Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week
On Wednesday, September 12, Dominic Winter Auctioneers holds a thirtieth-anniversary sale of Fine Books & Manuscripts, in 180 lots. The top-estimated lot at £20,000-30,000 is a set of the first state of John Lenthall's engraved playing cards featuring a map of England, from around 1717 (pictured below). The set includes 49 of the 52 cards; no other set with as many cards is known. A set of Roberts' The Holy Land could fetch £15,000-25,000, while the first six volumes of Bloch's Ichthyologie is estimated at £12,000-15,000. An interesting C.S. Lewis letter to a group of schoolchildren could sell for £3,000-5,000, and a lovely embroidered binding on a 1637 Bible is estimated at £2,000-3,000.
Heritage Auctions holds a Rare Books & Maps Signature Auction on Thursday, September 13, in 342 lots. A rare 1799 reissue of the 1787 New York edition of The Federalist has a $35,000 reserve. (More on that, including comments from collector Michael Zinman, here in our autumn auction guide.) A run of The Strand Magazine featuring all of the Sherlock Holmes stories published there has a $33,000 reserve. Also on the block are an eleven-volume set of Audubon's Birds and Quadrupeds, several Borges manuscripts (lots 45024-45027), a number of Dickens books in parts as well as several books from Dickens' library, and a Bible from the family of H.P. Lovecraft.
Also on Thursday: rare books and manuscripts at Waverly Rare Books in Falls Church, VIrginia, including early printed books, fine bindings, autographs, Americana, and more.
