The book where modern political thought began. 

Machiavelli's Prince

In addition to offering the only recorded first edition of Machiavelli’s The Prince to appear at auction (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/machiavelli-il-principe-rome-1532-first-edition">lot 19</a>
 
 ), the sale includes several further significant antiquarian books, including a 1489 edition of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy in a contemporary binding (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/boethius-de-consolatione-philosophiae-venice-1489">lot 2</a>
 
 ), and a second edition of Colonna’s bizarre Hypnerotomachia Poliphili with Syston Park provenance (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/colonna-la-hypnerotomachia-di-poliphilo-venice">lot 6</a>
 
 ). Manuscript material is led by an exceptionally early land grant by the Council of New England (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/new-england-exceptionally-early-land-grant-by-the">lot 21</a>
 
 ), a document signed by John Dee, the great magus of Elizabethan England (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/john-dee-document-signed-joannes-dee-gardianus-as">lot 7</a>
 
 ), and an autograph letter signed to Charles II by the “Winter Queen”, Elizabeth of Bohemia (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/elizabeth-of-bohemia-the-winter-queen-autograph">lot 11</a>
 
 ).

Antiquarian Books & Manuscripts: 15th–18th Centuries

Leading the travel material is a highly unusual, decorative portolan chart of northern and western Europe, dating from c.1575 (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/dierick-vijt-a-portolan-chart-of-northern-and">lot 32</a>
 
 ). Also of note are: the first map devoted to North America to be included in an atlas (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/martin-waldseemuller-tabula-terre-nove-strassburg">lot 33</a>
 
 ), a highly important Ptolemaic map of the Arabian Peninsula (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/claudius-ptolemaeus-sexta-asie-tabula-ulm-1486">lot 24</a>
 
 ), and a fine set of the official accounts of the Challenger Expedition, the most important nineteenth-century circumnavigation of the globe (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/challenger-expedition-thomson-and-murray-report-on">lot 37</a>
 
 ).

From a portolan chart of western Europe to a Ptolemaic map of Arabia.

Travel

This sale offers a fine selection of books related to natural history and gardens from the eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. These include first editions of two works by Repton on landscape gardening (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/humphry-repton-sketches-and-hints-on-landscape">lots 26 </a>
 
 and 
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/humphry-repton-observations-on-the-theory-and">27</a>
 
 ), a first edition of Trew and Vogel’s botanical colour-plate book (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/trew-and-vogel-plantae-selectae-nuremberg-1750-73">lot 31</a>
 
 ), a first edition of Edwards’ The British Herbal (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/john-edwards-the-british-herbal-1770-attractive">lot 10</a>
 
 ), Bolton’s manuscript Genera Muscorum (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/james-bolton-genera-muscorum-illustrated">lot 3</a>
 
 ), and a second edition of A Natural History of Uncommon Birds (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/george-edwards-a-natural-history-of-uncommon-birds">lot 9</a>
 
 ).

Natural History & Gardens

Amongst the rich variety of post-1800 material in the sale is an inscribed copy of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/beatrix-potter-the-tale-of-peter-rabbit-1902-first">lot 54</a>
 
 ), a first edition of Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/charles-dickens-a-christmas-carol-1843-first">lot 39</a>
 
 ), and a copy of Notes on Nursing signed and inscribed by Florence Nightingale (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/florence-nightingale-notes-on-nursing-1860">lot 53</a>
 
 ). Other noteworthy items include two copies of Arthur Szyk’s Haggadah (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/a-szyk-c-roth-the-haggadah-1940-number-101-of-125">lots 60,</a>
 
 
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/a-szyk-c-roth-the-haggadah-1940-run-on-copy">61</a>
 
 ), one signed by Szyk and Roth, and an inscribed copy of Martin Luther King Jr’s Why We Can’t Wait (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/martin-luther-king-jr-why-we-cant-wait-1964">lot 47</a>
 
 ). Lastly, no modern literature auction would be complete without Rowling’s enduringly-popular boy wizard (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/j-k-rowling-inscribed-copies-of-the-first-two">lots 56, 57, 58, 59</a>
 
 ).

Modern Books & Manuscripts: 19th–21st Centuries

The musical highlights of the sale include the stunning autograph manuscript of Richard Strauss’s first fully-fledged orchestral tone poem, Macbeth (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/richard-strauss-autograph-full-score-of-the">lot 84</a>
 
 ), and a truly spectacular collection of Bartók manuscripts relating to the composer’s pioneering ethnomusicological studies into Hungarian and Slovak folksong (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/bela-bartok-autograph-field-book-of-hungarian">lots 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69</a>
 
 ), complemented by an equally extraordinary series of letters to his muse Klára Gombossy (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/bela-bartok-autograph-letter-to-klara-gombossy-6">lot 70, 71, 72, 73</a>
 
 ). Other notable lots include the correspondence between Egon Wellesz and his muse, Elizabeth Mackenzie (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/egon-wellesz-archive-of-autograph-correspondence">lot 93</a>
 
 ), and the prize certificates of the great British pianist John Ogdon (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/john-ogdon-collection-of-prize-certificates">lot 83</a>
 
 ).

Music

London

Head of Department | Europe

Dr. David Goldthorpe

Director | Specialist

Dr. Gabriel  Heaton

Cataloguer

William Passey

Consultant | Music

John Arthur

Meet our Specialists

For assistance with bidding and registration, please contact: +44 207 293 5000 
 
 <a class="Link" href="mailto:enquiries@sothebys.com">enquiries@sothebys.com</a>

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Led by a first edition of Machiavelli’s The Prince (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/machiavelli-il-principe-rome-1532-first-edition">lot 19</a>
 
 ), a portolan chart of western Europe (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/dierick-vijt-a-portolan-chart-of-northern-and">lot 32</a>
 
 ), and an autograph score of Strauss’s Macbeth (
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/richard-strauss-autograph-full-score-of-the">lot 84</a>
 
 ). 
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/richard-blome-britannia-or-a-geographical">Lots 1-33</a>
 
 : Antiquarian Books &amp; Manuscripts 
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/australia-henry-callander-manuscript-map-of-sydney">Lots 34-62</a>
 
 : Modern Books &amp; Manuscripts 
 
 <a class="Link" href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2024/books-manuscripts-and-music-from-medieval-to-modern-2/album-german-autograph-album-including-signed">Lots 63-94</a>
 
 : Music

Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern