With everything from Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey by Robert Walpole, London 1817 to an extraordinary 18th/19th century botanical survivor – the complete editions of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine with 10,700 plates – the Companion to the magazine and its successor Kew to a finely executed pencil drawing by John Ruskin of Oxford Cathedral Fonsie Mealy’s sale of the Library of Howth Castle on September 22 and 23 promises to be another humdinger. The sale of contents from the castle by Fonsie Mealy earlier this month realised over €2 million. In a note to the catalogue Julian Gaisford St. Lawrence notes that the large library at Howth and to adjacent book room were added to the house in 1910 by Sir Edwin Lutyens. He notes that the Earls of Howth owned books but were not scholars or academics, the distaff Gaisfords were serious collectors.
Bibliophiles will have a once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire multiple rare and once off treasures from their collections at the two day live online auction of 1,082 lots.
UPDATE: The complete editions of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine was bid to €30,000 and was then withdrawn.