Rare Book Monthly

Articles - October - 2024 Issue

17th Century Book of Feminist Literature Outsells a King’s Autograph at Auction

In defense of women.

In defense of women.

A 17th century book regarded as the first piece of English feminist literature and a gory gothic novel owned by one of the UK’s largest female landowners have out-sold a King’s autograph at auction. 

The rare second edition of the first English feminist tract ‘Women’s Rights: An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, 1696’ by Judith Drake made £5,000 following enthusiastic bidding online and in the saleroom at Cotswolds-based Chorley’s Auctioneers. The treatise is a defence against male accusations of ignorance, vanity and enviousness in women and it also addresses the faults of men, particularly satirizing some of Drake’s contemporaries. 

The volume was one of over 1,000 rare books and manuscripts auctioned by Chorley’s this week from the unique Ombersley Court Library in Worcestershire, owned by the Sandys family for centuries.

A first English edition of gory Gothic novel ‘The Necromancer’, bearing the crested monogram of Mary Hill, Marchioness of Downshire, Baroness Sandys (one of the country’s largest female landowners in the early 19th century), achieved £12,500. The book is one of the “horrid novels” referred to in Jane Austen's classic novel 'Northanger Abbey' and features graphic scenes of killings, hauntings and violence in the Black Forest.

In the same sale, a signed manuscript letter by William III (of Orange), King of England (1689-1702) to Henry, Viscount Sidney instructing the formation of a Regiment in Ireland in 1692 was sold to a private collector for £3,500.

With strong bidding both nationally and internationally from collectors and antiquarian book dealers, the Library sale made 2.6 times its lower pre-sale estimate selling all but one of the 520 lots offered. The final total of the sale was £374,321 (Buyer’s Premium 23.5%).

Werner Freundel, director and book specialist for Chorley’s stated “It was an honour to handle this impressive library, collected over centuries by members of the Sandy’s family. It took us three months to catalogue and value the full collection, which had been well cared for by generations of the family. Rarity and condition were crucial factors in the striking sale results we achieved.”

With volumes ranging from the 16th century to the 18th century, other star lots included:

•a 1702 Boston printing of Increase Mather’s Discourses, which alongside other volumes in the lot achieved £8,500 hammer;

•Thomas Nicols A Lapidary: Or, The History of Precious Stones, the first book written in English about gemstones, published in 1652 in an almost filigree gilt tooled vellum, reached £8,000;

•James Lind’s An Essay on the most effectual Means, of preserving the Health of Seamen, 1757 sold for £3,800 hammer.


About Ombersley Court and its unique Library:
The Ombersley Court library, which had been largely untouched since the early 19th century, contained some of the greatest works and authors of the previous two centuries. Its contents reflected multiple generations of collectors, their tastes, occupations and interests as well as their associations and the literary circles in which many of the family travelled. As a private collection, it was not publicly accessible and its importance known to only a few scholars and bibliophiles.


Ombersley Court in Worcestershire was owned by the Sandys family from the early seventeenth century, when Sir Samuel Sandys (1560-1623) acquired the lease on the old manor of the Abbot of Evesham from the Crown in 1608. The Sandys family had originally moved to the area when Edwin Sandys, Bishop of Worcester from 1559 to 1570, bought a local property in the 1560s. The family would go on to further pre-eminence and made important contributions to the fields of literature and culture. Edwin, 2nd Baron Sandys was a founding trustee of the British Museum and a noted classical scholar.

