Nov 25, 2014 - Sale 2368

Sale 2368 - Lot 96

Price Realized: $ 70,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
(CONSTITUTION.) Martin, Luther. The Genuine Information, Delivered to the Legislature of the State of Maryland, Relative to the Proceedings of the General Convention. 8vo, contemporary calf, worn, bound with 8 other contemporary pamphlets; minor dampstaining and toning, short closed tear in margin of final leaf, minor foxing to some of the other pamphlets; early inscription on front free endpaper, early inscription on title page with light ink burns in upper margin, later private library bookplate on from pastedown. Philadelphia, 1788

Additional Details

An insider's report on the Constitutional Convention, by an Anti-Federalist Maryland delegate who refused to sign because he thought it would place the small states "under the most abject and servile subjection" (page 9) to the large states. We know of only two other copies at auction since 1933. One was bound in with other pamphlets and sold for $130,000 in 2005; the other was an incomplete copy which brought $15,000 at Swann on 26 March 2009. Evans 21220; Howes M343 ("b"); Sabin 44897.
Among the other important pamphlets in this volume are: James Monroe. View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Affairs of the United States. First edition of the future president's defense of his controversial conduct as U.S. Minister to France. Evans 32491; Howes M727; Larned 1661; Sabin 50020. Philadelphia, 1797 Proceedings of the House of Representatives . . . Praying for a Repeal of the Alien and Sedition Laws. Evans 36560. Philadelphia, 1799. Also included are two early North Carolina imprints: Proceedings of the Virginia Assembly, on the Answers of Sundry States to their Resolutions. 64 pages; not in Evans. Raleigh: Joseph Gales, 1800 Debates on a Bill to Amend the Penal Laws of North-Carolina. 44 pages. [Raleigh]: Joseph Gales, 1801.