Shelf Life: Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper from the Library of Stanley J. Seeger and Christopher Cone

Beatrix Potter The Tailor of Gloucester. [Privately Printed for the Author], December 1902 FIRST PRIVATELY PRINTED EDITION [LIMITED TO 500 COPIES], PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ("For Lady Warren | with kind regards from | "Beatrix Potter" | Christmas 1919") on front free endpaper, 16mo, coloured frontispiece and 15 illustrations by Beatrix Potter, original pictorial pink boards, collector’s chemise and slipcase, some loose plates, some browning and spotting, binding worn with some minor loss [with, loosely inserted:] Autograph letter signed (“Beatrix Heelis”), to Lady Warren, sending her this copy of The Tailor of Gloucester, discussing its origins in a story told to her by cousins (“…they told me the story of the tailor; and I added the mice & the old fashioned coats…”), offering another copy to Lady Warren’s friend the poet John Masefield, who has praised the book, and admitting that she “would like to do two or three more stories like that, before my eyes give out completely”, 3 pages, 8vo, embossed stationery of Sawrey, Ambleside, 23 December 1919, some spotting and nicks at folds; [also with:] Frances M. Martin, letter to Lady Warren, 4 pages, December 1919 "...The Tailor never caught on like the others, but he is far the best…" AN INSCRIBED COPY OF THE VOLUME ACCOMPANIED BY A LETTER IN WHICH BEATRIX POTTER GIVES HER OPINION OF THE BOOK. The recipient of this copy was Mary Isabel Warren, a daughter of Sir Benjamin Brodie, Bt, who married Herbert Warren (KCVO, 1914) in 1886. PROVENANCE: Judy Taylor, MBE (1932–2025, publisher and authority on Beatrix Potter); sale in these rooms, 9 July 2019, lot 211

View 1 of Lot 113: Beatrix Potter | The Tailor of Gloucester, 1901, first privately printed edition, inscribed

beatrix potter | the tailor of gloucester, 1901, first privately printed edition, inscribed

Beatrix Potter Four autograph letters signed (“H.B. Heelis”), to Professor and Mrs James Hanley, arranging a visit (“…I shall be pleased to offer such rations as available, mainly lettuces!...”), then discussing wartime food production and land management on her Lake District farms (“…The most useful work is draining, fox killing, keeping walls repaired, and brackens…”), 9 pages, 4to and 8vo, Castle Cottage, Sawrey, Ambleside, 16 July 1942–26 March 1943, with an autograph copy of a letter to the Kendal War Agricultural Executive Committee on fields that they have demanded she bring into food production (2 pages, 13 March 1943), an autograph envelope, two retained copies of letters by Hanley, and an unrelated photograph BEATRIX POTTER ON FARMING IN THE LAKE DISTRICT IN WARTIME. Britain’s survival during World War II depended upon increasing domestic food production. Farmers were called upon to bring more land into production, and War Agricultural Executive Committees were established in every county with wide-ranging powers to manage and direct the actions of farmers. Beatrix Heelis (as she was known following her marriage to William Heelis in 1912) had spent decades building up extensive holdings in the Lake District—at her death in 1943 she left 4000 acres and 14 farms to the National Trust, a hugely important bequest that has helped to ensure the survival of the Lakeland landscape. In 1942, however, her concern was that those estates play should their part in the war effort, so she invited J.A. Hanley, Professor of Agriculture at Leeds University, to visit and give advice on how to increase production. The letters discuss such subjects as the difficulties in ploughing the stony hills of the Lake District for potatoes, the unreliability of the weather, sheep and cattle farming, her sometimes testy relationship with the Cumbrian WAEC, and the need for government support (“…The present lime subsidy stands in a class apart. It is a gift to the soil—what is the old saying ‘Earth’s honest, what you give it—it will repay.’…”) PROVENANCE: Sale, Dawson’s of Maidenhead, 24 February 2018, lot 256

View 1 of Lot 114: Beatrix Potter | Four autograph letters signed, to Prof. James Hanley, on farming in World War II, with related material, 1942-43

beatrix potter | four autograph letters signed, to prof. james hanley, on farming in world war ii, with related material, 1942-43

