A few highlight items from Christie's just announced October sale of Edward Leahy's Library.

Christie’s New York is pleased to announce the auction on 6 October of 2022 of Valuable and Important Books and Manuscripts from the Library of Edward R. Leahy. Mr Leahy’s collection comprises the finest group of modern illuminated manuscripts and jeweled and other magnificent bindings since the auction of Phoebe Boyle nearly a century ago. In addition, it contains important incunabula, including an illuminated Nuremberg Chronicle and an illuminated 1474 Bernhard Richel Bible; English literature from Spenser to Tolkien with a particularly deep well of Samuel Johnson & his circle, Charles Dickens, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; works relating to Captain Bligh and the Mutiny on the Bounty; and a fine collection of horror including first editions of Frankenstein, Dracula, and a presentation copy of the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. 

Quietly assembled with taste and discernment over more than a half century, the copies are particularly noteworthy for their extraordinary condition and provenance, coming from the greatest sales of the modern era, including a remarkable fourteen lots from Phoebe Boyle's sale as well as volumes from the libraries of Jerome Kern, A. Edward Newton, Paul Francis Webster, Estelle Doheny, H. Bradley Martin, Richard Manney, William E. Self, and Cornelius Hauck.

A classic library to delight bibliophiles on both sides of the Atlantic, highlights from the collection will be on tour to London, at Christie’s King Street, from 9-12 July in conjunction with Classic Week sales there. Alongside them will be selections from The Herman Melville Collection of William S. Reese (1-14 September 2022) and an important manuscript of John Donne’s poetry from the New York Fine Books and Manuscripts sale (23 November-7 December 2022). 

For more information, please contact head of sale Rhiannon Knol at rknol@christies.com.