23rd Aug, 2024 10:30 GMT/BST
Ralegh (Sir Walter).
The History of the World, In Five Bookes ….
Walter Burre, 1614 [1621], folio in sixes, [iv], 36, [60], 184, 181-556, 510, 515-670, [54] pages including title with engraved portrait and ‘The Minde of the Front’ leaf. Irregular pagination but text and register continuous. Engraved frontis (dated 1614), five double-page maps (?of six) and two double-page battle plans. Colophon on final page dated 1621.
Several pages of the introductory ‘Life’ printed close to fore-edge resulting in the partial cropping of a few page numbers. Closed tear to J6, 5mm hole in 3N4 and 5Q1, two 5mm holes in 3R6, minor annotation in pencil, age tanning, occasional minor staining but generally a very good copy. Modern quarter morocco binding with marbled paper boards.
Sold for £380
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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