Bloomsbury London held a Bibliophile sale yesterday, and the full list of results is available here. There were some bargains to be had, but there were also a few items which surpassed expectations:
- Lot 27, a third edition of Thomas Gage's New Survey of the West Indies (1677) bound with other travel accounts, made £3,000 (it had been estimated at £600-800).
- Lot 37, Willem Corneliszoon Schouten's Journal ou Relation Exacte du Voyage de Guille Schouten, dans les Indes (1618), described as "a disappointing copy of a rare book," sold for £4,600 (estimate £300-400).
- Lot 57, a very rare copy of Pufendorf's De Rebus a Carolo Gustavo ... (1729), including the "folding panoramic view of Stockholm on 13 joined sheets (c.4 metres in length), which depicts the funeral ceremonies of Charles X Gustav," fetched £3,800.
- Lot 172, Lord Byron's copy of an 1803 edition of Swift's Tale of a Tub, inscribed to the poet by his friend John Cam Hobhouse, made £3,200. The estimates on this (£400-600) seem quite low.
- And from the "are you kidding?" department, Lot 402, a first printing of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone which looks like it spent a couple years in an elementary school library (oh wait, it is an ex-library copy). It made £2,200, for reasons entirely passing understanding.
Bloomsbury London's next sale, Maps and Atlases, will be held on 11 September. There will be a Bibliophile Sale at Bloomsbury New York on 17-18 September, featuring a whopping 803 lots and including a large collection of Oziana, a first American edition of Jefferson's Notes, among other goodies.
