Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week

Sotheby's Paris sells the seventh part of the R. & B. L. Library on Tuesday, October 9: First Editions, Reviews, Autograph Letters, and Manuscripts, in 313 lots. One of the very rare 1869 copies of Isidore Lucien Ducasse's Les chants de Maldoror is estimated at ??100,000-150,000, while six Mallarmé poems in manuscript could fetch ??80,000-120,000. An 1891 letter from Rimbaud to his sister Isabelle is estimated at ??80,000-100,000. A number of other Rimbaud and Mallarmé manuscripts also rate high estimates.

On Wednesday, October 10, Chiswick Auctions holds a sale of Autographs & Memorabilia, in 314 lots. Among the expected top lots are a December 1948 letter by Wallis Simpson (£5,000-7,000); a letter from Lord Nelson to Sir William Hamilton (£4,000-6,000); an original typed indictment from the Nuremberg Trials (£3,000-4,000); and a Charles Darwin letter to his cousin (£3,000-4,000).   

At PBA Galleries on Thursday, October 11, PBA Galleries sells Rare Golf Books & Memorabilia, in 234 lots. The rare 1891 Duffers' Golf Club Papers, in original wrappers, is estimated at $20,000-25,000. An 1873 volume of "golfing verse," Blackheath Golfing Lays, could sell for $10,000-15,000. Also on offer is the only known copy of the program for the 1910 U.S. Amateur Championship ($7,000-10,000), and a wooden measuring device from the Manchester Golf Club (also $7,000-10,000; pictured above).