In a rebacked later binding of mottled calf, it showed some loss to the famous map of Virginia (around the compass rose) and all four folding maps were laid down, re-hinged and strengthened to reverse. The title was trimmed and laid down.
The map section itself saw a £3200 bid from Cumming for a Moll New Description of England and Wales... of 1724, containing two folding general maps and 48 uncoloured county maps, each with borders featuring relevant buildings and antiquities.
A lengthy manuscript poem titled Historie of Edward II contained an endpaper note, dated 1720, that described it as the gift of Sarah Attwood, “...sister to ye authore Wm. Attwood”, and it was under Attwood’s name that it was initially catalogued, but though he may have written verses, this poem was not one of them and it was subsequently identified as the work of Sir Francis Hubert.
The freedom with which Hubert treated kings, favourites and affairs of state had led to his poem being at first refused a licence, and a “surreptitious and inaccurate” edition appeared in 1628, but Hubert issued an authentic version in 1629 and other editions followed in 1631 and, perhaps significantly in the light of that ownership note, in 1721.
Sold at £900 to Bruce Marshall was a 1736 edition (in contemporary calf gilt) of Captain Johnson’s ...Lives and Adventures of the Most famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street Robbers etc. and ...Most Notorious Pyrates, a work occasionally attributed to Defoe. This, was the copy sold last October at £2000 but returned as lacking the final text leaf.
Illustrated books included Rackham’s version of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, 1909, at £800 and one of 260 deluxe copies of a 1910 edition of Kingsley’s Water Babies illustrated by Warwick Goble, at £240 to Sotherans. A collection of Billy Bunter books, apparently a complete set and mostly firsts in dust jackets – though not the first – was sold at £500.
Sporting and natural history books included a Scrope ...Salmon Fishing on the Tweed, an 1843 first in half morocco and marbled boards, at £440 to Blackman Books.
Bonhams, Bath, January 21
Buyer’s premium: 15/10 per cent
For Attwood on Edward II – read Hubert
THOUGH not a first class copy, a 1632 edition offered as part of this first Bath sale of the year at Bonhams was still a highly desirable and scarce item and brought the day’s top bid of £17,000 from Maggs.
