Connecticut River Book Auction
March 3
South Congregational Church: 949 Main Street South Glastonbury, CT 06073
www.ctriverbookauction.com
1-860-908-8067

SOUTH GLASTONBURY, CONN. — The Friday, March 3, Connecticut River Book Auction at 6 pm at the South Congregational Church offers a rarely found copy of The Most Remarkable Texas Book, an Essay on W.W. Heartsill’s Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army. Published under the banner of the Pemberton Press in 1980 with a print run of only 64 copies, this is one of the most desirable copies of a John Holmes Jenkins III publication.

For Texas bibliophiles, John Holmes Jenkins III is one of the more interesting yet puzzling characters in a world of antiquarian book dealers that range from those in tweed jackets to — how would one say it — odd ducks. If nothing else, Jenkins, who drove a gold Mercedes, wore a similarly gold Rolex and donned an oversized Stetson while parading in ostrich hide boots was unique.

At one point this seller of Texiana had ambitions to be and was the focal point of all that had to do with the written word and Texas. In 1980, at the pinnacle of his career, he was elected president of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, the most prestigious book dealer group in America. Truly, a poster child of the free-wheeling culture of Texas entrepreneurship, whether for reasons of the boom-and-bust cycle of the Texas economy or a gambling habit that got out of control, Jenkins’ fortunes began to sour in the mid-1980s. By the late 1980s questions about the authenticity of material he was selling, the possible arson of his business and rumored gambling debt were haunting him.

On April 16, 1989, these mounting issues came to an abrupt end when Jenkins was found dead in the Colorado River near Austin with a bullet wound to the head. Although ruled a suicide by the local sheriff, the Bastrop County justice of peace signed the death certificate stating that Jenkins’ death was a homicide. For mystery sleuths, the gun that Jenkins allegedly used to kill himself was nowhere near the body. Indeed, it has never been found.

This copy of The Most Remarkable belonged to Steve Schuster who designed it for Jenkins and includes correspondence. Most interesting is an undated letter that makes reference to a dispute between author Larry McMurtry and Jenkins. Could this have been in reference to Jenkins’ unauthorized publication of McMurtry’s earliest works?

The South Congregational Church is at 949 Main Street. For information, 860-908-8067 or www.ctriverbookauction.com.

Inspection begins at noon with the auction starting at 6 pm.
With over 180 lots of history, fiction, art and 25 lots of ephemera, this promises to be a night of good fellowship and vigorous competition amongst attendees and absentee bidders.
For several auctions there have been many signed fiction lots and this evening is no different. The following are some of the signed 1st edition volumes that will be sold: Vonnegut’s “TimeQuake,” Crichton’s “Disclosure,” Roth’s “The Anatomy Lesson,” Robbins “Skinny Legs and All,” Vidal’s “The Second American Revolution and Other Essays,” Conroy’s “The Prince ofTides,” and several works by Arthur Miller to name a few.
There are over 30 lots of history with Jenkins (1980) “The Most Remarkable Texas Book an Essay on W. W, Heartsill’s Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army,” of particular interest. This copy belonged to Steve Schuster who designed the book with correspondence with the publisher. Also in this auction is the 1772 French volume “Supplement au Voyage de M. de Bougainville; ou Journal d’un Voyage autour du Monde, Fait par MM. Banks & Solander, Anglois, en 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771,” which happens to be the first French edition of Cook’s Endeavour voyage in its original full leather boards. Speaking of sailing, we also have a later printing of Slocum’s “Sailing Alone Around the World.” What makes this copy of note is that it is signed by the author.
In the area of ephemera in addition to postcards, photos, and paper we have a unique friendship book put together over several months by a student attending Yale Uni- versity in 1826. To
solve the mystery of who might have conceived this friendship volume, you might want to acquire the wealth of signed and detective mystery books available for sale by such authors as Kaminsky, Block, Dorsey, McBain, Bruen, Leonard, Pollini and more.
Lastly, lovers of art will not be disappointed.Two of the many lots deserve special mention. Thefirstisthe“TheTempleofFlora”byThorntonthattheFolioSocietyrepublishedina limited edition in 2008. Housed in a clamshell case this is a lovely copy.The second lot is a limited signed edition by Holocaust survivor Lev Haas entitled “12 Puvodnich Litografii Z Nemeckych KoncentracnichTaboru.” It is a powerful depiction of his time in the Nisko labor camp and later Auschwitz.