A single-owner collection of private press books produced a number of appealing lots in a wide-ranging Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of June 16-17.
Bidding reached £4400 each for two of the Kelmscott Press books offered: one of 300 paper copies of William Morris’ own News from Nowhere of 1892 and, more than doubling expectations, one of 350 paper copies of another of his works, The Wood Beyond the World of 1894.
One of 310 copies of the first book issued by the Vale Press, a clothbound 1896 edition of The Early Poems of John Milton featuring wood engraved frontispiece, ornaments and initials by Charles Ricketts, sold at £1700.
Illustrated by Paul Nash and bound to his design by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, a copy of 'Urne Buriall and the Garden of Cyrus' – £5600 at Dominic Winter.
Bid to £5600 was one of 250 copies on hand-made paper of Urne Buriall and the Garden of Cyrus by Sir Thomas Browne that was illustrated with pochoir coloured plates and text illustrations after drawings by Paul Nash.
The Sangorski & Sutcliffe binding was also designed by Nash.
The colophon of this copy also bore an inscription by the publisher, Desmond Flower: “Out of Series, for myself DF.”
A 1911 edition of 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' in a peacock binding – £8500 at Dominic Winter.
Sold at £8500 was an undated (but 1911) edition of Edward Fitzgerald’s English verse translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam that featured a peacock-decorated binding originally designed by Francis Sangorski for Sotherans.
The cataloguer suggested that it may have formed part of an edition of 25 such copies printed on Japanese vellum.
Dorothy Carleton Smyth’s binding for an 1898 edition of 'The Sundering Flood' – £1400 at Dominic Winter.
A painted vellucent, or transparent vellum binding made for an 1898, first trade edition of William Morris’ The Sundering Flood sold for £1400 as part of this same property. It was the work of Dorothy Carleton Smyth, one of five women employed by Cedric Chivers of Bath to design, illuminate and colour such vellum bindings.
Jenner letter
Bid to a mid-estimate £6000 was a previously unpublished letter in the hand of Edward Jenner.
It was sent in April 1802 to a Yorkshire physician, Dr John Glover Loy, following the appearance of a pamphlet (dedicated to Jenner) in which he had proved and underlined Jenner’s earlier assertions about the origins of cowpox, especially the fact that it stemmed from an equine disease known as ‘grease’ or horsepox.
Canine studies by Cecil Aldin in the Dominic Winter sale included 'A Position of Trust', a signed ink on ivorine drawing that made £3600.
Cities map
Among many cartographic lots in the South Cerney sale was a copy of John Rocque’s New and Accurate Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster… of 1748, the general key map and 16 other uncoloured double-page maps now held in a modern binding of half red morocco. It sold at £7000.
Presentation first edition of 'Two Hours to Doom' – £750 at Dominic Winter.
Among more modern works was a a presentation copy of Peter Bryant’s Two Hours to Doom.
Bearing a presentation inscription from the author, whose real name was Peter George, this was the book that inspired a much more famous film, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It sold at £750.
Illustrated in Previews, ATG No 2497, a board game of c.1855 based on a world map took £1500.
