Antiques Trade Gazette 51


of illustrations


Riches and taxes


IN a late 19th/early 20th century half calf binding, lacking the advertisements and showing some spotting and staining, as well as extensive marginal pencil scoring and underlining, an 1817 first of David Ricardo’s On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation that was lotted up with two other unidentified items at Lyon & Turnbull on September 7 still sold very well indeed for £10,000 – but two other copies have made higher sums in recent months. The son of a Dutch-Jewish banker who had


moved to England and made a fortune on the Stock Exchange, Ricardo’s interest in political economy had been fostered by a reading of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations almost two decades earlier, but it was not until 1815 that he was urged by James Mill and others to put his own economic theories into print. It seems that, once started, he took only six


months to complete his Principles..., but he is nonetheless credited with providing the first systematic and scientific approach to economics and in this, his great contribution to the subject, he demonstrated a mathematical approach and careful deductive methods that provided a model for future texts. On June 23, a first in the original boards that


in 1990 had sold for $11,000 (then £6435) at Sotheby’s New York, as part of the Bradley Martin library, re-appeared at Christie’s New York to sell for a sum that in the light of that Edinburgh result seems almost cheap at $17,000 (£10,514). The auction record for this important work,


dispersal of the Dent archives, Brock’s illustrations to all the Jane Austen books were among 21 lots of his illustrations on offer. On that occasion, almost a quarter century ago, the Northanger Abbey set was easily the cheapest lot, but even so, the price was higher then than it was this summer, at £7500. In what was the golden age of book


illustration sales, all the other Brock- Austen lots in that 1987 sale made five-figure sums, peaking at £42,000 for those which Brock made for Emma. See also the Rackham watercolour


sold in June by Sotheby’s New York, reproduced above.


At Christie’s South Kensington


on June 13, the 1903, first issue in original pictorial cloth of one of P.G. Wodehouse’s early ventures into school literature, a collection of short stories and essays called Tales of St Austin’s, sold for £1500. Though four of the titles were either


repaired, stained or worn, a complete set of all 13 of Florence & Bertha Upton’s Golliwogg books, plus The Vege- Men’s Revenge, sold at £2000 at South Kensington on June 13, while at Dominic Winter three days later, a group of 13 of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five... books from the years 1947-63, all in dust jackets,


made £1100. At Bloomsbury Auctions of


Godalming on August 11, £800 was paid for a salesman’s dummy for the 1927, first edition of Now We Are Six. Most of the leaves were plain, with text present only to page 23, but there were some variations from the published version. These include the jacket illustrations and the text of the preliminaries. In the same sale, a 1976 first of


Hergé’s Tintin et Les Picaros, signed and inscribed with a drawing of Tintin and Snowy, was sold at £1900. This was the


continued on page 52


however, was set ten years ago at $35,000 (then £23,800) at Christie’s New York’s sale of the Abel Berland Library. This copy, too, lacked the publisher’s advertisements at the end and had pencil annotations and lines to the shoulders of some 40pp, but this ex-Cockerell-Goodman copy was a fine, uncut example in original boards, later rebacked but preserving the original paper label. That record remains, but a copy seen at


Sotheby’s on July 14 moves into second place with a bid of £16,000. In contemporary but now somewhat time weary polished calf, this too lacks those elusive advertisement leaves, but at the top of the title page are written the words “From the author”. This seems most likely to be in the hand of John Murray or one of his staff, not Ricardo, but it would be interesting to know who added the contemporary note, quoting Lord Brougham’s review of the book, to the front endpaper.


Bibliophile Sales Godalming


Contact Clive Moss: cmoss@bloomsburyauctions.com


Baverstock House, 93 High Street, Godalming, Surrey GU7 1AL t +44 (0) 1483 423567 f +44 (0) 1483 426392 godalming@dnfa.com www.dnfa.com/godalming


Now Welcoming Consignments


Free Live Online Bidding


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84