 |
 |
This presentation copy of The Untilled Field by George Moore to the Liberal British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith is currently with London booksellers Peter Harrington, priced at £500. It is inscribed on the half-title “To the Right Hon’ble Henry Asquith, with many kind regards, George Moore, October 23 1914”. Like Moore, Asquith was a moderate supporter of Home Rule for Ireland, which may have spurred the presentation of the volume, a major publication in the Celtic Revival.
A rare copy of La Vita Nuova by Dante illustrated by the Dublin born artist Phoebe Anna Traquair (1852-1936) is available at London booksellers Peter Harrington with a price tag of £1,500 (€1,748). The first edition is one of 150 copies of a finely printed photographic reproduction of Traquair’s illuminated manuscript. A key figure in the Arts and Crafts movement Traquairs best known work is Mansfield Place Church, which has been described as Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel.
Sir Edward Barry’s wine observations
The earliest major work in English on the wines of the ancients, and the first book in English that discusses modern wines is among the current offerings from London specialist booksellers Peter Harrington. It was written in the 18th century by Dublin based Professor Edward Barry.
A doctor by training Edward Barry served as physician-general to the forces in Ireland, and professor of physic in the University of Dublin 1745-61. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1732 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1740 and its president in 1749. He entered the Irish House of Commons in 1744, representing Charleville in Co. Cork until 1760.
The first and only edition of Sir Edward Barry’s Observations, historical, critical and medical on the Wines of the Ancients 1775 is priced at £2,250.
A first edition of an early critique by Samuel Beckett with and about James Joyce is available with London rare booksellers Peter Harrington. Published by Shakespeare and Company in 1929 “Our Exagmination Round his Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress” comes with letters of protest by G. V. L. Slingsby and Vladimir Dixon. This is copy 45 of 96 large numbered copies printed on Verge d’Arches. This early critique of Joyce’s final work was published some 10 years prior to the publication of Finnegan’s Wake. Part of the incentive to publish was apparently to raise funds for the perennially impecunious Joyce. A myth surrounding this work is that one or both of the two letters of protest were written by Joyce himself. However both authors existed – indeed Beach herself commissioned Slingsby. Dixon’s effort was an unsolicited one by a Russian émigré who was to die in Paris in 1929, just as the book was published. 