charlotte bronte and harry potter headline sotheby's english lit sale

8/3/2019 Charlotte Bronte And Harry Potter Headline Sotheby's English Lit Sale

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SOTHEBYS LONDON TO OFFER

A UNIQUE COPY OF THE FIRST HARRY POTTER NOVEL

FEATURING TEN PREVIOUSLY UNSEEN, SPECIALLY

COMMISSIONED ILLUSTRATIONS

---The English Literature, History, Private Press, Childrens Books and Illustrations

Sale on 15th

December 2011 Will Also FeatureThe Most Important Charlotte Bront Manuscript to

Come to Auction for a Generation ---

A unique copy of the first Harry Potter book with additional illustrations in colour by, Thomas Taylor, estimated at 30,000-50,000*

SOTHEBYS LONDON, 29th

November, 2011, is delighted to announce the sale of a selection of

exceptional works in its English Literature, History Private Press, Childrens Books &

Illustrations on Thursday, 15 December 2011. The sale, which comprises 163 lots, is expected to

raise in excess of 1.5 million. The headline lot is an autograph manuscript of the previously unknown

The Young Mens Magazine, Number 2, written by a 14-year-old Charlotte Bront, in miniature format.

Estimated at 200,000-300,000, it is one of only a handful of such manuscripts remaining in private

hands. Also featured is a first deluxe edition of Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone which

includes 10 full-colour, specially commissioned illustrations by Thomas Taylor, the first artist to give

shape to the boy wizard. The sale has several works of international significance, including an archive


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of literary manuscripts by Naguib Mahfouz, probably the most significant Egyptian novelist of the 20th

Century.

Peter Selley, Sothebys Senior Director and Senior Specialist in the Books and Manuscripts

Department said: This is a wonderfully diverse sale, which offers historic collecting opportunities,

including the most important Bront manuscript to be offered at auction for a generation. Previously

unknown to scholars and of huge literary significance, it sheds new light on Charlotte Bronts

inspirations and the fantasy worlds inhabited by the Bront siblings. Another imaginary realm which

has captivated millions of readers is that of J.K. Rowling, and the sale features perhaps the ultimate

bespoke Harry Potter novel. The unique copy ofHarry Potter and the Philosophers Stone includes 10

wonderfully fresh illustrations, offered with the original watercolours, by Thomas Taylor, who created

the first ever depiction of the young wizard.

The unpublished manuscript by Charlotte Bront, The

Young Mens Magazine, Number 2 (illustrated right),

reveals a plot line which is a precursor to one of the mostfamous scenes in Jane Eyre. Estimated at 200,000-

300,000, it is the most important Bront manuscript to

have appeared at auction in more than thirty years and has

never before been seen by scholars. Set in Glass Town,

the earliest fictional world that the four Bront siblings

created, and written by a fourteen-year-old Charlotte in

miniature magazine format, the manuscript is dated

August 183017 years before the celebrated author wrote Jane Eyre.

** A dedicated press release on Charlotte Bronts autograph manuscript ofThe Young Mens

Magazine, Number 2 is available from the press office.

Offered for sale for the first time, a unique copy of the first 1999 deluxe edition ofHarry Potter and

the Philosophers Stone by J.K. Rowling, is estimated at 30,000-50,000 (pictured, page one). The

bespoke, extra-illustrated edition is not only signed by the author but also includes 10 specially

commissioned full-colour plates by the original Harry Potter illustrator, Thomas Taylor. The consignor

asked Taylor to create the images in 2002 for his own library. The scenes were chosen for their

significance and to provide an even spread of illustrations throughout the narrative. They were

originally intended to be bound into a copy of the book, but proving too thick, were instead reproduced

on fine wove paper and sumptuously bound by Asprey. Thomas Taylor provided the first-ever

depiction of Harry Potter for the cover of Rowlings debut novel in 1997. After it was published the

image achieved world-wide fame and Taylors original watercolour was sold at Sothebys London in

July 2001 for 85,750.

A highly significant archive of literary manuscripts by Naguib Mahfouz, probably the most significant

Egyptian novelist of the 20th

Century, is estimated at 50,000-70,000.


