English literature and history [ Sotheby's, auction catalogue, sale date: 15-16 July, 1998 ]

Sotheby's, London, auction catalogue for the sale held on 15th and 16th July, 1998. Laminated illustrated wrappers, 4to,. 224 pp, plates, ills. 634 lots. Among the highlights noted were the following: The 'Blank Stone' Quarto edition of William Tyndale's New Testament (1536); Coverdale's New Testament (1538) in a contemporary Netherlandish binding; William Loe's 'Song of Sion' (1620); A copy of the only work from the Foulis Press printed on coloured silk (Anacreon, 1751 ); The first edition of'Nicholas Nickleby' inscribed by Charles Dickens to Hans Christian Andersen; the first edition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', with the original dust-jacket; the library of the late E.E. Bissell, including first editions and manuscripts by A.C. Swinburne, W.H. Davies, A.E. Housman, and others; a fine collection of first editions, inscribed presentation copies, and other works by Wyndham Lewis An important collection of letters by Charles and Frances Burney and members of their circle; an important archive of letters written to the engraver Thomas Bewick; arare portrait of Mary Shelley; love letters from the fifth Duke of Marlborough to his mistress Matilda Glover; glass photographic slides and books owned by Francis Griffiths relating to the Cottingley Fairies; the proclamation of Independence of the Irish Republic 1916, and other manuscripts relating to Ireland; a letter by Oscar Wilde discussing the Irish Famine; an important series of letters by T.E. Lawrence to his Arabic teacher Farida el Akle; other fine collections of letters by or relating to Mahatma Gandhi, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Edith Sìtwell, Henry Miller, Patricia Highsmith, and others. Scribbled notes to title-page and notes and prices to text, otherwise Good.