View of the first edition of Ibn Butlan’s Tacuini sanitatis printed by Johann Schott in Strasbourg in 1531 which fetched the second-highest price recorded at auction at £26,000 in Forum’s sale.
A first edition of a popular medieval guide to health and wellbeing led Forum’s (26/25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale on November 30.
The 1531 printing of the Tacuini sanitatis attracted bids above its £15,000-20,000 estimate to sell for £26,000 hammer, the second-highest auction record for this work.
The treatise was originally written in the 11th century by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad, a Christian physician, who attempted to summarise medical knowledge in the form of synoptic tables.
View of the first edition of Ibn Butlan’s Tacuini sanitatis printed by Johann Schott in Strasbourg in 1531 which fetched the second-highest price recorded at auction at £26,000 in Forum’s sale.
The work was copied widely in the Middle East before being transmitted to Western Europe where it was translated into Latin and circulated in manuscript form between the 13th and 15th centuries. In the early 16th century the work came to the attention of the humanist printer Johannes Schott of Strasbourg who published the text for the first time accompanied by woodcut illustrations by Hans Weiditz.
View of the first edition of Ibn Butlan’s Tacuini sanitatis printed by Johann Schott in Strasbourg in 1531 which fetched the second-highest price recorded at auction at £26,000 in Forum’s sale.
The work describes the beneficial and harmful properties of different foods and plants and the six essential elements for well-being: food and drink in moderation, fresh air, alternating activity and rest, the right amount of sleep and wakefulness, secretions and excretions of humours, and balancing the emotions. The work is of particular interest for the study of medieval medicine, agriculture and cookery.
Pioneering work
Rare copy of the first published Hasidic book, the Toledot Ya’akov Yoseph, published in Korets in 1780, which fetched £23,000 at Forum.
A first edition of Toledot Ya’akov Yoseph, 1780, the first published Hasidic book, fetched £23,000 hammer (estimate £10,000-15,000) despite much of the title and one leaf of text supplied in facsimile.
This book was printed in the city of Korets in Ukraine and only a small number of copies appear to have survived. The only other example that has appeared at auction was a copy sold in 2019 by Genazym auction house in New York described as “fine and complete” which fetched $93,600 including premium.
Finding pleasure
A new auction record was set at Forum for the second French translation of John Cleland’s famous erotic novel Fanny Hill titled in French Nouvelle traduction de Woman of Pleasur, ou Fille de Joie, printed in Paris in 1776 and illustrated with fine engravings by Elluin after Borel. The winning bid was £16,000.
Among literary works in the Forum sale was a second French translation of John Cleland’s celebrated erotic novel Fanny Hill, published surreptitiously in 1776 as Nouvelle traduction de Woman of Pleasur, ou Fille de Joie with a false imprint to avoid prosecution. It stated the book was printed in London by G Fenton, when it was really printed in Paris, possibly by Cazin.
This edition is considered to be the most sought-after 18th century edition due to the fine engraved plates by Elluin after Borel.
The combined factors of condition, illustrations, contemporary morocco binding and scarcity attracted a number of bidders who drove the bids above the £10,000-£15,000 estimate to set an auction record at £16,000.
Controversial figure
Single autograph manuscript page of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sold for five times the top estimate at £10,000 in Forum's auction. No other manuscript by Dahl of any of his children’s books has appeared at auction before so this set a new record for a Dahl manuscript.
An unexpected highlight of modern literature was a single autograph manuscript page from the final draft of Roald Dahl’s much-loved children’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory beginning “Chapter Twenty-Nine. Mike Teevee is Sent by Television” dated to c.1963. This was accompanied by an autograph letter signed by Dahl gifting the page to a Colin Huggett.
Manuscripts of literary works by Dahl are rare at auction and the only other examples to have appeared are a 28-page manuscript of his story Taste (1951), about wine, written for the New Yorker, which sold in 1982 for £715 (including premium) and two drafts for his screenplay of You Only Live Twice which sold in 1987 for £2420 (including premium).
Forum estimated the single page of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at £1500-2000 which was soon surpassed and the winning bid was five times the top estimate at £10,000.
No information was provided by the auction house about the original recipient of the document, but it would appear that Mr Huggett of Tregarth frequently sent letters to famous authors requesting them to sign their books for him and asking for original material, ostensibly as an admirer, for his private collection, but it seems his true intention was to sell them on for personal gain.
Auction and institutional records show that Huggett received signed books and letters from RS Thomas, Samuel Beckett, Frederic Dannay, David Gascoyne, Graham Greene, Jack Lindsay and Philip Larkin.
Larkin actually sent a letter of complaint to Huggett in 1972, upset that his inscribed copy of All What Jazz had appeared in a dealer’s catalogue: “..I can imagine that to ask an author to sign our copy of his book, on the pretence of enjoying or admiring it, and then to sell this copy to a secondhand bookseller, may seem a clever way of making money. I think I should tell you that it is also regarded as a mean and contemptible way…” (this letter was later sold at Sotheby’s in 2017 for £438 including premium).
Dickens and Tolkien
A very good copy of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843), first edition, first issue, in the publisher’s brown cloth realised a mid-estimate £15,000 at Forum.
Among other literary highlights at Forum were a bright copy in the original cloth of Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas story A Christmas Carol, 1843, sold at the mid-estimate for £15,000, and a first edition, first impression of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit in the original cloth which soared above its £8,000-12,000 estimate to take £19,000 hammer.
This copy of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit was a first edition, first impression, in the publisher’s cloth attracted many bids to sell for £19,000 hammer at Forum, well above the estimate of £8000-12,000.
