The auction catalogue title-page for an 18th century house contents sale of local interest sold for £350 by Thomson Roddick. Printed on a single sheet (folded to form eight leaves), it lists furnishings, books and other items belonging to William Blennerhassett of Flimby Hall in Cumberland offered on January 6, 1773.
One of just 25 signed, limited-edition copies of Keith Lovat Watson’s four-volume, 1991 history of The Hewetson Families of Ravensdale, it sold at a 10-times estimate £1900.
In a later binding but with the original wrappers bound in, a copy of The Last of the Derwentwaters by J Fisher Crosthwaite, printed at Cockermouth in 1874, realised a far higher than expected £650.
Sold at £950 was a copy of Christina Rossetti’s Commonplace and other Short Stories that showed some wear to the binding as well as internal spotting and browning, but which also bore the ownership inscription of a ‘CL Dodgson’, or Lewis Carroll as he is more familiarly known.
The sale took place on June 16.
