What big spenders are buying
With a bit of luck, you might have completed your Christmas shopping or perhaps you have it all to do. The money-is-not-object crowd have been busy picking up unique gifts on AbeBooks.com for bookloving friends and family - here’s some of the highlights from the past two weeks.
Top 10 most expensive sales on AbeBooks.com Nov 23-Dec 9
- Two Stories by Salman Rushdie - $7,031
‘The Prophet’s Hair’ and ‘The Free Radio’ combined into one book and printed in 1991, this is No. 4 of only 12 books privately printed. Bound in full leather and signed - Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne - $5,500
A first edition from 1926 of this legendary children’s book - A Guide to Modern Cookery by Escoffier - $5,124
One of the world’s great cookbooks, a 1907 first edition signed by the author and inscribed to Sarah Morgan, who worked at the Cavendish Hotel in London - Thelema by Aleister Crowley - $4,655
Witchcraft for Christmas? Perhaps. A first edition of a privately printed book from around 1909 containing The Book of Law - Crowley’s essential work - David Thompson’s Narrative of His Explorations in Western America 1784-1812 - $4,250
One of North America’s great geographers, Thompson mapped more than 3.9 million square kilometers. Published in 1916 - one of just 550 copies. - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling - $3,600
More witchcraft for Christmas? It’s only Harry. One of 1,700 copies signed at JK Rowling’s midnight launch in July - On Liberty by John Stuart Mill - $3,500
An 1859 first edition bound in three-quarter leather of this key conceptual work on liberty by the great liberal thinker of the 19th century - Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie - $3,000
A 1981 first edition of this Booker Prize-winning novel signed by the author “They are despite everything, acts of love, Salman Rushdie, 9/12/81″ - An Atlas of Bourbon, Clark, Fayette, Jessamine and Woodford Counties, Kentucky - $2,750
A rare Kentucky atlas from 1877 – published by Beers of Philadelphia - Dune by Frank Herbert - $2,750
A 1965 first edition of this famous sci-fi novel where spice matters – first winner of the Nebula Award
