LITERARY TREASURES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20217, 30 March 1929, Page 8

LITERARY TREASURES.

SALES AT SOTHEBY'S. £ISOO FOR A BYRON POEM. [from our own correspondent.!] LONDON, Feb. 19. High prices were realised at Sotheby's Bale of important illuminated manuscripts, rare books and autograph letters of eminent men. Records weia established, and the total of £12,788, ibe largest of the four days, raised the .aggregate sum to £27,518 lis. 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 JApostrophic Hymn," which was published in 1813 at 3fr. During the Peace of Amiens in 1802 English Tisitors to Paris saw for the first It'jGie the "Waltz dance" with its magical tune, and in "Don Juan" Byron describes ifc 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 preparatory 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 half-round 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 ,wopdering they were not so " For this fine unbound and uncut copy Mr. Spencer gave £ISOO, which is easily a record for a Byron book. '

A letter of Robert Bums 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 £530 (Kite), and Mr. Quaritch had to pay £570 for tho autograph manuscript of Lewis Carroll's "Unpublished Ballad Opera for the Marionette Theatre."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 tho 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 collection of original designs in manuscript, 1800, by John Linnell, cabinetmaker, £420 (Quaritch), a similar collection is in ilie Victoria and Albert Museum; a first edition of Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," £285 (Quaritch); Boswell's "Life of Samuel Johnson," second edition, 1793, inscribed to the Countess of Inchiquin, £290 (Michelmore); the first edition in two volumes, 1791, £lO2 (Joseph). "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom," by T. E. Lawrence, 1926, fetched £250 (Bumpus) ; G. B. Shaw's "Man and Superman," first edition, 1903, dedicated to A. B. Walkley, £230 (Taylor); three letters from Mr. Shaw to A. B. Walkley, £9O (Taylor); Rudyard Kipling's letter referring to a criticism of "Captains CourageoQS ' £72 (Maggs); A. E. Housman's manuscript, "Fragments of a Traged y'" 18 82, £6O (Hollies); ° f " The P ° et ' s