Books and Works on Paper (Bloomsbury Auctions)

280 Lots offered.

Among the most interesting lots on offer is the very rare first edition of Frederich Spee’s Cautio Criminalis, an attack on the wave of witch-hunts and the use of torture in Germany in the 1620s that led to the brutal torture and execution of hundreds of women, men and children.  Published anonymously, Spee’s work, the first of its kind, has been recognized as “one of the most stirring examples of an individual speaking truth to power” (Marcus Hellyer). (Very rare. Searching rarebookhub and ABPC yields just one auction result.) The estimate is £2000-3000 (lot 7). Interested in witches? Sokol Books has a first edition of the exceptionally rare Discoverie of Witchcraft.

Lot 176 is a 1972 Cambridge University Press facsimile of the important third edition of Newton’s Principia, the last edition published in Newton’s lifetime and the basis for all subsequent editions. For collectors interested in acquiring the 1726 edition itself, Milestones of Science offers a large paper copy in contemporary calf for €29,000. 

Lot 252 is a rare collection of photographs by Henry Ponting, published in 1905 by Ogawa Kazuma. “One of his main achievements was to develop the collotype as a means of attaining a wider audience than was obtainable through the souvenir albums that were so popular at the time. Herbert Ponting, the photographer, is perhaps best known for his photographs of the 1910 Antarctic Expedition, but he lived in Japan from 1901 to 1906 resulting in at least two books” (Bloomsbury’s cataloguer note). Estimate is £500-700.

Subjects in the sale include English Literature (50 lots), Travel & Topography (39 lots), Children’s & Illustrated books (29 lots), Modern first editions (20 lots), Maps (20 lots), Continental Literature (17 lots), Natural history (10 lots), and Art & Architecture (7 lots). 

A short list of popular modern first editions in the sale:

Lot 68.  A set of C.S. Lewis’s The Narnia Chronicles in 7 volumes with dust jackets (‘sympathetic & skillful restoration’). Est. £5000–7000.

Lot 83. A decent copy of the first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (the third issue). Est. £2000–3000.

Lot 80. Rowling (J.K.) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. First edition, first impression, signed by the author on front free endpaper. Est. £1500–2000.

Lot 65. Heaney (Seamus). Wintering Out. First edition, inscribed with autograph quatrain from Heaney to Ivan Gilman. Est. £400–600.

Lot 71. McCarthy (Cormac). [The Border Trilogy]. First editions of All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain. Est. £200–300.