Highlights from our forthcoming book sales

Lot 69 - Stein (Sir Auel). Innermost Asia, 1st edition, 3 volumes, 1928

A large number of scarce texts issued in French, German, Russian and other European languages, includes Sarre and Herzfeld’s Archäologische Reise im Euphrat & Tigris-Gebiet, 4 volumes, 1911-20, a survey of the Islamic sites of Mesopotamia, as well as Albert Gabriel’s Monuments Turcs d'Anatolie, published in two volumes between 1931 and 1934, and Voyages Archéologiques dans la Turquie Orientale, also two volumes, issued in 1940. All lots carry David Talbot Rice’s bookplate and many volumes contain typescript of reviews written by David or Tamara Talbot Rice on the particular work in question or have original correspondence between them and the author loosely inserted.

Following this is Part I of Fine Bird Books from the Library of David Clugston. Featuring a range of beautifully illustrated bird books of the 19th and early 20th century, from the collection of the dedicated ornithologist David Clugston (lots 101-151). David has (with slight reluctance!) decided to dispose of his important specialist ornithological library, in the hope and expectation that they will continue to be treasured by future enthusiasts.

Amongst them are classics of the literature, including James Bolton’s Harmonia Ruralis, or Natural History of British Song Birds in its second edition of 1824 (lot 101, £1,000-£1,500), E. T. Booth’s Rough Notes on the Birds in the British Islands, a three volume record of his field notes, for which the author collected and prepared his own specimens (lot 102, £1,500-2,000), a fine author’s presentation copy of Henry Dresser’s Monograph of the Coraciidae (1893), with hand coloured lithographs by the well-known wildlife artist J. G. Keulemans (lot 110, £2,000-£3,000).

Lot 101 - Bolton (James). Harmonia Ruralis. A Natural History of British Song Birds, 2 vols., 2nd ed., 1824

Lot 102 - Booth (Edward Thomas). Rough Notes on the Birds Observed..., 3 vols., 1881-87

Lot 110 - Dresser (Henry Eeles). A Monograph of the Coraciidae, 1st edition, 1893, presentation copy

From the same epoch is a very good copy of Bowdler Sharpe and Wyatt’s Monograph of the Hirundinidae or Family of Swallows (lot 144, £1,500-£2,000) issued by the London booksellers and publishers Sotheran’s in two volumes in 1885 and 1894, containing over one hundred fine hand coloured lithographs as well as distribution maps.

Lot 144 - Sharpe & Wyatt. A Monograph of the Hirundinidae, 2 volumes, 1st edition, 1885-94

Monographs on individual species include Hugh Strickland’s 1848 Dodo and it’s Kindred for which there were only 127 original subscribers, making this a rare work (lot 145, £1,000-£1,500), Walter Rothschild’s Monograph of the Genus Casuarius, or Cassowary, native to Australia, the first detailed study of this large flightless bird, published in 1900 (lot 138, £1,000-£1,500).  The collection includes autograph letters by John Gould as well as examples of his fine lithographic plates, and many other important illustrated works, making this a rare opportunity to acquire rare works from the golden era of British ornithological publishing.

Lot 145 - Strickland (Hugh Edwin, and Alexander Gordon Melville). The Dodo and its Kindred, 1st edition, 1848

Lot 138 - Rothschild (Walter). A Monograph of the Genus Casuarius..., 1900

We are also delighted to offer a wide range of unusual books covering demonology, sorcery,  witchcraft, mesmerism, spirit photography and related subjects, all of which come from a private collection.

Amongst the highlights are The True Narrative of a Young Girle Strangely Molested by Evil Spirits… collected from authentic testimonies, published in Edinburgh in 1698, a contemporary printed account of a eleven year old girl called Christian Shaw, who accused numerous people of bewitching her in 1696, resulting in a trial in Paisley in 1697, where seven men and women were found guilty, and hanged and burned, some of whom were still alive during their punishment. This rare first edition carries an estimate of £400-£600 (lot 342).

Lot 342 - [Grant, Francis, Lord Cullen]. A True Narrative of the Sufferings and Relief of a young girle, 1698

Even earlier is a second edition in French of Henri Boguet’s Discours des Sorciers, published in Lyon in 1608, which is offered with another similar work in French by Jean Bodin entitled La Demonomanie des Sorciers, a rare 1604 reissue in Rouen of this famous treatise on demonology which had first been published in 1580. Boguet’s work is rare partly because copies are believed to have been burnt by his heirs. A lawyer and Grand Justice in Burgundy during the witchcraft mania that engulfed Europe at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, Boguet provides instructions to judges in cases of sorcery, and describes in detail the evil practices of witches, including one Francoise Secretain, who met with demons and took the devil for her lover (lot 336, £400-£600).

Lot 336 - Boguet (Henry). Discours des Sorciers, 1608, and another work on demonology

Pierre de Lancre’s 1613 Tableau de l'Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons is the second revised edition of a treatise describing the famous Labourd witchhunt of 1609 in the French Basque country during which some seventy individuals were burned at the stake, including several members of the clergy over the course of a single year (lot 345, £1,500-£2,000).

Lot 345 - Lancre (Pierre de). Tableau de L'Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons, 2nd edition, 1613

Other early texts include a 1690 edition of The Prophecies of Nostradamus (lot 349, £300-£400), and the correspondence of the German physician Franz Mesmer (1734-1815), father of animal magnetism, or Mesmerism (lot 348, £200-£300).

Lot 348 - Mesmer (Franz Anton). Correspondance de M. M... sur les Nouvelles Decouverts, 1st edition, 1785

From the 19th century come works on spiritualism and spirit photography, including Georgiana Houghton’s Chronicles of the Photographs of Spiritual Beings, a first edition published in London in 1882 which contains six photographs of spiritual phenomena caught on camera (lot 343, £300-£500).

Lot 343 - Houghton (Georgiana). Chronicles of the Photographs of Spiritual Beings, 1st edition, 1882

Another well-known exponent of spirit photography was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famous of the author of the Hound of the Baskervilles, whose 1922 publication The Case for Spirit Photography is here offered in an author’s presentation copy, inscribed to the upper wrapper ‘with A. Conan Doyle’s Compliments’ (lot 339, £200-£300).

Lot 339 - Doyle (Arthur Conan). The Case for Spirit Photography, 1st edition, 1922

A study of hypnotism by the French author Jules Bernard Luys, entitled Les Émotions chez les Hypnotiques of 1888, is a rare text which includes actual mounted photographs of hypnotised subjects (lot 347, 300-£500).

Lot 347 - Luys (Jules Bernard). Les Émotions chez les Hypnotiques, 2nd edition, 1888

Other texts in French include Alexis Berbiguier’s Les Farfadets, a three volume work of 1821, in which the author describes his lifelong fight with imps or goblins who continuously tormented him, the chief amongst whom was one called Rhotomago, from whom he received written correspondence.  Berbiguier apparently was able to capture some of these imps and confine them in bottles. The author, considered a fou littéraire, was eventually committed to the Salpêtrière hospital. Berbiguier became the model for Théophile Gautier’s Fantastic Story of Onuphrius, and Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pécuchet (lot 335, £300-£500).

Lot 335 - Berbiguier (Alexis Vincent Charles). Les Farfadets, 3 volumes, 1st edition, 1821

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info@dominicwinter.co.uk 

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