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THE most important early printed book to be offered this century – Virgil’s Opera printed in 1470 – comes up at Christie’s in London on June 12.  The Aeneid by Virgil (70-19 B.C.) is the foundation stone of western literature. Christie’s say this is the earliest edition a collector could ever aspire to own. It is the textually superior second edition, printed in Venice in 1470 within a year of the beginning of printing in that city. An indication of its rarity is that the last copy to come on the market was sold in 1920 and was lacking nine leaves.  This newly discovered copy, complete and printed on vellum, is estimated at £500,000-800,000.

Christie’s sale of Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts features a pre-publication edition of Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.  This copy was presented to Sir Fitzroy Maclean, the soldier, writer, and politician, who is considered to be an inspiration to Ian Fleming for the character of James Bond, and is estimated at £18,000-25,000.  A telegram sent by Lenin on April 6, 1917 to announce his departure from exile in Switzerland  to French socialist Henri Guilbeaux in Geneva is estimated at £20,000-30,000.

The sale will feature a collection of illuminated letters by Englishman William Burges, the leading 19th century gothic revivalist architect and designer whose first major commission was St. Finn Barre’s Cathedral in Cork.  The earliest known surviving works by Burges, written when he was just 13 years old, are estimated at £7,000-9,000.