A Dictionary of the English Language and The Comprehensive English Dictionary, £4200 at Anderson & Garland.
A copy from that year, in two volumes, folio, half calf, printed by W Strahan, was offered together with John Ogilvie’s 1867 The Comprehensive English Dictionary, 8vo, gilt morocco, at Newcastle saleroom Anderson & Garland (25% buyer’s premium) guided at £100-180 on March 22.
They had a provenance to the collection of Walter Leslie Runciman, 2nd Viscount Runciman of Doxford, a well-known member of the Runcimans, a Newcastle ship-owning and political family.
The Ogilvie work was marked ‘Presented to Walter Runciman on his leaving the neighbourhood of Cresswell by a few of his friends as a mark of their united respect 1874’. Seeing as Walter Leslie Runciman lived from 1900-89 this must have been a recent ancestor. His father was Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford (1870-1949). The grandfather was yet another Walter – Walter Runciman, 1st Baron Runciman – whose dates of 1847-1937 would fit in with the label.
The lot sold for £4200.
