A bust of Mary Seacole that made £101,000 – and front page news in ATG No 2454 – and the example of micrographic work by Mathias Buchinger, the ‘Little Man of Nuremberg’, that provided Pick of the Week for the following issue were undoubted highlights of one busy summer sales week for Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium).
Illustrated here are a number of lots from the very mixed book sale that the South Cerney auction house held on July 29.
As well as the books illustrated, the modern firsts section of the sale included a bid of £5800 for a bright-looking 1934 first of Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust – a sum only bettered at auction by a few inscribed copies.
A copy of Waugh’s Put Out More Flags of 1942 that still retained its ‘Chosen by the Book Society’ wrap-around band was sold at £1100.
Only one copy has made more at auction – one bearing Graham Greene’s ownership signature that in 2016 sold for £6000 at Sotheby’s.
A complete set of the 38 volumes of Ariel Poems issued in the years 1927-31, featuring the illustrated work of Paul Nash, Eric Gill and many other well-known figures, made £840.
Rich pickings
One of the more curious if perhaps not quite so appealing lots from this sale was a copy of Donald J Trump’s How to Get Rich, a work written in conjunction with Meredith McIver and published in Norfolk, Connecticut, in 2004.
Part of the Deluxe edition, it was said to be one of a number of copies that were signed by Trump in gold ink, but as it remains unopened in the original shrink-wrap one has to take that on trust.
Some people, internet postings reveal, do not believe that McIver really exists, but on Wikipedia she gets a proper entry and career synopsis. There is even a note that Meredith trained as a ballet dancer and in 1981 appeared on Broadway in a revival of Can-Can that closed after just five performances.
The Gloucestershire copy of what some might consider mere trumpery sold at £500.
