Books & Works on Paper

Books & Works on Paper

Date: 14th May, 2024 12:00
Sale number: 14 May 2024
Location: Barley Mow
Lots: 209

Chiswick Auctions’ Books sale, on May the 14th, is wide-ranging and features a number of highlights.

The food and drink section includes The English Vineyard Vindicated, with a probable manuscript correction by author John Evelyn, who wrote under the instruction of John Rose, the King’s Gardener. The rarity of this first edition of 1666, printed ‘at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard’, is often attributed to the Great Fire of London. Also included is a pioneering work on ethical vegetarianism published in 1683, namely Thomas Tryon’s The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness. For Tryon, who had visited Barbados and been horrified by slavery, vegetarianism formed part of a broader reaction against humanity’s evils.

Under English Literature, we have a first edition of John Keats’s Lamia, containing ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, ‘Ode to Psyche’, and ‘Ode to Melancholy’. His last and most important book, it was published in July 1820, less than a year before his tragic death from tuberculosis in Rome.

The sale also features an original design by artist William Nicholson, depicting a boxing match. The famous image illustrated the month of November in An Almanac of Twelve Sports (1898), with verse provided by Rudyard Kipling.

In the Travel section, highlights include six watercolours by James Wathen from his Voyage, in 1811 and 1812, to Madras and China, which a contemporary reviewer argued “will be followed by the reader and the gazer with much gratification”. This section also includes a first French edition of Cornelis De Bruyn’s account of his circuitous voyage to Persia, with numerous striking illustrations and panoramas of Moscow and Isfahan.

Viewing exclusively at 6 Roslin Square, W3 8DH:

Fri 10 May 11am - 4pm
Sun 12 May 11am - 4pm
Mon 13 May 11am - 4pm

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We recommend that you view any items you intend to purchase as refunds will not be issued for buyer's remorse. Condition reports are available on request. This does not affect your statutory rights.

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