Sotheby’s Book Week in June and July brings auctions in Paris, London, and New York, offering rare manuscripts, major literary works and historic materials across eras.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | First edition of the full score of “Così fan tutte”, and one other
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Richard Wagner | Autograph letter signed, to the poet Karl Beck, 22 November 1868
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Leonhart Fuchs | De historia stirpium, Basel, 1542, "perhaps the most celebrated and beautiful herbal ever published"
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George Eliot | Middlemarch, Edinburgh and London, 1871, first edition in the original parts
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Thomas Hardy | Tess of the d'Urbervilles. A Pure Woman, 1891, first edition, first impression
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J.K. Rowling | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue, ex-library copy
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Robert Browning and Arthur Rackham | The Pied Piper of Hamelin, 1934, deluxe edition
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Girolamo Cardano [Thomas Bedingfield, translator] | Cardanus comforte, 1576, rare second edition of the book held by Hamlet during his famous soliloquy
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Album Amicorum | Der Freundschaft gewidmet, 1779-1793, manuscript in German
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Christoph Willibald Gluck | Autograph manuscript of part of the celebrated air 'J’ai perdu mon Eurydice' from "Orphée et Eurydice", 1774
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Claude Debussy | Autograph manuscript of the song “Flots, palmes, sables”, signed, 1882
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John Gould | A Century of Birds from the Himalayan Mountains, [1831-] 1832, second issue, subscriber's copy, the Earl of Egremont's copy
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Napoleon I's copy—Madgett | Histoire de Jean, duc de Marlborough, Paris, 1808
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Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari | Collection of autograph music manuscripts, c.1892-1946
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Aymard de Banville | Album photographique de la mission remplie en Égypte..., Paris, 1865, an exceptionally rare work from the earliest days of travel photography
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Illustrated fragment of Der Welsche Gast by Thomasin of Zerklaere, on vellum, in Middle High German, c.1300–50 (Southern? Germany)
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Illuminated Manuscript—Initial ‘D’ from a choir book illuminated by Antonio Maria da Villafora, (North-Eastern Italy, Padua), last quarter 15th century
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Christian Zervos I Pablo Picasso. Œuvres de 1895 à [1972], 1949-1978, 33 volumes in 34, a fine set of the Picasso catalogue raisonné
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Ian Fleming | The Centenary Edition, 2008, 18 volumes, one of 26 lettered sets (letter "M")
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Siegfried Sassoon | The Sherston Trilogy, first editions, signed
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Antonín Dvořák | Vocal score of the Requiem Mass inscribed by the composer to Karel Bendl
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Giuseppe Verdi. Six autograph letters signed to Antonio Gallo, 1854-1875
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Ivan Sutherland
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William Wordsworth | Yarrow Revisited and other poems, 1839, a superb presentation copy
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Thomas More | Workes, 1557, eighteenth-century sprinkled calf gilt, the Chatsworth copy
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Antiquarian Books | Seven volumes
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James McNeill Whistler | A collection of antiquarian books
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Joseph Haydn | Autograph letter signed to C. G. Breitkopf, 7 September 1795
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Hieronymus Bock | Kreutter buch. Strassburg, 1546, first illustrated edition, contemporary hand-colouring
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[Apollo 11]
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Tom Phillips (artist)—Dante | Inferno, Talfourd Press, 1983, 3 volumes, copy number 68 of 100
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[Fryderyk Chopin]—Franz Liszt | First edition of Liszt’s biography of Chopin, signed and inscribed by Liszt to Ferdinand David, 1852 or later
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Margaret Mitchell | Gone with the Wind, New York, 1936, first edition, first issue
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Virgil | The Whole XII bookes of the Aeneidos, 1573, nineteenth-century speckled calf by Rivière and Sons
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J.R.R. Tolkien | The Hobbit, 1961, first paperback issue, signed, with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 1963, deluxe edition (later impressions), signed
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British Topography | A group of four works, 7 volumes in all
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