| Dear Customer Welcome to our September Newsletter. Sotheran's is very pleased to welcome Rebekah Cron to the team in our Literature and General Antiquarian department. She comes to us with lots of experience from Bernard Quaritch and Robert Frew. She'll be starting on 4th September and is really looking forward to getting to grips with our literature stock and, of course, meeting our lovely customers. | |
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| A Very Fine BindingTENNYSON, Alfred. Maud, and Other Poems. Edward Moxon. 1855. Small 8vo. Bound by the Harcourt Bindery of Boston in c. 1920 in full blue crushed morocco, sides with gilt ruled and tooled borders with inlaid olive morocco hearts and red morocco flowers, spine with gilt raised bands, gilt lettering annd tooled and ruled panels with inlaid olive morocco hearts and red morocco flower, gilt turn-ins with inlaid morocco hearts and flowers, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
First edition. This is Tennyson's first book after being appointed Poet Laureate. Besides "Maud", contains the first appearance in book form of his celebrated poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington”, considered one of the great British Horatian odes and a rousing public statement of the poet's love of God and country. The Harcourt Bindery, founded in 1900, remains the largest for-profit hand bookbindery in the USA. … more details online … | |
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| | September sees two new catalogues in the pipeline: Performing Arts will appear this month, closely followed by Natural History. Please let Oliver know if either of these are of interest. | |
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| Prints Department Contact Richard for more details
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Map of the MonthArtist: OGILBY, John.Title: A New Map of the Kingdom of England & Dominion of Wales.Description: Original copper plate engraving as published in Britannia, Volume the first: or, an Illustration of the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales, printed by the author at his house in White-Fryers.Date: 1675. Size: 420 x 520 mm. Price: £295
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| | John Ogilby (November 1600 – 4 September 1676) was a Scottish translator, impresario and cartographer. Best known for publishing the first British road atlas, he was also a successful translator, noted for publishing his work in handsome illustrated editions.In addition he was his Majesty's cosmographer, and master of his Majesty's revels in the Kingdom of Ireland.
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| Artist: SPY [Sir Leslie Ward]
Title: Marshall O. Roberts. Easton Hall. Description: Original Colourtype from the Vanity Fair Supplement series. "…To all Kinds of sport Mr. Marshall Roberts is passionately devoted, and he is particularly keen on hunting and shooting. The game of golf holds him in thrall when less strenously inclined; and on the fine private course at Easton Hall, Grantham, he gets up every autumn an attractive professional competition, which last season was won by Harry Vardon…Though he does not jib at a good cigarette, he is a fine judge of a cigar, and knows how to enjoy life generally.”
Date: 22.02.1911. Size: 380 x 250 mm. Price: £450 This print, and others from Vanity Fair, is included in our recent catalogue — Sports & Pastimes
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Artist: LEWE, Cawara.Title: Macau, a holiday that is different.Description:Original lithograph with colour, linen backed, printed by lito de Portugal, Lisboa.It is rare to find posters of Macau. In 2006 it became the gambling capital of the world, overtaking Las Vegas in terms of Casino revenue. Macau was under Portugese control until 1999. It has a long history with Piracy and the Opium trade. The Junk boat featured in this poster is very similar to that which has been used by smugglers and Corsairs of the China Seas for generations. Date: 1960. Size: 1000 x 625 mm. Price: £1,850
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| Travel Department Contact Georg for more details
Indian summer ahead, we start motoring in Persia and adjacent regions, search for the North West Passage, and relax in a southern Indian mountain resort, before we are flying aircraft - the first aerial post - and can read about women in the Navy. Shackleton and Freya Stark round off this little excursion. | |
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| ANET, Claude. Through Persia in a Motor-Car by Russia and the Caucasus. Hodder & Stoughton, 1907. 8vo; illustrations from photographs; a very good copy. First English edition, translated by M. Beresford Ryley. An early account of motoring. A small convoy consisting of two Mercédès and a Fiat. The route ran from Bessarabia and the Crimea down through the Caucasus to Persia. The book has become uncommon. … more …
