Fine Books' Top Ten Books of 2006

Each year we count down the 50 most expensive books, maps, and autographs sold at auction. Our complete report on the 2006 auction season will appear in our March/April issue. However, since there's a lot of interest in top ten lists, here's ours (revised January 2, 2007):

#10. $1.1 million. Original manuscript of the Irish national Anthem (sold by John Adam & Son and Mealy's)

#9. $1.2 million. Stendahl’s diaries from 1805 to 1814 (Pierre Bergé)

#8. $1.3 million. Illuminated manuscript of the devotional Hours of the Cross, ca. 1425  (Sotheby's)

#7. $1.7 million. A single leaf of the Royal Shahnama, the most exquisite copy of the Persian national epic, ca. 1530 (Sotheby's)

#6. $1.8 million. A volume of bird watercolors by Pierre Gourdelle, ca. 1550 (Pierre Bergé)

#5. $1.9 million. The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, signed by Abraham Lincoln and members of Congress, 1864 (Raynors' Historical Collectible Auctions)

#4. $2.4 million. Album Amicorum, a sort of autograph book assembled by a clothier to European princes, ca. 1600 (Christie's)

#3. $4.0 million. The first printed atlas, Ptolemy’s Cosmographia, 1477 (Sotheby's)

#2. $4.5 million. Poiteau and Turpin’s illustrations for one of the greatest books on fruit trees, Traité des arbres fruitiers [Treatise on Fruit Trees] by Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau, ca. 1804 (Pierre Bergé)

#1. $5.2 million. Shakespeare’s First Folio: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, 1623 (Sotheby's)