The Property of
FIRST EDITIONS UNLIMITED
First Editions Unlimited is a book-collecting club begun in 1974 as the idea of the late Mitchell Boniuk, a Toronto dentist. Dr. Boniuk was a passionate collector whose interests included coins, 19th-century English furniture and china, and art. But his greatest collecting passion was for books, which led him to convince family members and friends to participate with him in the First Editions Unlimited group.
Initially there were six members: Mitch Boniuk; his brother Isaac in St. Louis; his sister Vivien in New York; and close friends Donald Sterling, a Toronto stockbrocker, and fellow book collector and Dr. Barney Giblon, Mitch Boniuk's physician and the club's secretary. The sixth partner was bought out in 1987.
For several years each member contributed a modest sum (in Canadian dollars) per month for purchasing first editions. In 1982 this amount was doubled, allowing the two members in charge of acquisition (Dr. Boniuk and Mr. Sterling) to add further to the club's collection of 19th- and 20th- century English and American literature.
With Dr. Boniuk's untimely death in 1989, the club ceased its collecting and became dormant. Eventually the surviving members decided the club's collection should be dispersed at auction.
BAUM, L. FRANK. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Chicago and New York: Geo. M. Hill Co. 1900. Small 4to, original red and green pictorial cloth, edges stained yellow, pictorial endpapers on paste-downs, slightly worn at heel of spine and lower fore-corners, front inner hinge cracked. FIRST EDITION, Blanck's State Z with the advertisements on [p. 2] not enclosed within a box and with the typographical errors corrected, State D of the title-page, illustrated by W.W. Denslow with 24 tipped-in color plates including title (slight marginal fraying to plate between pp. 20 & 21) and marginal illustrations throughout generally in two tones. Blanck, Peter Parley to Penrod, pp. 111-113.
Details
BAUM, L. FRANK. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Chicago and New York: Geo. M. Hill Co. 1900. Small 4to, original red and green pictorial cloth, edges stained yellow, pictorial endpapers on paste-downs, slightly worn at heel of spine and lower fore-corners, front inner hinge cracked. FIRST EDITION, Blanck's State Z with the advertisements on [p. 2] not enclosed within a box and with the typographical errors corrected, State D of the title-page, illustrated by W.W. Denslow with 24 tipped-in color plates including title (slight marginal fraying to plate between pp. 20 & 21) and marginal illustrations throughout generally in two tones. Blanck, Peter Parley to Penrod, pp. 111-113.