A previously unknown seventh edition printing of the Bay Psalm book will cross the block at Swann Auction Galleries.

It dates to 1693 and carries an estimate of $30,000-40,000 ahead of the February 4 auction.

This is the only known copy of the Bay Psalm book's seventh edition

The first edition (published in Cambridge, Massachusetts 1640) was the earliest book printed in the United States and is thus a very desirable piece of Americana.

One sold for $14.2m at Sotheby's in 2013, making it the most valuable printed book ever sold.

The present lot features almost identical content, namely rudimental translations of psalms in English.

It's the only known specimen of the seventh edition, which is likely to ensure interest from collectors.

A manuscript journal kept by an 18th century American whaler is set to prove another popular lot, with an estimate of $8,000-10,000.

One entry from 1764 relates the extraordinary dangers of whaling life: "One cross under the stern of our boate with her flooks, which causd us to go a stearn and then we gave her chese which was very crooked and crost.

"She turnd several times under the bote. At length we came forward that Jacob Hand, harponeer, thought the chance might do.

"He sot his iron and we attempted to go a starn but she struck the boate with an unusal swiftness and it was unknown how many peaceis she was broke in, but our mates . . . told us that it appeard like a whirlwind a raising a parsel of oake leaves and it was thought she was broke in five hundred peaces."

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