Featured in a November 12-13 auction held by Hindman (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of Chicago, on the title page the printer/publisher has boldly noted that this English edition contains “…some Animadversions noting and taxing his errours”. Now in a modern calf binding, this copy had some borders shaved.
Illustrated above is the title-page of a 1557, first English language edition of the collected works of Sir Thomas More, as edited by his nephew, William Rastell, who during the reign of Edward VI was living as a Catholic exile in Louvain.
Though the names of John Cawood and John Wally appear on the title-page, it was in large part printed by Richard Tottell.
Somewhat wormed in a rebacked contemporary calf binding, this was a copy owned by Thomas, 1st Viscount Weymouth (164-1714) and passed by descent into the library of the Marquesses of Bath at Longleat.
It was offered at Sotheby’s in 1979 as part of the that library, but appears not to feature in printed auction records.
On this occasion it sold at $16,000 (£14,545).
Purrfect pic
Edward Gorey’s Bibliophile with Cats, sold for $750 (£575) at Hindman.
Reproduced on the rear cover of the sale catalogue was one of 136 lots that made up the Thomas J Barrett collection of the work of the American writer, artist and illustrator Edward Gorey (1925-2000).
One of 26 lettered and signed copies of Bibliophile with Cats, a coloured lithograph published in 1996, it sold at $750 (£575).
