great fire of Copenhagen in 1728, and as Roemer never published anything himself, the present publication constitutes all that we have documenting his instruments, his methods, and his discoveries, making this publication one of the most important astronomical works of modern times. "Not the splendid and magnificent Observatory in Paris, but the little hut Tusculanum (Roemer's small private observatory), became the place, from which the modern art of astronomical observation began."USD 30,300

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK1495. Editio princeps of Aristotle's logical works (as well as the editio princeps of Porphyrios' "Isagoge"), arguably the most important publication in the entire history of printing. When Aldus Manuzio, the first and most celebrated scholar-printer of the Renaissance, began publishing - for the first time in history - the works of Aristotle in the original Greek, he inaugurated a new era in the history of mankind, making the present volume one of the most important moments in the history of the book. The importance of his seminal Aristotle-edition can hardly be over-estimated. Constituting the first major Greek prose text (or collection of texts) to be printed in its original language, it epitomizes the role of printing in re-introducing the original classical Greek texts to the Western world after centuries of unavailability.USD 79,400