Artunderwraps

First Edition Prices, Values and Auction Results

Isak Dinesan is the penname name of Karen Bixen, a Dutch baroness and author who would go on to pen dozens of works of poetry and prose, many of which sit unpublished in the Royal Danish Library. Out of Africa is a vivid and unparalleled memoir about Bixen's time on a coffee plantation in Africa over the course of almost two decades. The work has dazzled readers and scholars with its nonlinear structure, beautiful melancholy, and devotion to painting an accurate picture of the Africans she knew. This 1938 first American edition retains that beauty and hope that Bixen, as Dinesan, hoped to capture in her record of life in Africa. The pictorial dust jacket is unique and vivid among today's later attempts to replicate.

We collected a sample of 23 auction results of Dinesen, Isak's Out of Africa from 2 different auction houses. The lowest overall price realized in our sample was $60 and the highest overall price realized was $600. The overall average price was $283 and the median price realized for the book was $300. There were 11 auctions (48%) with a price realized below the low estimate, 3 auctions (13%) exceeding the high estimates, and 9 auctions (39%) within the range of the low and high estimates. Auctions of interest include: a PBA sale on January 26, 2006 of a 1938 - Random House edition for $600 that described as in a near fine jacket; a PBA sale on June 02, 2005 of a 1937 - Putnam edition for $510 that described as very good and clean in an about very good jacket;