Book sale to feature late author's vast collection
| • | Correction |
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Books Editor
John Dominis Holt would have loved it: a sale of hundreds of Hawaiiana books, from rare through out-of-print all the way to 50-cent pamphlets only a collector would covet.
• 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 28 and 29 • Academy Art Center at Linekona • The academy accepts cash, checks and major credit cards. • Validated parking, Linekona lot ($3 for four hours) • Information: 532-8754
Holt, the late scholar, writer, publisher, descendent of Hawaiian royalty, storyteller and bon vivant, would have loved it because this sprawling collection was his.
Hawaiiana Book Sale
A man who believed it was important for Hawai'i people to understand their history, he would be happy to see local people getting the first chance at the books. An ardent supporter of the arts, he would be doubly glad that proceeds from the sale — which could be as much as $20,000 — will benefit the little-known but important Robert Allerton Library at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
The 50 or so boxes of books, collected over 40 or 50 years, reflect Holt's wide-ranging and eclectic interests.
"He was interested in all kinds of things, and when he had money, he indulged himself," said Holt's friend David Forbes.
The books will be priced from as little as 50 cents to more than $600 (for a complete, though slightly damaged, set of Abraham Fornander's nine-volume "Hawaiian Antiquities"). Items include a collection of the widely respected Bishop Museum bulletins on Hawaiian crafts and back numbers of the Journal of the Hawaiian Historical Society.
Holt, who died in 1993 at age 73, and his wife, Frances MacKinnon Damon "Patches" Holt, who died in January 2003, left the contents of their home to the Academy of Arts, including his large working collection of Hawaiiana books, said Forbes, who was asked by the estate to help catalog the books and arrange their dispersal. He's been at work on the project for a year.
The academy library got first crack at the collection, with librarian Ron Chapman gratefully scooping up important or rare works that were not already in the library's collection.
"Even after they made their selections, there are still hundreds and hundreds of books that are very useful and historical — the kinds of things people look for and can't generally find," said Forbes, himself a rigorous scholar, compiler of the "Hawaiian National Bibliography" series and a volunteer at the academy library. "I really think this was what John would have wanted. He and I had a conversation one time about his library, and I'm kind of honoring his wishes."
Andrew Shimabuku • The Honolulu Advertiser
The book sale will present an almost unheard-of opportunity for print collectors, as well.
David Forbes displays a lithograph from a book by Walter Rothschild. It is one of the items that will be on sale at the Academy of Arts library.
Organizers of the sale have chosen to break up three extremely rare natural history books because some of the plates were already missing. The books include a copy of Francis Isabella Sinclair's "Indigenous Flowers of the Hawaiian Islands," dating to 1885. Also in the set: works on Hawaiian birds by S.B. Wilson and A.H. Evans, originally published in London between 1890 and 1899 in eight royal quarto volumes under the title "Aves Hawaiienses: The Birds of the Sandwich Islands," and a number of hand-colored Hawaiian bird lithographs from a book by zoological collector Walter Rothschild, dating to the 1890s.
These books originally were published in very small editions. Only 250 of the Wilson and Evans books are known to have been printed. They are generally closeted in collector's libraries or in museums.
"These books almost never come on the market," said Forbes. Because the books are so valuable when complete — selling for thousands of dollars — they are rarely broken up for sale as individual lithographs.
And prices for the sale — between $75 and $200, Forbes estimates — are below market values. (Isabella Sinclair prints are being offered for $500 or more on the Robyn Buntin Galleries Web site, for example.)
"It gives the modest collector a chance to have a piece of the pie," said Forbes. The proceeds from the sale will be used to buy books for the academy library and also for shelving. "The library needs the help very badly. It exists almost without recognition but it is one of the great resources of Hawai'i, the major art library here." The facility, a noncirculating collection of art-related books, periodicals, auction catalogs and artist biographical files, is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 12:30 to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Information: 532-8754.
Correction: The Hawaiiana Book Sale scheduled for next weekend at the Academy Art Center on Friday has been cancelled.
