Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week

Image: Sotheby's

First edition of Machiavelli's Il Principe offered at Sotheby's London this week.

Here are the sales I'll be watching this week:

At Aguttes on Monday, June 14, Guerre de 1870–1871 (Aristophil 41), in 515 lots.

Courtesty of Sotheby's

Danish binding on Machiavelli first edition.

Sotheby's London's sale of Antiquarian Books and Manuscripts ends on Tuesday, June 15. The 265 lots include a second edition (1532) of Machiavelli's Il Principe, in a distinctive eighteenth-century Danish binding (£70,000–90,000); a first edition of Giordano Bruno's Candelaio Comedia (1582), estimated at £40,000–50,000; and a late fifteenth-century manuscript Book of Hours, use of Rheims, on vellum (£30,000–40,000).

On Wednesday, June 16, Printed Books, Maps & Documents at Dominic Winter Auctioneers, in 425 lots. An unpublished 1802 Edward Jenner letter to Yorkshire physician John Glover Loy about vaccination is expected to lead the way at £5,000–8,000. John Rocque's New and Accurate Survey of the Cities of London (1748) could sell for £3,000–5,000. A large collection of Edward Barnett's design drawings for silversmith Nathaniel Mills is estimated at £2,000–3,000.

Also at Dominic Winter on Thursday, June 17, 248 lots of Private Press, Children's & Illustrated Books and Modern First Editions. A first issue copy of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale rates the top estimate, at £10,000–15,000. The 1657 French book of engravings for children, Jacques Stella's Les Jeux et Plaisris de l'Enfance could sell for £3,000–4,000. The Kelmscott Press edition of William Morris' News from Nowhere (1892) is also estimated at £3,000–4,000.

Bonhams New York sells 152 lots of Fine Books and Manuscripts on Thursday. Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza's c.1650 clandestinely printed memorial to King Philip IV of Spain in defense of the indigenous peoples of New Spain, Virtudes del Indio, is estimated at $80,000–120,000, and a particularly nice copy of the first edition of Gulliver's Travels could sell in the same range. A copy of the first issue of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, from the Michael Anderson Collection, could fetch $30,000–50,000. A rare complete copy of James Lyon's Urania (Philadelphia, 1761), the first book of printed music by an American, is estimated at $20,000–30,000.

At Swann Galleries on Thursday, Fine Books & Autographs, in 315 lots. Sharing the top estimate at $15,000–20,000 are a copy of the deluxe 1936 Bodley Head edition of Ulysses and a presentation copy of Alighiero Boetti and Anne-Marie Sauzeau-Boetti's Classifying the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World.

Rounds out Thursday's sales, 279 lots of Books in All Fields – Americana – Maps at PBA Galleries. Most lots start at $10.

On Saturday, June 19, Donald Heald Auctions sells 210 lots of Rare Antiquarian and Illustrated Books. Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1785), with both the text and atlas volumes, could fetch $18,000–25,000, while John Gould's Monograph of the Odontophorinae, or Partridges of America (1850) is estimated at $15,000–20,000.