23rd Aug, 2024 10:30 GMT/BST
Homer.
The Iliad [and] The Odyssey.
Nonesuch Press, 1931, two volumes, numbered limited editions of 1450 and 1300 copies respectively, small folio, Greek and English text (Pope’s translation), abbey bookplate to front endpaper (verso) of one volume, top edges gilt, original morocco bindings (a little rubbed, worm track to head of Iliad spine and edges of both volumes).
Sold for £750
Estimated at £200 - £400
Auction: Books, Maps & Manuscripts, 23rd Aug, 2024
The Summer Book Sale includes a wide range of interesting books, maps, photographs and manuscripts. In the modern books there are first editions by J.R.R. Tolkien and Mervyn Peake, signed works by Evelyn Waugh, Siegfried Sassoon, John le Carre and others as well as a good collection of deluxe Folio Society works. Earlier books include a small collection of finely bound works published by Didot of Paris, early Law books, a seventeeth century cookery book, a sixteenth century book on Crucifixion by Lipsius, and a very early sixteenth century book using italics which caused controvery at the time.
A good collection of early travel books is complemented by an interesting album of photographs of British Central Africa as well as a small selection of early maps, including a scarce folding map of Tasmania. A typescript personal account of the British Economic Mission to the Far East in 1930 provides a surprisingly interesting read.
For the Royalists, there are signed photographs of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince of Wales and three Christmas cards signed by H.M. the Queen Mother. The sale concludes with a section of books on Natural History, Science and Theology which includes three early editions of Darwin's Origin of Species and a ground breaking work on the human brain by Marie Antionette's physician Vicq D'Azyr, illustrated with hand-coloured aquatints.
Viewing
Thursday 22nd August 10am-5pm and the morning of the sale from 8am
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