The Ted Benttinen Library of Exploration and Adventure

Name: The Ted Benttinen Library of Exploration and Adventure | Books & Manuscripts | Sotheby's
Start: 2024-11-25T17:00:00Z
End: 2024-12-09T17:00:00Z
Location: New York

25 November - 9 December 2024 • New York

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Your local time • 17:00 PM GMT

The Ted Benttinen Library of Exploration and Adventure on 9 December will mark Sotheby’s most significant foray into travel and exploration books since our auction of the celebrated collection of Franklin Brooke-Hitching a decade ago. Underbidders from that four-sale series will recognize a number of Brooke-Hitching copies now returning to the rooms.

Popularly thought of as a polar collection, the Benttinen Library is, in fact, much more expansive in subject matter, with significant holdings in early navigation; Pacific voyages, including a fine selection of Cook; South America, especially Patagonia; pirates and other adventurers; Charles Darwin and Darwiniana; Hudson’s Bay; Lapland (Sápmi); and the Northwest Passage, including a brilliant group of works relating to Sir John Franklin. Still, the poles—and Antarctica in particular—anchor the library with a number of enviable shelves relating to Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton, Nansen, and the other great explorers, all in uniformly enviable fine condition. Ranging from incunabula to twenty-first-century scientific journals and offprints, the Ted Benttinen Library reflects both the collector’s scholarship and his connoisseurship.

Theodore H. “Ted” Benttinen (d. 2023) knew his subject matter better than most book collectors. After studying at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Washington, and MIT, Ted worked as an oceanographer at the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, serving as a marine technician on more than fifty voyages aboard the research vessels Trident and Endeavor from 1975 through 1985. During this period, he crossed both the Arctic and Antarctic geographical circles.

Although he changed careers, working in finance at UBS for nearly four decades, Ted never lost his love of travel and the sea, visiting many parts of the world with his wife, Sandra. Proud of his Lapp heritage, Ted was particularly fond of northernmost Scandinavia.

Significant as his Library is, these books represent just a fraction of Ted Benttinen’s legacy: he was a philanthropist, a conservationist, a dedicated birder, a photographer, and a widely published poet, whose verse appeared in more than forty literary journals.

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For assistance with bidding and registration, please contact:

+1 212 606 7000

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For all other enquiries please contact:

Richard Austin

Senior Vice President

Global Head of Department

Books & Manuscripts

+1 212 606 7385

RICHARD.AUSTIN@SOTHEBYS.COM

Selby Kiffer

Senior Vice President