Competition for rare first edition works of literature was fierce at Sotheby’s in London on October 28.
It was the first of a series of sales from “The Library of an English Bibliophile”. Many of the works on offer were inscribed by the authors to people who played a major part in their lives and their oeuvre. The sale realised £3,160,257, comfortably above the top estimate of £2,185,500-2,943,500.
The top lot was Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, 1843, inscribed to W.C. Macready. It made £181,250. An 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights made £163,250 and an 1813 edition of Pride and Prejudice sold for £139,250.
A 1922 version of Ulysses inscribed to Raymonde Linoissier made £121,250 and Poems 1920 inscribed by T.S. Eliot to Virginia Woolf made £91,250.
The quality of the works on offer drew bids from around the world. Prices include the buyer’s premium. Sotheby’s buyer’s premium is 25% of the hammer price on the first £25·000, 20% of the hammer price up to and including £500·000, and 12% thereafter on each lot.