Preview: December Books, Maps & Manuscripts Sale

A diverse range of antiquarian and collectable books will come under the hammer in Tennants Auctioneers’ Books, Maps and Manuscripts Sale on 11^th December, including a scarce copy of Beatrix Potter’s The Fairy Caravan, the story she felt was too personal and autobiographical for her to feel comfortable publishing it in this country (estimate: £1,000-1,500 all figures exclude buyer’s premium). Despite it only being widely circulated in the United States, in order to secure English copyright a small number of copies were privately printed in Ambleside for the author in 1929, on of which is the present copy. The book is to be sold with letters providing an insight into the publication process for this book.

A relatively rare first edition of The Road to Serfdom by the Austrian-born British economist and philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek will be offered with an estimate of £800-1,200. Seldom seen at auction, particularly with its dust jacket, The Road to Serfdom was the most successful of the Nobel Prize winning author’s books. One of the more unusual lots in the sale is a 19^th Century Manuscript Maritime Exercise Book, filled with handwritten and hand drawn diagrams, maps, illustrations, calculations, charts and notes relating to sailing (estimate: £300-500). Detailed and carefully executed, sections of the book include ‘Traverse Sailing’, ‘Oblique Trigonometry’ and ‘Dead Reckoning’.

Of more local interest is a copy of the first printed map of Yorkshire, published in Christopher Saxon’s Atlas of England and Wales in 1579 (estimate: £2,000-3,000). The hand-coloured map was engraved by Augustine Ryther, and it bears the coat of arms of Thomas Seckford. The sale will also offer a large collection of Teesdale Photographs by Elijah Yeoman (1849-1930), a photographer from Barnard Castle who later opened a second studio in Kirkby Stephen (estimate: £300-500). The collection includes numerous images of Teesdale and surrounding areas, including Barnard Castle, Streatlam Castle, Raby Castle, Ronaldskirk and Rokeby.

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