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Best known for his 1950s works the

Cairo Trilogy and the Children of

Gebelawi, in 1988, Mahfouz became

the only Arab writer to win the Nobel

Prize for Literature. Mahfouzs style

developed throughout his career and

those changes are reflected in this rich

and diverse group of literary

manuscripts which includes material

from both the beginning of his career

in the 1930s, to his death in 2006. To

Sothebys best knowledge this is the

first manuscript material by Mahfouz

to appear at auction.

A unique edition of Queen Victorias biography by Agnes Strickland, Queen Victoria from HerBirth to Her Bridal(Henry Colburn, 1840), inscribed with notes in the Queens hand, is estimated at

10,000-15,000. Queen Victoria was deeply unimpressed with the biography by the well-known

Victorian author of Lives of the Queens of England. When a copy of the overtly effusive and

sentimental work was presented to her, the Queen made

her true feelings known. She made caustic marginal

comments on 120 pages of the book, then had it

returned to the author. In many cases Queen Victoria

marked specific paragraphs with a vertical line and

added a terse not true, quite false, and even notone word of truth in the margin. In others she made

specific factual corrections to names, dates and places.

Strickland, appalled at the royal response, made every

effort to halt further distribution of the book, and to buy

any remaining copies in bookstores and destroy them.

This book is offered for sale for the first time, by Agnes

Stricklands direct descendants. In 1932 the family (then living in Canada) received a request from

King George V to see the book. It was duly despatched to England and is offered for sale in the brown

paper wrapping in which it was posted back to the family from Windsor Castle.

A collection of books and effects, formerly the property of

Yvonne Cloetta, the long-time companion ofGraham Greene,

is estimated to reach a total in excess of 40,000. Mme Cloetta

was Greenes last great love and the centre of his emotional life

for his last three decades. The author moved to Antibes in the

early 1960s to be near her home in Juan Les Pins. He never

formally divorced his wife Vivien, and Yvonne never left her

husband, but the extent of the collection and the tenderness of

its inscriptions, reveals the depth of their relationship: If I

were to live my life again, there is only one thing I would wantunchanged: meeting you, knowing you, and loving you,


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Graham Greene wrote to Yvonne in 1978. The collection, comprising correspondence, inscribed first

editions of Greenes novels, a portrait of the author and his camera, will be sold in 16 separate lots.

The very rare first separate English edition of one of the best-loved poems in the English language,

Rudyard KiplingsIF, is estimated at 8,000-12,000. The work, which is consistently voted as The

Nations Favourite Poem, was first published in 1910, but it was the appearance of this first edition in

the month of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, which brought it to the attention of a wider

public. There is believed to be only one copy recorded in any institution worldwide: that in the

collection of one of Kiplings early biographers the Canadian barrister and industrialist James McG.

Stewart, who bequeathed it to Dalhousie University Library in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A charming original ink drawing of Piglet, stranded in a tree

during a flood, by E.H. Shepard is estimated at 30,000-

50,000. The work, which here has Shepards minor gouache

corrections, was reproduced as a full-page illustration in

Chapter IX of A.A. Milnes Winnie the Pooh, published in1926. Shepard entitled the drawing Rescue of Piglet before

quoting Milnes text: It is a little anxious to be a very small

animal entirely surrounded by water.

Another famous literary pig to feature in the

sale is the beloved Wilbur. Maggie

Kneens complete set of 21 fine pencil and

watercolour drawings for Some Pig! by Charlottes Web author E. B. White (pictured left), is

estimated to fetch 4,000-6,000.

A unique leather-bound boxed set of Stieg Larssons internationally bestselling and award-winning

Millennium Trilogy (pictured right) comprises The Girl

with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest, along with the

original letter of rejection sent to a young Larsson in 1972 by

the Joint Committee of Colleges of Journalism. Larsson kept

this letter among his personal possessions until his death, and

it reveals an original pencil portrait by the author

himself. Stieg Larssons drawing skills are well documented,

but his drawings have not previously been published. The

document has been donated by the author's familyspecifically to be included with the boxed set estimated at


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10,000-12,000. The sale will benefit Expo, the anti-discrimination foundation set up in 1995 by

Larsson and his peers. Larsson served as president of the foundation as well as editor-in-chief of Expo

magazine until his death in 2004.

*Estimates do not include buyers premium

Images available via email

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*Estimates do not include buyers premium

Images available via email

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charlotte bronte and harry potter headline sotheby's english lit sale

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