Unpublished Beethoven Manuscript and Virginia Woolf’s Copy of Far From the Madding Crowd to Auction
Sotheby's
Sir Alec Guiness’s annotated copy of Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Sir Alec Guinness’s annotated copy of Hamlet, Virginia Woolf's copy of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, and Beethoven's autograph sketches for the overture Die Weihe des Hauses will go under the hammer at Sotheby's next month.
Shelf Life: Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper from the Library of Stanley J. Seeger & Christopher Cone will run online June 23 through July 7. Leading the sale will be Ludwig van Beethoven's four-page manuscript sketch-draft for the overture The Consecration of the House which has an estimate of £150,000-£200,000.
The manuscript presents in score form, in a mixture of ink and pencil, and represent the only autograph material for the overture surviving in private hands as all other known autograph sources are preserved in European institutions. It once belonged to the great 19th century opera singer Jenny Lind, known as the 'Swedish Nightingale'.
Virginia Woolf was a keen reader of Thomas Hardy's work and believed his Far From the Madding Crowd was his finest novel. She bought this copy (London: Macmillan, 1908) in her 20s - it is not a first edition and its covers are worn through repeated rereading. When she Woolf travelled to Hardy’s home in Dorset for their first and only meeting, it was Far From the Madding Crowd and presumably this copy that she read on the train from London.
Books from Woolf’s library are rare at auction, and she evidently acquired this volume while she was still Virginia Stephen, before her marriage to Leonard Woolf in 1912 as it is signed "V. Stephen" on the front endpaper. The estimate is £8,000-£12,000.
1/5
Sotheby's
Virginia Woolf's copy of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd
2/5
Sotheby's
John Cage's signed note “Please do not play or open the piano. J.C.”
3/5
Sotheby's
Beethoven's autograph sketches for the overture Die Weihe des Hauses
4/5
Sotheby's
Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, jewelled binding by Sangorski and Sutcliffe
5/5
Sotheby's
Rudyard Kipling, Le Livre de la Jungle, Paris, 1919
Other highlights include:
a Picasso art reference library numbering around 1,000 volumes
first editions of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (estimate: £50,000-£70,000), Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (£8,000-£12,000), Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (£50,000-£70,000), and George Eliot's Middlemarch (in parts, estimate: £20,000-£30,000)
Sir Alec Guiness’s annotated copy of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, marked up for a production (estimate: £4,000-£6,000)
Rudyard Kipling's Le Livre de la Jungle and Le Second Livre (Paris, 1919), illustrated by Paul Jouve, art deco binding by Henri Creuzevault (estimate: £30,000-£40,000)
Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, jewelled binding by Sangorski and Sutcliffe (estimate: £15,000-£20,000)
drawings by E.H. Shepard (Pooh and Piglet, pen and ink, estimate: £20,000-£30,000) and Beatrix Potter ("He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages...", ink and watercolour alternative image for The Tale of Peter Rabbit, estimate: £20,000-£30,000)
Christoph Gluck's autograph manuscript of part of “J’ai perdu mon Eurydice” from Orphée et Eurydice (estimate: £60,000-£80,000)
John Cage signed autograph note “Please do not play or open the piano. J.C.” (estimate: £1,000-£1,500)
