Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2025 Issue

Dame Edna Oh Dear!: The Library of Barry Humphries to be sold on March 26th at Forum

The Dame himself

The Dame himself

On 26th March, Forum Auctions will offer the library of Barry Humphries. The sale will feature a remarkable array of books, manuscripts, works on paper and objects from the extensive library of the legendary comedian, actor, author, and satirist Barry Humphries (1934-2023), who delighted audiences for several decades with his eccentric stage and television characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson.

 

Ben Macintyre, a long-time friend of Humphries, once noted that while most people knew ‘Humphries as Dame Edna Everage or Sir Les Patterson […] another of his characters, and a defining one, [was] an old-fashioned, self-proclaimed bibliomaniac’. Born and raised in a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, the renowned entertainer was in his personal life an ardent literary enthusiast, who purchased rare books from a very early age and ultimately became one of Australia’s foremost collectors in the field. One of just 40 members of the exclusive Roxburghe Club – a society for bibliophiles – his house in south Hampstead, London, contained 7,000 books, many of them first editions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

The sale at Forum comprises highlights from the remarkable library, a testament to Humphries’ taste for the beautiful and the unusual. The 1890s and the Decadent Movement are an undoubted focal point of the collection. While this certainly includes plenty of works by or relating to the better-known figures from the period such as Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, Humphries’ love of the obscure drove him to unearth rare titles by lesser known figures: Lionel Johnson, Andre Raffalovich and Ernest Dowson, to name a few. Even when collecting standard works by Wilde, Humphries could not resist to bring his unique sense of humour to the fore – a first edition of Wilde’s Dorian Gray, published in Lippincott’s magazine, is here found bound in purple cane toad.

 

Bindings were another passion for Humphries and again, while he owned many sumptuous bindings that you might expect to find in other great libraries, including richly gilt morocco bindings by Cretté and Paul Kersten, his unique eye and style is evident here. A large number of the books are housed in boxes designed by Humphries himself and these can range from replications of pictorial cloth (the eponymous mist of M.P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud is recreated with inlayed purple morocco) to more abstract decorations and even the odd sly joke (his native cane toad again makes an appearance here).

 

The Gothic and macabre are also a running theme, from the likes of Ann Radcliffe and Beckford (including his own copy of his gothic masterpiece Vathek and several books owned and annotated by him) to later masters of supernatural and weird fiction such as Sheridan Le Fanu, M. P. Shiel and M. R. James. Aleister Crowley was clearly another favourite, appealing both to the bibliomaniac with the extraordinary rarity of some of his works (Humphries owned one of only two copies on vellum of Ahab and other poems, the only copy that remains in private hands) and seemingly also to Humphries’ humour and his love of the bohemian and transgressive; an aspect of his character that is evident in so many items in this extraordinary collection.

 

From here we could go on.  Rather, we suggest you go to the Forum website:  https://www.forumauctions.co.uk/The-Library-of-Barry-Humphries/26-03-2025?gridtype=gridview

 

Cherrio

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    The Library of Barry Humphries
    26th March 2025
    Forum, Mar. 26: Beckford (William) [Vathek] An Arabian Tale, first (but unauthorised) edition, Lady Caroline Lamb's copy with her signature and notes, 1786. £2,000 to £3,000.
    Forum, Mar. 26: Baudelaire (Charles) Les Fleurs du Mal, first edition containing the 6 suppressed poems, first issue, contemporary half black morocco, Paris, 1857. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, Mar. 26: Beardsley (Aubrey).- Pope (Alexander) The Rape of the Lock, one of 25 copies on Japanese vellum, Leonard Smithers, 1896. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, Mar. 26: Douglas (Lord Alfred) Sonnets, first edition, the dedication copy, with signed presentation inscription from the author to his wife Olive Custance, The Academy, 1909. £2,000 to £3,000.
    Forum Auctions
    The Library of Barry Humphries
    26th March 2025
    Forum, Mar. 26: Crowley (Aleister) The Works..., 3 vol. in 1 (as issued)"Essay Competition" issue on India paper, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1905-07. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum, Mar. 26: Rodin (Auguste).- Mirbeau (Octave) Le Jardin des Supplices, one of 30 copies on chine with an additional suite, bound in dark purple goatskin, Paris, 1902. £3,000 to £4,000.
    Forum, Mar. 26: Pellar (Hans) Eight original book illustrations for 'Der verliebte Flamingo' [together with] a published copy of the first edition of the book, 1923. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, Mar. 26: Cretté (Georges, binder).- Louÿs (Pierre) Les Aventures du Roi Pausole, 2 vol., one of 99 copies, with 2 original drawings, superbly bound in blue goatskin, gilt, Paris, 1930. £3,000 to £4,000.
  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Koller, Mar. 26: Wit, Frederick de. Atlas. Amsterdam, de Wit, [1680]. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
    Koller, Mar. 26: Merian, Maria Sibylla. Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung, und sonderbare Blumennahrung. Nürnberg, 1679; Frankfurt a. M. und Leipzig, 1683. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
    Koller, Mar. 26: GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON. Faust. Ein Fragment. Von Goethe. Ächte Ausgabe. Leipzig, G. J. Göschen, 1790. CHF 7,000 to 10,000
    Koller, Mar. 26: Hieronymus. [Das hochwirdig leben der außerwoelten freünde gotes der heiligen altuaeter]. Augsburg, Johann Schönsperger d. Ä., 9. Juni 1497. CHF 40,000 to 60,000.
    Koller, Mar. 26: BIBLIA GERMANICA - Neunte deutsche Bibel. Nürnberg, A. Koberger, 17. Feb. 1483. CHF 40,000 to 60,000
    Koller, Mar. 26: HORAE B.M.V. - Stundenbuch. Lateinische Handschrift auf Pergament, Kalendarium französisch. Nordfrankreich (Rouen?). CHF 25,000 to 40,000
  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    27th March 2025
    Forum, Mar. 27: Dürer (Albrecht) Hierin sind begriffen vier bücher von menschlicher Proportion, 4 parts in 1, first edition, Nuremberg, Hieronymus Andreae for Agnes Dürer, 1528. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum, Mar. 27: Book of Hours, Use of Rome, illuminated manuscript in Latin, on vellum, 26 fine hand-painted miniatures, 17th century dark brown morocco, [Lyon], [c. 1475 and later c. 1490-1500]. £25,000 to £35,000.
    Forum, Mar. 27: Brontë (Emily) The North Wind, watercolour, [1842]. £15,000 to £20,000.
    Forum, Mar. 27: Titanic.- Mudd (Thomas Cupper, one of the youngest victims of the sinking of the Titanic, 1895-1912) Autograph Letter signed on board RMS Titanic to his mother, April 11th 1912. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    27th March 2025
    Forum, Mar. 27: [Austen (Jane)] Emma: A Novel, 3 vol., first edition, for John Murray, 1816. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, Mar. 27: Picasso (Pablo).- Ovid. Les Metamorphoses, one of 95 copies, signed by the artist, Lausanne, Albert Skira, 1931. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, Mar. 27: America.- Ogilby (John) America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the New World..., all maps with vibrant hand-colouring in outline, probably by an early hand, 1671. £15,000 to £25,000.
    Forum, Mar. 27: Iceland.- Geological exploration.- Bright (Dr. Richard )and Edward Bird. Collection of twenty original drawings from travels in Iceland with Henry Holland and George Mackenzie, watercolours, [1810]. £20,000 to £30,000.

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