The Hayhurst collection was formed by a gentleman who worked in the family pharmaceutical business until he was in his 50s. However, when the opportunity arose, he sold up to focus wholly on the antiquarian and other books that had since the age of 15 been his true passion.
He continued collecting well into his ‘80s, amassing a library of over 8000 volumes that include Elzevier and other early printed works (the focus of the first of these Yorkshire sales), travel and topography, naval history and Victorian literature and bindings.
The title-page of Elzevier’s 1647, first Latin text edition of Mathias Dögen’s Architectura Militaris Moderna… is valued at £2000-3000. Bound in contemporary speckled calf, it bears a bookplate indicating that it was once part of the Earl of Hopetoun’s library, sold by Sotheby’s back in 1889.
