Report from the Salerooms

The year 2013 saw the sale of the library of former chairman of the Byron Society, Derek Wise. Derek was also my predecessor as author of this column. For those wishing to refresh their memory of the man his obituary appeared in The Byron Journal, 40.2 in 2012, but back to his books. These were sold by Bloomsbury Drewett in two sales, one in London and the other at their rooms in Godalming. The London auction took place on 28 February, Lots 263 to 302 (39 lots) being Derek’s books.

The books sold in London were volumes that could be sold individually, mainly first edition of Byron’s verse in fine bindings. The lots were roughly organised by date so the first lot was the first edition, first issue of Hours of Idleness, 1807. This, like many of the books had come from the library of collector, Oliver Nowell Chadwyck-Healey and had his bookplate. Unfortunately Derek did not have a bookplate so now that his books are dispersed it will be hard to recognise them as his if one comes across them. He, or his cataloguer, did mark them in pencil with a Bna and a number in a circle, he also had a pencil code of whom he had bought the book from, when and how much he had paid for it. These marking being in pencil means they are likely to be erased by the next dealer selling them as he prices up in pencil. Lot 294 was The Deformed Transformed; A drama, 1824. The remaining lots were a Major Byron forgery, Hobhouse’s A Journey Through Albania, the second edition with only 8 of the 25 hand-coloured plates, Medwin’s Journal of the Conversations with a very rare little book, John Murray’s Notes on Captain Medwin’s Conversations of Lord Byron, Polidori’s The Vampyre and another Polidori item, Lot 299, Thomas Fuller’s The Historie of the Holy Warre, 2^nd edition. This was inscribed by John Polidori ‘Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori from her brother John March 16th 1811’ and W. M. Rossetti from Christina’s books 1894. Polidori’s sister, Frances, was Christina Rossetti’s mother. This sold for £850.

The remaining and greater part of Derek Wise’s library was sold on 14 March in Godalming. It was the first 103 lots of the sale, although only the first 22 of these were described as ‘Byron and his contemporaries.’ He had other interest apart from Byron including Edward Lear. The lots started with Byron’s works, the first lot was approximately 70 volumes, Lot 2 was made up of contemporary editions of individual poems, some were first edition, and catalogued as – a small quantity, the third a quantity, the fourth 60 volumes, the fifth 45 volumes and the sixth 60 volumes. That is a lot of collected editions and individual poems in various editions. Collectively they fetched £1,230.00, which is less than £5 per volume. The best lot was Lot 9, another small quantity but including Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon, 2nd edition, “Sydney’s” Letter to the King; and other correspondence, connected with the Reported Exclusion of Lord Byron’s Monument from Westminster Abbey, 1825 and a nice selection of piracies. The lot fetched £900. The worst lot was Lot 17, which was comprised of approximately 40 volumes and fetched £20. It was made up, mainly, of twentieth-century books such as Doris Langley Moore’s Ada Countess of Lovelace, Elwin’s Lord Byron’s Wife and other related biographies. Another good lot, but catalogued outside the Byron section was Lot 27 – Armenian Press, Venice – Aucher (Father Pascal) A Grammar, Armenian and English 1819 with a further 15 volumes including the various Byron translations. This fetched £1,100.

There are two points that these two sales highlight. One is that modern biographies no longer hold any value and the second is that flooding the market with such a large single subject collection dampens it, but I do have to note that some of Derek’s books were not in wonderful condition and if a library is...