Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species Brings $151k
First Editions of Early Printed Works and 19th & 20th Century Literature Anchor Swann’s Spring Fine Books Sale

Swann Galleries’ spring Fine Books auction featuring Focus on Women on April 23 was a resounding success, bringing $1,209,919 against pre-sale estimates of $645,200 to $930,200. Featuring exceptional works spanning from early printed publications, including incunabula, through the twentieth century, and art books, the sale saw and 88% sell-through rate and reached 121% of its pre-sale estimates by value.

Of the auction, Devon Eastland, senior specialist for books and manuscripts, noted, “We were beyond pleased with the results of this spring’s Fine Books sale featuring Focus on Women. Books performed well across the board. The cumulative sales results outstripped the high estimate, indicating robust competition for children’s books, astronomy, Darwin, early printed books and more. We had the distinct pleasure of successfully selling on an unnamed private collection of early printed works and working through another great group of books from Professor Owen Gingerich’s collection. Early printed books included a fabulous selection of sixteenth-century English books, with important primary Shakespeare sources, a strong showing for rare early Bibles, and a sparkling illuminated Islamic prayer book in an exquisite tooled binding. Michael Charles’s impressive selection of Oz books will be finding new homes after the auction—an example of how careful collecting can lead to very good results in the sale room.

The Focus on Women section also generated competitive interest from institutional, trade and private clients. An example of Yoko Ono’s 1964 first edition of Grapefruit hammered at $8,000, and a fine copy of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness sold for $5,400. We’re encouraged to see that the books we assembled for the spring edition of Fine Books found so many enthusiastic bidders and buyers. We look forward to doing the same in the fall.”

Charles Darwin

Leading the auction was a first London edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, 1859, which once belonged to Sir Frederick Pollick, the third son of George Frederick Pollick, who was friends with Darwin and supported his world-changing theories. The work brought $151,400. 12 additional Darwin works also found the interest of collectors, of note was Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle, first edition, 1839 ($7,112), and Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle, the first separate edition of Darwin’s first published book, 1839 ($5,080).

Early Printed Books & Manuscripts

Illuminated Islamic Devotional Manuscript, 19th century. Sold for $25,400.

Additional early printed highlights included Thomas Heywood’s An Apology for Actors, first edition, 1612 ($30,480); Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Arte of Warre, first edition, 1560-62 ($27,940); and Girolamo Manghi’s Flagellum Daemonum. Seu Exorcismi Terribiles, first edition, 1577 ($16,510). Manuscript material featured a nineteenth-century illuminated Islamic devotional manuscript ($16,510); Guido delle Colonna’s Historia Destructionis Troiae, fifteenth century ($19,050); and a circa-1600 English heraldry manuscript ($16,510).

Literature

(left) Herman Melville, Moby Dick; or, The Whale, first edition, New York, 1851. Sold for $24,130; (right) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, signed first edition, London, 1892. Sold for $16,510.

Early literarary high spots included William Shakespeare with five plays from the second folio from 1632: The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight, The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, and The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet  , with Henry VII bound separately from the other four ($13,970); Herman Melville’s Moby Dick; or, The Whale, first edition, 1851 ($24,130); and a signed first edition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892 ($16,510).

(left) Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, signed first edition, New York, 1985. Sold for $24,130; (right) Frank Herbert, Dune, first edition, first printing, Philadelphia, 1965. Sold $17,780.

A signed first edition of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, 1985, led twentieth-century works ($24,130); also of note was a stated first edition, first printing of Frank Herbert’s Dune, 1965 ($17,780); and the Michael Charles Collection of L. Frank Baum and Oz Books, which included a first edition, first state printing of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900 ($8,890).

Browse the complete results here.