Reposted by Lucretia Baskin
It’s that time — meet the winners of the 2026 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize! themillions.com/2026/09/meet...
themillions.com
Meet the Winners of the 2026 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize - The Millions
In 2017, Honey & Wax Booksellers established an annual prize for American women book collectors, aged 30 years and younger. Our goal, at the time, was to expand the popular perception of who book coll...
![[DESIGN]. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Werke (book box). Vienna: Verlag von Sigmund Bensinger, 1880s. Box carved out of two hollowed octavo volumes, exterior dimensions 10.5 x 7.5 x 2.5 inches. Full chestnut morocco elaborately stamped in black and gilt with central gilt portrait of Lessing on upper board serving as box lid, secured by a pair of green silk ribbons. Interior finished with gilt title “Milano,” marbled paper trim, and color-printed pictorial onlay. Two purpose-built compartments housing a pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses and a circular blue and white monogrammed floral pillbox. Lightest shelfwear to edges and spine panels.
Decorative box fashioned out of two converted books, opening to reveal a pair of opera glasses and a small porcelain pillbox. Originally published in Vienna, the hollowed books themselves are two handsomely bound volumes of the works of German Enlightenment philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, author of the Laocoön. The interior of the books is lined with a portrait of two herald angels, heightened in gilt, under the heading “Moderne Kunst.” Fitted compartments house a pair of opera glasses in iridescent brown mother-of-pearl and a floral box for pills or pastilles, monogrammed with a Gothic letter “G.” A spectacular bibliophilic souvenir.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ougq5fx4l5byg3iu6mqnadkk/bafkreied4t2pxn55u7fgzgiaj673cw6stuledqz2xa53zmctxtwnlfisw4)
![[DESIGN]. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Werke (book box). Vienna: Verlag von Sigmund Bensinger, 1880s.
Box carved out of two hollowed octavo volumes, exterior dimensions 10.5 x 7.5 x 2.5 inches. Full chestnut morocco elaborately stamped in black and gilt with central gilt portrait of Lessing on upper board serving as box lid, secured by a pair of green silk ribbons. Interior finished with gilt title “Milano,” marbled paper trim, and color-printed pictorial onlay. Two purpose-built compartments housing a pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses and a circular blue and white monogrammed floral pillbox. Lightest shelfwear to edges and spine panels.
Decorative box fashioned out of two converted books, opening to reveal a pair of opera glasses and a small porcelain pillbox. Originally published in Vienna, the hollowed books themselves are two handsomely bound volumes of the works of German Enlightenment philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, author of the Laocoön. The interior of the books is lined with a portrait of two herald angels, heightened in gilt, under the heading “Moderne Kunst.” Fitted compartments house a pair of opera glasses in iridescent brown mother-of-pearl and a floral box for pills or pastilles, monogrammed with a Gothic letter “G.” A spectacular bibliophilic souvenir.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ougq5fx4l5byg3iu6mqnadkk/bafkreiagufirmrusg3c65zx5tfgsvp2ohn2kw6ym6m65oto56yorye6r3u)
![[DESIGN]. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Werke (book box). Vienna: Verlag von Sigmund Bensinger, 1880s.
Box carved out of two hollowed octavo volumes, exterior dimensions 10.5 x 7.5 x 2.5 inches. Full chestnut morocco elaborately stamped in black and gilt with central gilt portrait of Lessing on upper board serving as box lid, secured by a pair of green silk ribbons. Interior finished with gilt title “Milano,” marbled paper trim, and color-printed pictorial onlay. Two purpose-built compartments housing a pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses and a circular blue and white monogrammed floral pillbox. Lightest shelfwear to edges and spine panels.
Decorative box fashioned out of two converted books, opening to reveal a pair of opera glasses and a small porcelain pillbox. Originally published in Vienna, the hollowed books themselves are two handsomely bound volumes of the works of German Enlightenment philosopher Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, author of the Laocoön. The interior of the books is lined with a portrait of two herald angels, heightened in gilt, under the heading “Moderne Kunst.” Fitted compartments house a pair of opera glasses in iridescent brown mother-of-pearl and a floral box for pills or pastilles, monogrammed with a Gothic letter “G.” A spectacular bibliophilic souvenir.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ougq5fx4l5byg3iu6mqnadkk/bafkreia3rpousaish2v7lluxd4z72bud64dyw6rsdqkzi6uhmb3b6qngnm)
