Local interest lots that did sell included one of the late entries, a 1712 first of Sir Thomas Browne’s Repertorium, or some account of the Tombs and Monuments in the Cathedral Church of Norwich, bound in worn old calf and illustrated with 15 engraved plates, at £520.
Lacking one of the 200 engraved plates, a 1762 third edition of Chippendale’s The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director, was sold at £1250.
Illustrated with 16 coloured wood engraved plates by Richard Doyle, but loose in worn and soiled pictorial cloth, an 1870 first of In Fairyland was sold at £440.
A copy of the first Giles Annual of 1946 brought a bid of £240 and a couple of early Dick Francis novels, Nerve of 1964 and For Kicks of the following year, both in jackets, made £360 and £420.
Top right: 36 vols. of Smith & Sowerby’s English Botany, 1790-1814 (containing 2592 coloured plates) sold for £3600 in Aylsham, where a 1724 first edition of Switzer’s Practical Fruit Gardener..., illustrated with three folding engraved plates and in old black calf, made £500.
An Aylsham Selection
The Norfolk auctioneers Keys got a lot of media exposure in March when they took a bid of £22,000 for a collection of letters, cards, etc, written by the late Diana, Princess of Wales, to a Mrs Pendrey, a long-term employee and friend from her Althorp days, but in this sale another small selection of letters, apparently from the same source, failed to sell against an estimate of £7500-10,000.
