A Letter to the Women of England on the injustice of Mental Subordination by Mary Robinson, £16,000 at Lyon & Turnbull.
An exceptionally rare first edition of an early feminist text sold for £16,000 at Lyon & Turnbull’s (26/25/20% buyer’s premium) Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs auction.
In A Letter to the Women of England on the injustice of Mental Subordination published in 1799, Mary Robinson argues for the intellectual liberation of women: “Is not woman a human being, gifted with all the feelings that inhabit the bosom of man?”
Robinson, later called ‘the English Sappho’, was all too familiar with the patriarchal constraints of her era. As an actress, she had caught the attention of the Prince of Wales, future George IV, and agreed an offer of £20,000 to become his mistress. After spoiling her reputation and ending her career in theatre, he then refused to pay the promised amount.
In this first edition she wrote under the pseudonym Anne Frances Randall. In the second edition, Robinson used her own name and placed an advertisement at the start revealing her identity.
This first edition, one of only five known copies, was sold in its contemporary quarter calf (the front cover now detached) well above its £300-500 guide on February 7.
Stevenson selection
Signals from the Bell Rock Lighthouse to the Arbroath Signal Tower, £5500 at Lyon & Turnbull.
A group of material from the Stevenson family – designers across four generations of many of the UK’s lighthouses – provided the sale with a specialist focus.
Robert Stevenson (1772-1850), the grandfather of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson, built 19 lighthouses in a remarkable career that began with the erection of the Little Cumbrae lighthouse in Ayrshire at just 19.
His masterpiece was the Bell Rock Lighthouse constructed off the coast of Arbroath between 1807-10 that is the oldest working rock lighthouse in the UK.
Through 28 hand-drawn and coloured illustrations, a manuscript titled Signals from the Bell Rock Lighthouse to the Arbroath Signal Tower demonstrates the workings of its communication system.
The main methods of signalling were via coloured flags and large copper balls that were raised to indicate all was well. It was estimated at £1200-1800 but sold at £5500.
Volume 1 of the Novus Atlas, sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Jan Janssonius, £7000 at Lyon & Turnbull.
As befitting a family of Scottish civil engineers, the works of architect Robert Adam were prominent in the Stevenson family library.
Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia by Robert Adam, £4400 at Lyon & Turnbull.
A first edition of one of Adam’s most influential books, his 1764 Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia including 61 numbered engraved plates sold at £4400 (estimate £3000-5000).
Volume 1 of the Novus Atlas, sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Jan Janssonius, £7000 at Lyon & Turnbull.
David Alan Stevenson (1891-1971) was the last of the Stevenson lighthouse engineers – and a keen collector of rare maps and atlases from the 1920s. His library included copies of a number of the great 16th and 17th century productions including the first Latin edition of Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographiae Universalis (1572) and a 1653 printing of the first volume of the Novus Atlas, sive Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Jan Janssonius. Both carrying guides of £3000-5000, they sold at £9000 and £7000 respectively.
Sporting debuts
Alexander Boswell’s personal copy of The Actis and Constitutionnis of the Realme of Scotland, £6500 at Lyon & Turnbull.
Sold at £6500 (estimate £3000-5000) was a November 1566 second issue copy of The Actis and Constitutionnis of the Realme of Scotland, the first collected edition of all public Scottish acts of parliament since 1424.
Commissioned by Mary Queen of Scots in a year of crisis, a first edition was printed in October 1566 with a second issue rushed out a month later with several pieces of anti- Protestant legislation removed.
The ‘Black Acts’, as they became known on account of the gothic typeface, are remarkable for a reason unintended by the compilers. They contain the first printed references to golf and football in a succession of acts intended to prevent Scots from neglecting their military duties.
As indicated by various inscriptions, this copy in 18th century sprinkled calf was previously owned by Alexander Boswell, a leading judge, later remembered by Sir Walter Scott as “an able lawyer, a good scholar, after the manner of Scotland, and … a strict presbyterian and whig of the old Scottish cast”. He was the father of James Boswell.
Acquired in Edinburgh in 1730, it is bound with 20 leaves of manuscript excerpts from Scottish parliamentary records made at his behest by fellow Whig lawyer and future director of the Bank of Scotland Alexander Tait (d.1781). This copy was previously sold at Sotheby’s in August 1941, the relevant leaf from the sale catalogue included with the lot.
Danish match
A letter from James VI of Scotland, £4800 at Lyon & Turnbull.
A letter penned on September 28, 1589, by James VI of Scotland (the future James I of England) seeking news on the progress of his marriage to Anne of Denmark sold at £4800 (estimate £3000-5000).
Letters entirely in James’ hand are very rare with this one written in broad Scots to George Keith, 4th Earl Marischal, the magnate charged with securing the Danish match.
In its seven lines he references “the contrairiousness of the windes” – the recurrent storms preventing the embassy’s return to Scotland which he would later become convinced were the work of a treasonous coven of witches.
