Rare Book Monthly

Articles - July - 2019 Issue

July Sales at Forum Auctions: A Busy Month

About half of Forum Auctions’ online sale on Thursday 3rdJuly comprises books from the collection of the the late Frank Herrmann (1927-2017), author, publisher, collector and mentor to many at Forum Auctions. The section is headed "The English as Collectors: a Documentary Library," in homage to one of his best-known books.

Educated at Westminster School and Magdalen College, Oxford, Frank Herrmann spent much of his working life in book publishing, starting as a designer at Faber & Faber's in the late 1950s. He spent 15 years at Methuen's, later Associated Book Publishers, and then built up the publishing group Marshall Morgan & Scott.

Together with his wife Patricia, Frank Herrmann amassed a collection of English Delftware, and later other ceramics, including 18th and 19th century dinner services. He was always interested in the art market and the auction world, and specifically in the history of collecting, and in the late 1960s wrote five articles for The Connoisseur on the collector Edmund Solly. He went on to write two major books in these areas: The English as Collectors: A Documentary Chrestomathy (1972, revised in 1999 and subsequently reprinted) and Sotheby's: Portrait of an Auction House (1980). In 1982 he became director in charge of European overseas operations at Sotheby's, but left to found his own auction house, Bloomsbury Book Auctions, from which he retired in 2000. In the course of his authorship he acquired many books and papers on the history of collecting, some of which are in the Wallace Collection and the remainder retained in his personal archives. 

Frank Herrmann (1927-2017)

He also wrote a series of children's books about the Giant Alexander that sold more than 600,000 copies and were translated into many languages. His autobiography, Low Profile: A Life in the World of Books, appeared in 2002.

The lots in the sale focus on collecting with numerous auction catalogues from the 18thto 20thcentury and other works on a similar theme. The rest of the sale covers the usual widely eclectic range of subjects found in Forum’s sales – drawings and watercolours; prints; a photograph album relating to China (lot 165, est. £300-400); a good group of works by Roman writer on classical rhetoric, Quintilianus; many examples of fine binding and sets of works; numerous lots of 18thcentury English literature and history, especially poetry; a children’s pop-up book (lot 141, est. £100-150); and individual works on chess, medicine, the Ladies of Llangollen, the conquest of Everest, a 1688 Glorious Revolution broadside and an album of 18thcentury blank paper.  

 

The following week the auctioneers decamp to the Westbury Hotel for back-to-back book sales. On Wednesday 10thJuly Selected 16thand 17thCentury English books from the Fox Pointe Manor Library come under the hammer. The 227-lot sale again covers a broad range of subjects within the confines of those two centuries of printing. The catalogue is arranged chronologically and the earliest work on offer dates from 1530 and is entitled Hereafter folowith the boke callyd the Myrroure of Oure Lady very necessary for all relygyous persones.Printed by Richard Fawkes, it is estimated at £6,000-8,000. As well as other religious works, there are many relating to travel, law, politics, philosophy, history, language, agriculture, food & drink, astronomy, medicine, military, heraldry, maritime, magic, alchemy, chemistry, fossils, economics, Egyptology, mining, gemstones, sundials & horology and Shakespeare. The most expensively estimated lot is a copy of the earliest and most celebrated Atlas of this country, Christopher Saxton’s Atlas of England and Wales, 1579, est. £50,000-70,000. Early works on travel and exploration to the east and west are of course rare and highly sought after. A fine copy of the first English edition of Hernando de Soto’s Virginia richly valued, By the description of the maine land of Florida, her next neighbour, translated by Richard Hakluyt and dated to 1609, is estimated at £30,000-40,000; while An Exact and Curioius Survey of all the East Indies, even to Canton, the chiefe Cittie of China, 1615, is estimated to fetch £8,000-12,000. There are many plays and other literary works by the leading figures of the period including John Donne, Ben Jonson, James Shirley, Beaumont & Fletcher, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Chapman, Sir William Davenant, Philip Massinger, Richard Brome and Lewis Sharpe. But a sale of covering this rich period of our literary history would not be complete without representation from the Bard – there are half a dozen lots by or relating to Shakespeare, including a first edition of Titus Andronicusedited by Edward Ravenscroft, 1687 (est. £3,000-4,000) and a first edition of Abraham Fraunce’s The Lawier’s Logick, 1588, a scarce work said to have been used by Shakespeare as a source for his legal knowledge.