Beatrix Potter "He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages..." fine ink and watercolour drawing heightened with gouache, unsigned, 89 x 80 mm (sheet size 163 x 203 mm), mounted, framed and glazed (mount size 290 x 250 mm), some minor spotting and browning, pin holes at corners THE ONLY CONTEMPORARY BEATRIX POTTER ILLUSTRATION FOR PETER RABBIT LIKELY TO BE OFFERED FOR SALE. This watercolour is an alternative illustration for The Tale of Peter Rabbit. It shows Peter's diminutive shoe abandoned in a cabbage patch following his narrow escape from Mr McGregor, and being examined by a curious (or territorial) robin. It is a fine example of Potter's close attention to the natural world, perhaps especially in her depiction of young spring cabbages with their slightly fleshy leaves. The privately printed Peter Rabbit shows a robin examining a shoe in a cabbage patch but with the robin and shoe in the centre of the page. Between January and April 1902 Potter revised the black and white drawings to produce a smaller number of coloured illustrations for commercial publication by Warne. The robin in the cabbage patch was retained but in a slightly different composition. Taylor notes in That Naughty Rabbit that when Potter delivered the coloured illustrations to Warne "they were not entirely happy and asked her to do some of them again" (see Taylor, That Naughty Rabbit (London, 2002), p.46). It is known that one of the redrawn illustrations was of Mrs McGregor and the rabbit pie and this illustration is likely to have been another. Warne was probably concerned about the relative sizes of the rabbit's shoe and the bird: the published scene shows a slightly smaller rabbit shoe and a larger robin. The fifth printing of Peter Rabbit in 1903 saw the removal of four illustrations, which were restored in 2002, and a 1907 printing allowed Potter to redraw two illustrations, although these were used for only six or seven years before Warne reverted to the originals. The centenary printing of The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 2002 added two new illustrations that had never previously appeared. Judy Taylor notes, of these new illustrations, "it is not known how many 'extra' illustrations Beatrix Potter produced for the first Frederick Warne edition of 1902 but these two... are the only ones known to have survived" (Taylor, pp.105–106). This watercolour was part of a group of more than twenty original illustrations, books, cards, and letters that originated in the collection of the artist's brother, Bertram Potter, and were sold in these rooms in 2008. This group included a number of other previously unknown alternative versions of early works by Potter, notably three watercolours of "The Rabbit's Christmas Party" (one of which, "The Departure", sold for almost £290,000 and is still the auction record for a Potter watercolour). This was, however, the only watercolour from the Bertram Potter collection for her sister's books. PROVENANCE: Bertram Potter (1872–1918), the artist's brother; sale in these rooms, 17 July 2008, lot 292

View 1 of Lot 112: Beatrix Potter  | "He lost one of his shoes among the cabbages...", ink and watercolour drawing

beatrix potter | "he lost one of his shoes among the cabbages...", ink and watercolour drawing

Fine copy of Potter's The Tailor of Gloucester, privately printed by the author.<ul><li>Beatrix Potter (English).</li><li>London: Privately Printed by Strangeways &amp; Sons, 1902.</li><li>Unpaginated.</li><li>Illustrated with a frontis and 15 color plates by Potter.</li><li>Limited to 500 copies.</li><li>Bound in the original pink pictorial boards.</li></ul>

The Tailor of Gloucester

Deluxe edition, and first or second printing of The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse.<ul><li>Beatrix Potter (English).</li><li>London: Frederick Warne and Co., 1910.</li><li>Sextodecimo.</li><li>Color frontispiece, plain title vignette and 26 color plates, contemporary ink gift inscription dated Christmas 1910 to half-title.</li><li>Bound in publisher’s blue moiré cloth with fielded illustrative paste-down of Mrs. Tittlemouse, all edges gilt.</li><li>Custom-made solander box.</li></ul>

The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse

&nbsp;A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, first printing of the US edition of The Fairy Caravan, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">inscribed</a> by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Beatrix%20Potter&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Beatrix Potter</a>.<ul><li>Beatrix Potter (English).</li><li>United States: David McKay, 1929.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>225 pages.</li><li>Six color plates including frontispiece, plus numerous line drawings within text including head and tail pieces and full page illustrations.&nbsp;</li><li>Published by David McKay in 1929, preceding the U.K. First Edition.</li><li>Boldly inscribed to title page "Copyright of the Author in Great Britain witheld, entered at Stationers Hall" in Beatrix Potter's hand, and "Philadelphia" crossed through by her in the publisher's imprint.</li><li>Publisher's bottle green cloth with gilt titles and decoration to spine with printed title onlay illustrated in color to upper board, housed in a custom-made black morocco silk-lined clam-shell box, with gilt titles and decoration to upper. </li></ul> In 1929, Beatrix Potter realized that the U.S. publication of The Fairy Caravan would leave her lacking a British copyright; so she requested that her American publisher David McKay send her 100 sets of sheets to be privately published in Britain. These were bound up by George Middleton in Ambleside in a signed limited edition of 100 copies. Its seems highly likely that in writing such an explicit inscription to the title page Ms. Potter was asserting her right to the copyright and using this copy to illustrate this to her UK publisher, as well as to provide him with the text for the UK title-page.

The Fairy Caravan Inscribed First Edition

A preparatory sketch for the 1905 <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> of The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Beatrix+Potter&amp;pfilters.dateRange=upcoming" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Beatrix Potter</a>, accompanied by a first printing of the book.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2.</li><li>Beatrix Potter (English).</li><li>London: Warne, 1905.</li><li>Sketch is pencil on paper, and has been mounted, framed and glazed.</li><li>The illustration itself appears on page 22 in the 1905 edition.</li></ul> Potter’s enchanting tale of the little hedgehog washer woman, an exceptionally scarce item, coupled with the first edition book; with an association to writer and Beatrix Potter expert Leslie Linder.

The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle First Edition, with Preparatory Sketch

Results for "beatrix potter"