There was a Valuable Manuscripts & Printed Books sale at Christie's London today, and the results are now in. As expected, the high spot was the Shakespeare First Folio, which even in imperfect condition did beat the estimate and sold for $873,581. Charles Dickens' desk, the runner-up, absolutely obliterated its estimates ($97,600-156,160), selling for a whopping $850,037.
The Second Folio failed to sell, while the Fourth fetched $101,337. A 1613 Hortus Eystettensis by Besler (a grand - perhaps the grandest - florilegium) made $426,245.
A draft of Churchill's famous "The Few" speech containing his handwritten edits sold for $273,209. Copernicus' De Revolutionibus (the 1566 second edition) sold for $68,376, and the first edition of Darwin's Origin of Species made $108,401.
