Bloomsbury Private Press and Limited Editions Auction
Published November 13th, 2008
Bloomsbury Auctions recent two day sale of Private Press, Limited Editions, Children’s & Illustrated Books and Original Artwork on 6th and 7th November included a private collection of Private Press and Limited Editions.
The Property of Joseph Lehrer was a representative collection of the private press movement in the late 19th and 20th centuries and consisted of 183 lots. One of the stars of the collection was Dante’s Tutte le Opere edited by Edward Moore, one of 105 copies on paper (lot 13). Published by the Ashendene Press 1909, it is regarded as one of the great achievements of modern press publications and after heated bidding it sold for £21000, against an estimate of £8000-12000. Lot 26 was a fine copy of The Tragedie of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, edited by J Dover Wilson, number 119 of 300 in a deluxe binding, this fetched £9600. The English Bible in 5 vols (lot 39), one of 500 copies, was the only folio printed by Cobden-Sanderson, the magnum opus of the Doves Press; it sold for £8400, double the higher estimate. Arguably the greatest of all private press books is the Kelmscott Chaucer of 1896. The example in this sale (lot 82) was one of 425 copies on paper, it made £30000, just on the lower estimate. Another outstanding item was lot 144 The Whole Works of Homer; Prince of Poetts, in his Iliads, and Odysses translated by George Chapman in 5 vols. Number 2 of 10 copies on vellum and printed at the Shakespeare Head Press in 1930-31, it was conservatively estimated £7000-9000 and it soared to £19200.
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