Variously bound in cloth or full morocco gilt, 44 volumes of Richard Canon’s regimental histories, or Historical Records of the British Army (c.1840-50 – acquired at Christie’s in 1992 as four lots [for a total of £4400], this time brought only £2900.
An 1891, deluxe copy of W.G. Grace’s Cricket acquired at Woolley & Wallis’s rooms in 1992 [for £240] made £460.
There were a number of bird books in the library, including a 1902 limited edition of J.G. Millais’ ...British Surface-Feeding Ducks, at £500; one of 50 large paper copies of the 1900, second edition of Charles Dixon’s Game Birds and Wild Fowl of the British Islands, bound in recent crimson half morocco gilt but preserving the original cover at the rear, at £880, and William Beebe’s four-vol. Monograph of the Pheasants, 1918-22, rebound in half red morocco, at £1600.
There were, too, some modern, signed limited edition bird books, illustrated and containing original watercolour frontispieces by Richard Robjent and specially bound in red morocco gilt by A.G. Havard. A copy of B.M. Martin’s The Pheasant of 1995, containing an additional sepia drawing by Robjent, made £340, while collaborations with C.L. McKelvie on The Partridge (1993) and The Grouse (1991) raised £340 and £500.
Southern Independent Auctions, Brighton, February 27
Buyer’s premium: 10 per cent
Kipling makes an exceedingly good showing
UK: THE FINAL LOT in this Sussex sale of books from a Scottish estate, ‘Hallrule’, was a 35-volume ‘Sussex’ edition of the works of Rudyard Kipling. One of the 525 sets issued in 1937-39, it was signed and, according to the catalogue, “full bound”. It reached £10,500.
