Sold for what appears to be a record £1450 in the smaller, July 20 sale was an ex-library copy of Owen Jones’ Examples of Chinese Ornaments selected from Objects in the South Kensington Museum and other Collections.
In a worn, soiled and broken binding and with other internal defects, it nevertheless presented the full complement of pictorial title and 99 other chromolitho plates (one shown above).
One item in the August 24-25 sale, a copy of Maurice Gorham’s The Local of 1939, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, that made £420 was featured in last week’s issue (ATG No 2307).
Other notable lots – all of them registering record prices, it appears – included an 1892 first of Sir Francis Galton’s pioneering work on Finger Prints, at £500, and a 1949 first of LDA Hussey’s South with Shackleton, at £240 (above).
Magic textbook
A copy of The Necronomicon sold at £420. A fictional grimoire or magic textbook, the latter purports to be the work of Abdul Alhazred, aka ‘The Mad Arab’, but was the creation of HP Lovecraft and his followers.
Published in this instance in 1977 – and part of an edition of 666 copies, of course – it was lotted with a 1989 first of Ruth Martin’s Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice 1550-1650.
