The Library of Barry Humphries to be sold on March 26th at Forum
- by Bruce E. McKinney
The Library of Barry Humphries to be sold on March 26th at Forum
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.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern Now through July 10, 2025
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
Freeman’s | Hindman Western Manuscripts and Miniatures July 8, 2025
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.