LITERARY TREASURES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 103, 1 April 1929, Page 8

LITERARY TREASURES.

SALES AT SOTHEBY’S. £ISOO FOR A BYRON POfcM. High prices were realised at Sotheby’s sale of important illuminated manuscripts, rare books and autograph letters of eminent men in February. Records were established, and the total of £12,788, the largest of the four days, raised the aggregate sum to £27,518, 11s. Mr Spencer paid £BOO for a copy of Edward Orme’s “Collection of British Field Sports,” 1807, illustrated in 20 beautifully coloured engravings from designs by S. Howitt, and £I9OO for a finer copy. The record for an impression is £2600. From the literary point of view, however, the principal lot was a copy of the rare first edition of Byron’s “Waltz: An Apostrophic Hymn, which was published in 1813 at ,3fr. During the Peace of Amiens in 1802 English visitors to Paris saw for the first time the “Waltz dance” with its magical tune, and in “Don Juan Byron describes it as “The only dance which teaches girls to think,” and “makes one in love even with its very faults.” He also gives an amusing account of its movements in a pre~ paratory note to his hymn. He writes:

“Judge of my surprise, on arriving (at the ball), to see poor dear Mrs Hornem with her arms round the loins of a huge hussar-looking gentleman I never set eyes on before; and his, to say the truth, rather more than halfround her waist, turning round and round to a d d see-saw up-and-down sort of tune ... . till it made me quite giddy with wondering they were not so.” <’ For this fine unbound and uncut copy Mr Spencer gave £ISOO, which is easily a record lor a Byron book. A letter of Robert Burns fetched £640 (Maggs), and an autograph song by the Scottish poet, beginning “Thine am I, my faithful fair,” £4lO (Spencer). A large paper example of La Fontaine’s “Fables Choisies, 1755-9, in four volumes, realised £o3o (Elte), aiid Mr Quaritcli had to pay £570 for the autograph manuscript of Lewis Carroll’s “Unpublished Ballad Opera for the Marionette Theatre. A letter dated “Gadshill, Wednesday, Bth. June, 1870,” and addressed to John M. Makeham, which was the last ever written by Charles Dickens, cost Messrs Maggs £4BO. . A series of 25 old coloured views of Philadelphia, 1798-1800, made £420 (Spencer): a remarkable coljection of original designs in manuscript, 1800, by John Linnell, cabinetmaker, £420 (Quaritoh), a similar collection is in the Victoria and Albert Museum; a first edition of Swift’s “Gullivers Trav els,” £285 (Quaritcli); Boswells “Life of Samuel Johnson,” second edition 1793, inscribed to the Countess of Inchiquin, £290 (Michelmore); the first edition in two volumes, If9l, £lO2 (Joseph). “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by T. E. Lawrence, 1926, fetched £250 (Bumpus); G. B. Shaw’s “Man and Sunerman,” first edition, 190 J, dedicated to A. B. Walklev, £230 (Taylor); three letters from Mr Shaw to A. B. Walkley, £9O (Taylor); Rudyard Kipling’s letter referring to a criticism of “Captains Courageous,” £72 (Maggs); A. E. Housman’s autograph manuscript, “Fragments of a Greek Tragedy,” 1882, £6O (Hollings); and the signed manuscript of “The Poet s Calender,” by W. H. Davis, £SO (Quaritch).