Auction Guide Autumn 2020 Peggy Carouthers

Delights for All Collectors

Hindman’s fall sales include a wide array of offerings.
Hindman

The Kelmscott Press edition of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896).

Coming off a strong spring season, Hindman, whose spring auction was 94 percent sold by lot and 113 percent sold by value, will hold two autumn sales featuring an array of fine books to captivate collectors across numerous categories. The first sale, Selections from the Library of Gerald and Barbara Weiner, will take place on October 8 at 10 a.m. Central and will include Americana, African Americana, natural history, literature, fine press books, and travel and exploration.

One of the highlights is The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, printed in 1896 by the Kelmscott Press. The book was a collaboration between several prominent nineteenth-century figures, including illustrations by celebrated painter Edward Burne-Jones and printing by William Morris. The copy was bound by Peter Franck for book dealer Philip Duschnes.

“This is the most important work printed by the Kelmscott Press,” said Gretchen Hause, director and senior specialist of books and manuscripts at Hindman. “Aside from fifty copies which were issued in a pigskin binding, most copies were issued in holland-backed boards; this copy’s vellum binding by Franck, a binder for the Roycrofters and Stikeman and Co., was commissioned by Duschnes. Franck considered it to be one of his finest bindings.”

Hindman

The first book on Kentucky, including the first biography of Daniel Boone, written by John Filson (1784).

The October sale will also include a first edition, presentation copy of Charles Darwin’s The Expression of the Emotions (1872), which includes an inscription in Darwin’s hand, rather than in the hand of a publisher’s clerk, which is more typical of Darwin’s presentation copies.

Other included works by Darwin include a presentation copy with an inscription in a publisher’s clerk’s hand of On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised (1862); A Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle, (1839); a first edition of On the Origin of Species (1859) with an autograph note signed laid in; and a signed autograph letter circa 1861. Shakespeare’s Fourth Folio will also be up for auction.

Hindman’s Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts sale will commence on November 12 at 10 a.m. Central, featuring works in many categories, including a fine selection of artists’ books; however, Hause calls the Americana offerings “particularly strong.”

Of note is a copy of John Filson’s The Discovery, Settlement and present State of Kentucke: … To which is added … The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon, published in 1784, which rarely appears at auction.

“Filson moved to Kentucky where he was a teacher and surveyor,” Hause said. “The text is followed by a biography of Daniel Boone’s life dictated by Boone. This first biography of Daniel Boone serves as a classic account of life on the frontier.”

Another significant work is Paul Éluard’s Un Poème dans Chaque Livre (1956). This finely bound limited edition book is one of 100 copies signed by some of the contributing artists, including Jean Arp, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, and others.

“This copy of Éluard’s work, with illustrations by the most important artists of the twentieth century, is in a fine binding signed by P. L. Martin,” Hause said. “The binding is decorated with a mosaic of horizontal bands of polished calf in a rainbow of colors. It is one of the finest bindings I’ve had the opportunity to handle since joining Hindman in 2017.”

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