Signed Tolkien, Gingerich's Astronomy Library, Early Hippocrates: Auction Preview

Image: Christie's

A first edition of Johannes Kepler's Astronomia nova (1609), offered at Christie's this week as part of the astronomical library of Owen Gingerich.

Here's what I'll be watching this week:

At The Auction Room London on Tuesday, January 28, 148 lots in a Single Owner Antiquarian Library Sale, including extra-illustrated sets of Clarendon's History of the Rebellion (1707) and Burnet's History of His Own Time (1724–1734) in uniform bindings for the Duke of Newcastle (£7,000–10,000); Goltzius' Lebendige Bilder garnach alle Keysern (1557) illustrated with chiaroscuro woodcuts (£4,000–6,000); and a copy of the 1753 Duncan translation of Caesar's Commentaries (£4,000–6,000).

Ending on Tuesday, the Christie's online sale of Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts including Americana. Among the 231 lots are incunabula from the collection of Eugene Flamm, as well as highlights from Owen Gingerich's astronomy library. From the latter comes a first edition of Kepler's Astronomia nova (1609), expected to lead the sale at $120,000–180,000. From the former, a copy of Pliny the Elder's Historia naturalis (1476), the first edition in Italian with contemporary illuminated initials and penwork ($100,000–150,000). Copy #75 of the first edition of Joyce's Ulysses (1922), in a Bayntun-Rivière binding and with interesting provenance, is estimated at the same range.

On Wednesday, January 29, Dominic Winter Auctioneers sell 490 lots of Early Printed Books & Manuscripts, Science, Economics & Philosophy, Maps, Prints & Ex-Libris. Rating the top estimate is a copy of the first complete Latin edition of the works of Hippocrates (1525), at £10,000–15,000. A second issue copy of Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620) could fetch £6,000–8,000, and a third edition of Lydgate's translation of Boccaccio's treatise on the downfalls of "sondry most notable Princes and Princesses" (1554) is estimated at £3,000–5,000. 

At University Archives on Wednesday, Rare Autographs, Manuscripts, Books & Memorabilia, in 457 lots. A large group of more than seventy original etching plates and woodblocks collected by a New York art dealer and ranging from 1887 to 1975 (by artists including Chagall, Braque, Picasso and others) is estimated at $100,000–150,000. A 2011 signed manuscript by Bob Dylan of the lyrics for "Blowing in the Wind" could sell for $60,000–70,000.

Freeman's | Hindman sells 62 lots of Printed and Manuscript Americana in Philadelphia on Wednesday, with a first edition on regular paper of The Federalist (1788) estimated at $60,000–90,000. Sharing an estimate of $40,000–60,000 are William Birch's The City of Philadelphia (1800), with the prospectus, and John Eliot's New Englands First Fruits (1643).

At Forum Auctions on Thursday, January 30, Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper, in 227 lots. A set of all three Lord of the Rings books, each a first impression copy and each signed by Tolkien, these believed to have been given to the sales and marketing manager at Allen and Unwin, Leslie Berry, is estimated at £70,000–90,000. Another set, also first impressions but not signed, could sell for £20,000–30,000.