Massachusetts Library
Auctions Rare Books
The Fall River (Mass.) Public Library sold four of its most valuable rare books at auction May 22, with several more scheduled to follow on June 12. The auctioned books are expected to bring about $500,000 of the $3.5 million needed to renovate the main library, the Fall River Herald News reported May 23.
The most valuable of the books on the block this week was a copy of F. V. Hayden’s The Yellowstone National Park, published in 1876 and estimated to be worth $90,000–$120,000. The book contains 15 color plates by painter Thomas Moran, who accompanied the first government survey of Yellowstone in 1871. Other volumes slated for auction include The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, by Mark Catesby; Thomas McKenney’s History of the Indian Tribes of North America; and a 1493 edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle, profusely illustrated with woodcuts, portraits, and maps.
The library generated some controversy by selling the books, with some Fall River residents arguing they should remain available to the town’s residents. But the library lacks proper storage facilities, and most of the books had been slightly damaged by moisture in the non-climate-controlled rare-books room.
Posted May 28, 2001.
|
