Chiswick Auctions’ Books sale, on May the 14th, is wide-ranging and features a number of highlights.
The food and drink section includes The English Vineyard Vindicated, with a probable manuscript correction by author John Evelyn, who wrote under the instruction of John Rose, the King’s Gardener. The rarity of this first edition of 1666, printed ‘at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard’, is often attributed to the Great Fire of London. Also included is a pioneering work on ethical vegetarianism published in 1683, namely Thomas Tryon’s The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness. For Tryon, who had visited Barbados and been horrified by slavery, vegetarianism formed part of a broader reaction against humanity’s evils.
Under English Literature, we have a first edition of John Keats’s Lamia, containing ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, ‘Ode to Psyche’, and ‘Ode to Melancholy’. His last and most important book, it was published in July 1820, less than a year before his tragic death from tuberculosis in Rome.
The sale also features an original design by artist William Nicholson, depicting a boxing match. The famous image illustrated the month of November in An Almanac of Twelve Sports (1898), with verse provided by Rudyard Kipling.
In the Travel section, highlights include six watercolours by James Wathen from his Voyage, in 1811 and 1812, to Madras and China, which a contemporary reviewer argued “will be followed by the reader and the gazer with much gratification”. This section also includes a first French edition of Cornelis De Bruyn’s account of his circuitous voyage to Persia, with numerous striking illustrations and panoramas of Moscow and Isfahan.
Lot 99 - Whalley, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, 1791
Sold for £252
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 100 - [Roupell] [Cape Flowers by a Lady] Specimens of the flora of South Africa. 1849.
Estimated at £2,000 - £3,000
Lot 103 - Audubon (John James) The Birds of America, Ariel Press, 1972-73
Sold for £1,008
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 105 - Bergius, (Peter Jonas) Descriptiones plantarum ex Capite Bone Spe, 1767
Estimated at £500 - £700
Lot 109 - Breyne, Jakob. Prodromi fasciculi rariorum plantarum primus et secundus 1739
Sold for £1,512
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 112 - Darwin. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, NY 1860
Sold for £945
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 113 - Darwin. On the Origin of Species, first American edition , second issue, 1860
Sold for £1,260
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 118 - Gerard.The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, 1636
Sold for £2,268
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 121 - Heresbach (Conrad) Foure Bookes of Husbandrie, 1586
Sold for £819
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 122 - Herman. Paradisus Batavus, Innumeris Exoticic Curiosis Herbis, 1755
Sold for £315
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 129 - Sweet.Geraniaceae. The Natural Order of Gerania, 1830-40
Sold for £2,772
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 130 - Trattinnicks. Neue Arten von Pelargonien deutschen Ursprunges, 1825-43
Sold for £3,150
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 135 - Manuscript Notebook of ‘List of Plants’ & [Development of grapes for Wine] [c. 1700]
Sold for £756
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 154 - Marx & Engles. Manifesto of the Communist Party. 5th ed. 1888
Estimated at £1,000 - £1,200
Lot 168 - Powell. ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’, 10 first ed.
Sold for £554
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 170 - Ballet: Mayo (Eileen, illustrator) Serge Lifar, Number 289 of 500 copies, 1928.
Sold for £151
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 171 - Hernández (Mateo), Ésope. Fables choisies, inscribed to Katherine Chapin
Sold for £378
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 174 - Vatican Secret Archives, Knights Templar: Processus Contra Templarios
Sold for £1,134
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 176 - Ceramics. Krahl. The Anthony de Rothschild Collection of Chinese Ceramics. 1996
Sold for £378
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 179 - Collection of Victorian Scrap Albums, Photograph Album
Sold for £252
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 182 - Knight.The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Italy.1842-44
Sold for £554
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 184 - Palmer (Samuel), J. E. Millais and others, Etchings for the Art-Union of London, 1872
Sold for £378
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 185 - Tulk (Charles Augustus), patron to William Blake and John Flaxman: album
Estimated at £1,000 - £1,500
Lot 189 - Children’s and illustrated literature: Lewis Carroll
Sold for £277
Includes Buyer's Premium
Lot 190 - Dulac (Edmund, illustrator) Arabische Nächte, one of 100 copies, 1913
Estimated at £300 - £400
Lot 192 - Milne. House at Pooh Corner; Christopher Robin Birthday Book, 1928, 1930
Sold for £252
Includes Buyer's Premium