“ONE OF THE GREATEST, MOST NOBLE AND SUBLIME POEMS WHICH EITHER THIS AGE OR NATION HAS PRODUCED”
MILTON, John. Paradise Lost. London, 1669.
First edition, fifth title page, of Milton's poetic masterpiece, his dramatic vision of Satan's expulsion from Heaven and the temptation of Adam and Eve. The excellent Macclesfield copy, with the arms of the Earls of Macclesfield in gilt on the front cover of the morocco binding by Hatton. "Rare" (Wickenheiser). $45,000.
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“A PEAK OF VISIONARY AND CREATIVE INTOXICATION”
WHITMAN, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, New York, 1856.
Rare and enlarged second edition, one of only 1000 copies printed, with frontispiece portrait of Whitman and advertisement leaf following text, featuring 20 additional poems not appearing in the 1855 first edition, including "A Woman Waits for Me" and "Who Learns My Lesson Complete?" The copy of Pennsylvania merchant and book collector William F. Gable, with a tipped-in leaf containing a series of beautiful autograph notes to him written by some of Whitman's closest friends and admirers: Dr. Gustave P. Wicksell, Ellen M. Calder, and Horace Traubel (Whitman's literary executor). $19,500.
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"A FEW DAYS BEFORE HIS DEATH… HE GAVE ORDERS TO DESTROY ALL HIS MANUSCRIPTS, EXCEPTING SOME DETACHED ESSAYS, WHICH HE ENTRUSTED TO THE CARE OF HIS EXECUTORS"
SMITH, Adam. Essays on Philosophical Subjects. London, 1795.
First edition of this core volume of Smith's essays, issued posthumously, featuring the important first publication of History of Astronomy that seeks "to explain what drives 'philosophers' to ask the questions they do," an impressive wide-margined volume in contemporary gilt-stamped calf boards. $15,000.
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