In 2007 Bonham’s Books & Manuscripts sales, a first edition, presentation copy of John Steinbeck’s 1939 masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath brought $47,800, setting a new at-auction world record.

In October, Sir Isaac Newton’s Optikcks; or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light set a luminous world auction record at $90,000.

The department’s December sale again made history when a Declaration of Independence printed on vellum by Benjamin Owen Tyler more than tripled its estimate to achieve $60,000.

Posted: 12|30|07 at 11:36 am. Filed under: US News.