The following day, on Thursday 11thJuly a sale of Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper takes place, also at the Westbury Hotel. Highlights from this auction include:

  • A defective but largely complete copy of Shakespeare’s second folio, 1632, est. £15,000-20,000
  • A fine copy of Robert Greene’s rare Elizabethan comedy The Honorable History of Frier Bacon and Frier Bungay,1655, est. £4,000-6,000
  • An unrecorded 1795 edition of Hocus Pocus, or the Art of Conjuration, est. £1,000-1,500
  • Two works inscribed by Lewis Carroll, each estimated at £1,000-1,500
  • A rare Carington Bowles print of Philadelphia – Heap and Scull’s An East Perspective View of the City of Philadelphia, 1778, est. £4,000-6,000
  • A superb 1830s souvenir album of 53 Chinese Export School watercolours, est. £3,000-5,000
  • A scarce 1494 edition of Isocrates bound with Herodotus, printed by Christophorus de Pensis, de Mandello in Venice, est. £2,000-3,000
  • A Large fragment of Egyptian papyrus from the Book of the Dead, c.1550-1327 BC, est. £10,000-15,000
  • 22 leaves from a 12thcentury manuscript from Northern France in Latin on vellum of Aristotles’ Opera, est. £15,000-20,000
  • The only known copy of both volumes of John Martin’s The Paradise Lost of Miltonbound together with the text, one of 50 Imperial folio proof impressions, c.1824-27, est. £15,000-20,000
  • Robert Vansittart’s The Singing Caravan, one of 25 specially bound copies by George Fisher, Gregynog Press, 1932, est. £3,000-4,000
  • Virgil’s The Georgics, 1948 bound by Roger Powell, est. £1,500-2,000, one of several designer bindings in the sale
  • Oscar Wilde’s Salome, 1894, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, one of 100 copies on Japanese vellum, with the 3 suppressed plates, est. £8,000-12,000
  • Rabelais’ Pantagruel, 1943, one of 250 copies illustrated by Andre Derain, est. £6,000-8,000
  • The Golden Cockerel Press’ Canterbury Talesby Chaucer, illustrated by Eric Gill, est. £3,000-4,000
  • The Chester Play of the Deluge, illustrated by David Jones, one of only 7 copies on vellum printed by the Rampant Lions Press for Clover Hill Editions, est. £4,000-6,000
  • Lecuire’s Cortege, illustrated with pochoir plates by Andre Lanskoy, one of 25 deluxe copies with an additional suite of plates, est. £6,000-8,000
  • Sweerts’ Florilegium Amplissimum et Selectissimum, with 101 (of 110) plates, est. £8,000-12,000
  • A large format chromogenic print of Buzz Aldrin with the reflection of the lunar module, the American flag and the photographer, fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong, taken during the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 (almost exactly 50 years ago), est. £5,000-7,000 (one of several similar large size photographs in the sale)

 

Finally, on July 18th an online sale of F.A. Hayek: the remaining archives of the celebrated economist and Nobel laureate will feature 21 lots.

Highlights of this sale include Hayek’s Japanese Katana sword bought after a trip to Japan in 1964, with which he is seen in two accompanying photographs to be cutting his birthday cake (est. £300-400). Another fine piece connected to Hayek’s trips to Japan is a 48-page autograph manuscript entitled The Disposition on the Reactionary Character of the Socialist Conception, written on handmade Japanese paper with original floral paper wrappers and written whilst visiting the country in 1978, which is estimated at £20,000-30,000. The other lots from the archive – photographs, personal affects, letters and other memorabilia, including his personal leather briefcase – all offer an inimitable insight into Hayek’s life. Following the highly successful sale of his Nobel Medal and part of the archive in March earlier this year at Sotheby’s, Forum Auctions are confident that their offering of a further wide range of memorabilia associated with this giant of modern economics will prove popular with collectors and aficionados around the world. 

 

For full details of all these sales, information about viewing times, registration etc. please visit www.forumauctions.co.uk

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD

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