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| ARMSTRONG, Alexander. A Personal Narrative of the Discovery of the North-West Passage; with numerous Incidents of Travel and Adventure during nearly Five Years' Continuous Service in the Arctic Regions while in Search of the Expedition under Sir John Franklin. London, Hurst and Blackett, 1857. 8vo. Original blue cloth, gilt; a good copy of a rare item. First edition. Armstrong joined McClure's Franklin Search expedition of 1850-4 as surgeon and naturalist. As it progressed eastwards, the Investigator became fast in the ice. By completing their journey over the ice, the crew of the Investigator became the first men to negotiate the North West passage. Armstrong's account offers a first-person narrative of the expedition and its completion. … more … | | |
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| E.M.M.L. Guide to Kodaikánal and its History. [London, Ward, Lock and Co.] for Lillingstone in Kodaikánal, 1909. Small 8vo; a very good copy with ownership inscription on front fly-leaf. First edition. A very rare guide book for the Southern Indian hill-top resort at over 2100 meters altitude, founded in 1845 by Westeners. A swanky place. Provenance: Inscribed by Lydia Hedberg (1878–1964), a famous Swedish folk singer. She must have bought the guide book there and took it home into the Swedish climate. … more …
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| | FIELD, Francis J., and N. C. BALDWIN. The Coronation Aerial Post - 1911. Sutton Coldfield, Francis J. Field, [1934]. 8vo. Original maroon cloth, front cover lettered in gilt; a very good copy, bookplate to front fly-leaf. Very rare first edition, privately published, of this celebration of the first aerial postal service. The First United Kingdom Aerial Post owed its existence to the foresight and initiative of Captain (later Sir) Walter Windham, RN, who had successfully organised the world’s first Official Aerial Post in India during February 1911 at Allahabad. Francis J. Field was an flight historian and dealer in collectables relating to aviation … more … | | |
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| MILLER, Lee [photographer, and Vera LAUGHTON MATHEWS, introduction] Wrens in Camera. London, Hollis and Carter, [1945]. 4to. Original blue cloth, lettered and decorated in white; pp. 78; higly illustrated after photographs, very light wear to extremites. First edition, signed by the author and several Senior Officers of the Women's Royal Naval Service. Lee Miller was an American photographer, muse to Picasso and Man Ray (amongst others), who did serious photojournalism during the war. Laughton Mathews was director of the WRNS. During her service she travelled to virtually every establishment where Wrens were posted. Dame Vera, as she became, won great acclaim within the Admiralty, in parliament, and among her own Wrens for the humanity and common sense with which she led her force … more … | |
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| | SHACKLETON, Ernest H. South. The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917. London, William Heinemann, 1920. 8vo. Original blue cloth; numerous illustrations from photographs, one folding map; a good copy, author's name on front cover misprinted in the bindery. Third impression of the first edition, published two months after, and in the same format as the first printing. Currently, Shackleton's South is the most sought-after of polar books. It tells the story of the loss of the expedition's ship, the Endurance, and of the subsequent mythic boat journey in the James Caird from Elephant Island to South Georgia … more … | | |
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| STARK, Freya. Baghdad Sketches. London, John Murray, [1937]. 8vo. Original green cloth, gilt, in original dust-jacket; a very good copy of an increasingly rare Freya Stark title. First edition, incorporating and expanding on Freya Stark's contributions to the Baghdad Times, originally published in Baghdad, a book with 132 pages. Stark visited Baghdad in 1931 and produced these sketches for the Baghdad Times. With Stark's accompanying and evocative photographs, they provide a window on to a now lost world, called by the publishers 'the most romantic city in the world' … more … | | |
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| | Children’s and Illustrated Books Contact Rosie for more detailsJust arrived into the children's department, and awaiting cataloguing, we will shortly be able to offer two rare first editions by Tove Jansson in her Moomin series - the first and the third titles. They are both true firsts in the original Swedish, published in Helsinki, Finland, and both come with publisher's bookplates with the signature of the author. 

"Småtrollen och den Stora Översvãmningen", which translates as "The Moomins and the Big Flood" first appeared in 1945 and is the title which introduced the Moomins. "Trollkarlens hatt", also published in Helsinki, in 1948, is officially the third book in the series, although it was the first one published in English. Please contact Rosie for full cataloguing and prices. | | |
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