Source : Laurence Witten Rare Books

Source Title
Description Laurence Claiborne Witten was an American bookseller who specialized in European works. A graduate of Yale, he opened up shop nearby in New Haven in the 1950s. He later moved to Southport Connecticut, continuing deeply in the business until 1983, when he suffered a heart attack. His cataloging came to an end after that, though he remained partly in business until the early 1990s, and lived until 1995.

Witten left many of his manuscripts to the Beinecke Library at Yale, and his major stringed instrument musical collection was sold to the University of South Dakota National Music Museum in 1984 for $3 million.

Perhaps the most famous incident of Witten's career came when he brought back from Europe the so-called Vinland map. This supposedly circa 1440 map showed a land mass east of Greenland called "Vinland," with a notation that it had been visited by Europeans in the 11th century. This map would have predated Columbus by half a century, and completely revised most thinking about who and when America was "discovered." While widely accepted when information was first released in 1965, later testing of the ink and comparisons with other contemporary maps have led most to conclude it is a forgery.
Scope of Text
Total Records in AED 1645
  • Sotheby’s
    Selections from The Jay T. Snider Collection of Benjamin Franklin
    Live Sale 24 June
    Sotheby’s, June 24: (Benjamin Franklin). The founding—and funding—of the Pennsylvania Hospital. $150,000 to $200,000.
    Sotheby’s, June 24: Benjamin Franklin, "the Day of the Declaration of Independence is everywhere annually celebrated”. $80,000 to $120,000.
    Sotheby’s, June 24: Benjamin Franklin, “probably the most fundamental thing ever done in the field of electricity”. $75,000 to $125,000.
    Sotheby’s, June 24: Benjamin Franklin. One of Franklin's very earliest surviving letters. $40,000 to $60,000.
    Sotheby’s, June 24: Roger More and Benjamin Franklin. The only complete copy known of Poor Roger. $25,000 to $35,000.
    Sotheby’s, June 24: John Jerman. The American Almanack ... for 1731 — the only known copy in private hands. $25,000 to $35,000.
  • June 25, 2026
    Doyle, June 25: Houdini's biography, boldly signed. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Doyle, June 25: A volume from Abraham Lincoln's library, signed just before heading to Washington for his inauguration. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Doyle, June 25: A very early Confederate recruiting manual belonging to the chief commissary in Lee's Army. $600 to $800.
    Doyle, June 25: Rare hand-colored lithographs of the life of Napoleon. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Doyle, June 25: The "Holster Atlas" of the American Revolution. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Doyle, June 25: Jewish ceremonies in fine hand-colored engravings. $7,000 to $10,000.
    Doyle, June 25: A very rare work on Turkish military costume. $1,000 to $1,500.
    June 25, 2026
    Doyle, June 25: The most important illustrated work on the Mexican-American War. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, June 25: The finest illustrated book on Afghanistan. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Doyle, June 25: Henry Justice Ford St. George rescues the Princess from the horrible Dragon. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Doyle, June 25: A rare work of Prussian Army uniforms under Frederick William II, with exquisite hand-colored engravings. $800 to $1,200.
    Doyle, June 25: Lenny Bruce typed letter signed to a Village bohemian during his obscenity trials, with a manuscript note and drawing. $300 to $500.
    Doyle, June 25: Schiff's scarce Shanghai Sketchbook. $300 to $500.
    Doyle, June 25: The first accurate published representation of the American flag. $2,000 to $4,000.
  • Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Galileo Galilei. Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo tolemaico, e copernicano. Firenze, 1632
    Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Saverio Manetti. Storia naturale degli uccelli. Firenze, 1771-76
    Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Fortunato Depero. Depero futurista. Rovereto, 1927
    Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Nicolas Visscher. Atlas minor sive totius orbis terrarum contracta delineat ex conatibus. Amsterdam, circa 1649-95
    Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Andreas Vesalius. Anatomia. Addita nunc. Antiquorum Anatome. Venezia, 1604
    Aste Bolaffi, June 17-18: Tristan Tzara and Salvador Dalì. Grains et Issues. Parigi, 1935
  • Leland Little, June 12: The First Illustrated Edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
    Leland Little, June 12: John Morton, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Signed Pennsylvania Land Survey.
    Leland Little, June 12: The Scarce Jansson Edition of a Remarkable Early View of London.
    Leland Little, June 12: Signed Limited Edition of The Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
    Leland Little, June 12: Faden’s Important and Scarce Map of the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution.
    Leland Little, June 12: William J. Tate (NC, 1869-1953), Archive of the "Original host to the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk.”