 

You can find details about this sale at the following link. Click here.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: CATESBY, MARK. 1683-1749. The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. $100,000 - $150,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: AUDUBON, JOHN JAMES. 1785-1851. The Birds of America, from Drawings Made in the United States and their Territories. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: ADAMS ON HIS PEAR TREES AND A LOST PORTRAIT BY SALEM ARTIST HANNAH CROWNINSHIELD. ADAMS, JOHN. 1735-1826. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: EARLIEST MAP DEVOTED TO NORTH AMERICA. FORLANI, PAULO. fl.1560-1571. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: HAMILTON DEFENDS THE CONSTITUTION. HAMILTON, ALEXANDER. 1757-1804. $20,000 - $30,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 24: NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION BROADSIDE. Boston, September 14, 1768. $5,000 - $8,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: ONE OF THE EARLIEST ILLUSTRATIONS OF A SURGICAL PROCEDURE. BARTHOLOMAEUS ANGLICUS. $10,000 - $15,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: RICHARD FEYNMAN'S ANNOTATED COPY, WITH TWO EARLY FEYNMAN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS. $15,000 - $25,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: THE FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN COMPUTING. TURING, ALAN MATHISON. 1912-1954. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: FINE OIL PORTRAIT OF ALBERT EINSTEIN BY EUGEN SPIRO. $40,000 - $60,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: PENICILLIN MOLD MEDALLION INSCRIBED BY ALEXANDER FLEMING. FLEMING, ALEXANDER. 1881-1955. $30,000 - $50,000
    Bonhams, now to Oct. 23: APPLE "TWIGGY" MACINTOSH PROTOTYPE USED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEMONSTRATION SOFTWARE. $80,000 - $120,000
  • One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions
    Rare Autograph and Book Auction
    October 17th, 2024
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Abraham Lincoln Signed Letter on Executive Mansion Stationary To Secretary of The Navy re: Appointment for Naval Academy!
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Extremely Rare Ben Franklin Printed: Considerations on Keeping Negroes...Part Second. 1762.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: An impressively extra-illustrated copy; Including an Original leaf from Shakespeare’s 1623 First Folio!
    One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions
    Rare Autograph and Book Auction
    October 17th, 2024
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Rarest Naval Autograph James Lawrence “Don’t give up the ship On " U.S. Ship Hornet June 19th 1812.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Oversize Ernest Hemingway Signed Photo with long Inscription about Drinking Wine to his dear friend and Secretary Roberto Herrera.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: VOLTAIRE Signed Receipt about a partial payment of debt for the Duke of Wuerttemberg.
    One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions
    Rare Autograph and Book Auction
    October 17th, 2024
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: [Maps] Gio. Ant. Magnini, Italia, 1620.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: LAWMAN SALOON JUDGE ROY BEAN Signed Legal Document 1895-RARE!
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Autograph Album with James Garfield as President, Chester A. Aurthur as VP, William T. Sherman, Burnside, P.T. Barnum and many more!
    One of a Kind Collectibles Auctions
    Rare Autograph and Book Auction
    October 17th, 2024
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison Signed Four Language Ship's Paper.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Hector Berlioz Autograph Musical Quotation Signed.
    One of a Kind Collectibles, Oct. 17: Important Memorandum the Day after Gettysburg July 5th, 1863 where Lincoln asks all Department Heads of the cabinet to meet him at the Executive Mansion.
  • RareBookBuyer.com
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    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
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    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    ABAA Dealer
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    ABAA Dealer
    RareBookBuyer.com
    Specialized in Purchasing
    Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
    RareBookBuyer.com
    We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
    ABAA Dealer
  • Sotheby’s
    Bibliotheca Brookeriana:
    A Renaissance Library. The Aldine Collection D-M
    18 October 2024
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Herodianus Syrus, Herodiani Historiarum, Venice, Heirs of Aldo & Torresano, 1524, Parisian binding for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard, ca. 1540
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Musaeus, Opusculum de Herone et Leandro, Venice, Aldo, 1495 (Greek text), interleaved with 1497–1498 (Latin text), English olive morocco by Charles Lewis, the Botfield copy
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Horatius Flaccus, Horatius, Venice, Aldo, 1501, Bolognese brown goatskin (between 1501 and 1503), arms of Mino Rossi and illuminated initials throughout
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Lucretius, De rerum natura, Venice, Aldo, 1500, English early eighteenth-century red morocco, the Fletcher copy
    Sotheby’s, Oct. 18: Dante, Le terze rime, Venice, Aldo, 1502, illuminated, contemporary Bolognese morocco binding

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