A stamp to verso of the title page showed that a 1726 edition of Newton’s ...Principia Mathematica had once been in the Stadtbibliothek in Stettin, but though the upper hinges of the contemporary calf binding were partly broken, there were no other marks and this copy of the third edition, the last published in Newton’s lifetime, sold at £1650 to Estates of Mind.
(In a March 19 sale held by Christie’s South Kensington, a 1713 second edition – in 20th century morocco-backed boards and with various internal faults and shortcomings – made £2700).
A 1750 edition of the Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, as edited by Samuel Jebb, and in this second edition or reprint, published in Venice, had seen earlier service in a Silesian convent according to a title stamp. There was light staining throughout, but in a later half vellum binding, the book brought a bid of £600.
A job lot of provincial poetry – 87 books from the years 1834-90, brought a bid of £520 from the Poetry Bookshop, while among the children’s books, a couple of Louis Wain titles were the front runners. All Sorts of Comical Cats sold at £210 and Merry Times of 1916 reached £160. Both went to Autolycus.
Y Gelli, Hay-on-Wye, March 10
Buyer’s Premium: 10 per cent
Newton the third (and second)
UK: DESPITE the irritation of losing contact with a US telephone bidder on the way, the auctioneers managed to secure a bid of £3500 from Arden on the principal colour plate lot in the sale – a six volume, second series set of J-J.Linden’s Iconographie des Orchidées of 1895-1900, presenting 273 chromolitho plates.
