Haymarket Affair in The Chicago Daily News. Chicago: Daily News, May 5, 1886

The Haymarket Affair in Chicago was the most important event in American labor history. This dramatic Chicago newspaper reports on the events at the Haymarket, police actions, rioting, efforts to catch the bomb thrower, the roundup of anarchists, the discovery of the printed flyers for the mass meeting, and the reaction of Chicago businessmen.

$1,200

Autograph note signed to John H. Johnston. Camden, March 7, 1887

Whitman writes to his good friend and benefactor John H. Johnston, the New York jeweler, evidently congratulating him on the birth of his child: “Bless the dear baby, & all babies – Love to you & wife, Walt Whitman.”

$4,800

Liberty’s Torch in Madison Square Park. no publisher, negative ca. 1876, made from a print, late 19th century.

The torch of the Statue of Liberty was exhibited in Madison Square Park, New York to raise funds for the statue’s completion.  The torch remained in the park from 1876 through 1882.

$1,800

Splendid album containing 50 watercolors, 70 photographs, and fine calligraphic selections of poems and prose. Mostly Possingworth and environs, 1879 - ca. 1905

This magnificent, imposing album was made by a prominent late-Victorian hostess, patron of the arts, and gifted amateur artist. Helen Rose Huth was the wife of the banker Louis Huth. The Huths were major art collectors, and Helen sat for both George Frederic Watts and James Abbott McNeill Whistler who painted the celebrated “Arrangement in Black, No. 2: Portrait of Mrs Louis Huth.”

$16,000

Autograph letter signed to his sister [together with] “To the Sun-Set Breeze” Original printer’s proof, signed by Whitman.. Camden, 1890; 29 June 1891

In this fine, warm letter to his sister, Whitman writes, “Love to you sister dear. The day has got along & I have just time to hurry this off to catch this evng’s mail. Much the same with me— hot wave here again. Am anchor’d here at my window as usual. 2 enc’d.” The latter comment may refer to Whitman’s enclosure of the accompanying broadside (see next item). Several well-known photographs capture Whitman in his final years seated at his window at a table overflowing with his papers.

$40,000

Good-Bye My Fancy. 2d Annex to Leaves of Grass. Good-Bye My Fancy. 2d Annex to Leaves of Grass, 1891

FIRST EDITION. This form of Good-Bye My Fancy is not in Myerson.

$1,200

At the graveside of Walt Whitman: Harleigh, Camden, New Jersey, March 30th and Sprigs of Lilac.. Philadelphia, 1892

First edition. Presentation copy inscribed by Whitman’s friend and literary executor Horace Trouble to W. W. Clews and further inscribed by Traubel: “Edition: 750 / Number 382 / Horace L. Traubel.”

$500

Notes and Fragments: left by Walt Whitman and now edited by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke, one of his literary executors. Printed for Private Distribution Only, 1899

FIRST EDITION. One of 225 numbered copies signed by Bucke. This work prints an extensive collection of manuscript fragments discovered among Whitman’s papers on his death.

$1,800

An enormous run of Goodspeed’s rare book and manuscript catalogues. Vols. 1-370 and 381-575. Boston: Goodspeed's Book Shop, 1899-1973

Founded in 1898, Goodspeed’s published its first catalogue in 1899. For decades to come the firm would be a dominant force in American bookselling. These catalogues are a witness to that golden age.

$6,500

Chinese Currency. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1901

FIRST EDITION of this standard work on the history of Chinese currency. Edkins was a British Sinologist and Protestant missionary who spent 57 years in China, 30 of them in Beijing.

$700