Present Perfect from Shapero Rare Books

Shapero Rare Books has created a new catalogue titled Present Perfect. That may sound like a tense from verb conjugation, but I suspect it has more to do with gift giving for the recent holiday season. These books would make perfect presents for the discerning collector, which includes yourself. Here are a few.

We begin with a photobook, one that has been described as the most influential work of its genre. It's one of the best known too, and appealing to both French and American collectors. You know it will be of interest in both France and America when the title has the word “Americans” in French. The book is Les Americains. Photographies de Robert Frank, published in 1958. Frank was a young photographer when he convinced the Guggenheim Foundation to provide him with a grant to travel around America taking pictures. He was soon on the road, the great American highway. Frank was a prolific photographer, taking 28,000 pictures, using lighting and angles in ways not used by most photographers to generate dramatic images. They illustrate what Frank learned about America, a combination of optimism for the future with the stark reality of the present, particularly in the South. From those photos he selected the very best to create his book. Frank took it to several American publishers but none wanted the book. The result was the Swiss-born photographer went to Paris where Robert Delpire agreed to publish the book. He then had Alain Basquet select quotes from notable writers such as Faulkner, Steinbeck, Toqueville, Beauvoir, Caldwell and others to accompany the photos. When an American edition was published a year later, the quotes were removed, apparently because some were too negative about America, and an introduction written by Jack Kerouac was substituted. Item 94. Priced at £3,750 (British pounds or approximately $4,720 U.S. dollars).

This next book is a guide to the White House, entitled The White House An Historic Guide. The authors were the house's then occupants, John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy. It was focused more on the efforts of the First Lady than the POTUS as she was engaged in restoring the White House to its traditional appearance. Many softcover copies of this book were printed for the public, but this is one in red Morocco, No. 1A of 75 copies. It is signed, but I haven't seen a copy that wasn't. They were printed for gifts from the President and First Lady in Christmas 1962, the year it was published. Add to that it was inscribed, and the value continues to rise, but many if not all were inscribed rather than just signed. This one is very special because of its provenance. It was inscribed “To Dad – With love. John. Christmas 1962”. John, of course, was John F. Kennedy, and “Dad” was Joseph P. Kennedy, wealthy businessman and investor, progenitor of his three famed sons, John, Robert, and Edward (Ted) (and, oh my, grandfather of RFK, Jr.). And, like they say on late night television, there's more. It is also signed by “Jackie,” but on behalf of Caroline as the inscription says “For Grandpa – with adoration.” There is one more note of provenance – a “Note of Historical Record” signed by Evelyn Lincoln dated November 21, 1982, explaining her acquisition of the “red Morocco book.” Lincoln was Kennedy's personal secretary from 1951 until his assassination in 1963. Item 137. £37,500 (US $47,133).

Next is one of the lesser known titles from the marvelous creations of Theodore Geisel, whom we all know as Dr. Seuss. The title is The Cat's Quizzer. Are You smarter than the Cat in the Hat?, published in in 1976. The book features Seuss' best known character and others he has created, and it asks a lot of questions. It's one of his Beginner Books meant to teach vocabulary to younger children. Seuss made reading fun, something Dick and Jane never mastered. This book asks all sorts of questions, some more serious than others. Despite essentially being harmless, this is one of the six books the Seuss Estate withdrew from publication for racially insensitive drawings. It has left Seuss with something of a tarnished reputation which is grossly unfair as, at worst, he was just depicting stereotypes typical of the day. In this book, the apparently offensive one depicts a Japanese man at a distance wearing a stereotypical hat and asks the question, “How old do you have to be to be Japanese?” I'll admit to being stumped by why a question of age would apply to a Japanese person more than any other since we all go through similar lifespans and we all start out young, so why this question? Perhaps there is something inappropriate here but if so, I don't get it. Seuss was a very tolerant and good man though he did have some negative feelings toward the Japanese. He did art for the government during the Second World War and Americans then had very negative feelings about the Japanese. He later visited Japan and got over most of those feelings though perhaps he still harbored a few later on. Item 77. £1,250 (US $1,573).

This is a complete run of 36 issues of an obscure 19^th century sports periodical on boxing. Its title is Famous Fights in the Prize Ring and the issues ran from around 1877 through part of the 1880s. The boxers are rather obscure today, this going back to before the era of the first still famous boxer, John L. Sullivan. Still, these were the big names of their times, at least in England as this was a British publication. The covers feature a boxer or boxers, often in a fighting pose. They may have been gentlemen but they were not gentle men. This was the era of bare-knuckled fighting and fights often continued until someone could fight no more. This is a bound set of the complete run which is very hard to find. Item 108. £3,750 (US $4,722).

We'll conclude with what is the smallest yet most expensive item in the catalogue. It is but a single leaf. It is what's known as a “Noble Fragment,” a leaf from the first book printed from movable type – the Gutenberg Bible. It was printed circa 1455 by Johann Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany. Gutenberg's Bible was printed in 150-180 copies of which 48 complete or nearly complete copies are known to still exist. Naturally, this leaf is not from such a copy. It was taken from an incomplete copy. It was sold at Sotheby's in 1920 to the noted bibliographer and bookseller Joseph Sabin, who sold it to Gideon Wells. Wells was also a bookseller and he came up with an idea to squeeze the most money from his copy. He broke it down into individual leaves and sold them separately, usually accompanied by a monograph written by A. Edward Newton. When you occasionally find a Gutenberg leaf in the market, it is likely to be from Wells' copy. It's hard to know what a Gutenberg Bible would bring today as it's been so long since one has been sold publicly, but it would be an astronomical amount. This single leaf is priced at £120,000 (US $151,150).

Shapero Rare Books may be reached at +44 (0)20 7493 0876 or rarebooks@shapero.com. Their website is www.shapero.com.