Presented by Ben Houston of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Signed limited edition, one of 500 copies, this copy unnumbered. With an original pen and ink drawing by Nielsen on the reverse of the limitation page, initialled in pencil.
The richness of the Danish Nielsen’s colour images for this lavish illustrated book of Norse pagan mythology was achieved by a four-colour process, in contrast to many of the illustrations prepared by his contemporaries, such as Rackham and Dulac, which characteristically utilised a traditional three-colour process.
Extremely rare with an original drawing: we have neither seen or heard of another copy and no other copies traced at auction.
Presented by Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington Rare Books.
Uncorrected proof copy of the first edition of the first book in the Harry Potter series, with the misprint “J. A. Rowling” on the title page. This is one of only 200 pre-publication proof copies. Bloomsbury only issued proof copies for the first three Harry Potter novels: after the Prisoner of Azkaban, sales were so great that they did not want to give subsequent story lines away until publication day.
Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
First signed limited edition: Heart of the Antarctic number 130 of 330 numbered copies, The Antarctic Book one of 300 unnumbered, signed by all the members of the shore party, here in the second, corrected state, the contents without the mistaken reference to “Aurora Australis”, and no signature “d” to p. 26.
Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper of volume I: “To Lord Northcliffe with best wishes from the Author. E. H. Shackleton 1911”.
Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe (1865-1922), proprietor of the Daily Mail, was, like Shackleton, of Anglo-Irish background. Northcliffe took a keen interest in Polar exploration, he was an important sponsor of the Discovery Expedition of 1901-04, on which Shackleton served as Third Officer, and the earlier Jackson-Harmsworth expedition to the Arctic in 1894-97.
The Daily Mail played a key role in the promotion of Shackleton’s iconic status: “When Shackleton returned to civilization following the Nimrod expedition, he was eager to get word to the Daily Mail, with which he had a contract for exclusive rights to the story. Before the ship returned to Lyttelton harbor New Zealand, Shackleton slipped in at Stewart Island and sent a lengthy wire to his newspaper. Within days word of his accomplishment spread around the world. Aided by the slant of the Daily Mail, which proclaimed Shackleton the conqueror of the South Pole. since he had nearly found the route to the Pole and determined that the pole was on that lofty plain the Antarctic Plateau, Shackleton instantly became famous” (T. H. Baughman, Shackleton of the Antarctic, 2009, pp. 41-42).
The Heart of the Antarctic is Shackleton’s account of the British Antarctic Expedition of 19079 (Nimrod) and “remains one of the half-dozen greatest polar accounts” (ibid.). “Their sledge journey to the south magnetic pole was one of the three foremost achievements of this expedition. The other two achievements were, first, the ascent and survey of Mount Erebus (12,448 feet), the active volcano on Ross Island and, second, the southern sledge journey, which reached within 100 miles of the south pole” (ODNB). Shackleton’s diary entries for the latter, published here “virtually unaltered” constitute “one of the most compelling narratives in the Antarctic literature” (Rosove p.386).
The expedition established Shackleton as a “bona fide English hero,” but the success of the book did little to alleviate “the financial problems left to him by the expedition” (Books on Ice). Sir Raymond Priestley (18861974), a British Geologist and Antarctic explorer who accompanied Shackleton on the 19071913 Antarctic expeditions, said, “For scientific leadership, give me Scott; for swift and efficient travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless situation, when there seems to be no way out, get on your knees and pray for Shackleton”.
This three-volume limited edition is “one of the most handsome productions in the Antarctic canon” (ibid.); the “most luxurious publication to have appeared during the ‘heroic age’ of Antarctic exploration” (Taurus). Presentation sets are genuinely uncommon and highly desirable, and the more so with such a striking association, linking one of the towering figures of polar exploration and “the greatest figure who ever walked down Fleet Street” (ODNB).
Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
Second folio edition, Todd’s first issue, the edition of which William Prynne complained that it was printed on best crown paper. It is estimated that the original edition was of 1,000 copies, shared between the five publishers listed in the colophon, all of whom were proprietors of rights to one or more of the plays. This copy is one of the copies printed for Robert Allot, who took the lion’s share.
The book is also notable for containing the first appearance in print of John Milton, his lines printed on the Effigies leaf. This copy is Todd’s first issue, with the Effigies leaf in Smith’s state C (initial “S” against a filigreed background). As Todd showed in 1953, copies of the first issue of the Second Folio were printed and sold in the manner stated on the title page in 1632; later issues, although still dated 1632, have the title and conjugate Effigies leaf on thicker paper and were sold by Allot’s successors sometime between 1636 and 1641.
Provenance: a) early pen-trials on blank recto of the To the Reader leaf including the date 1708; some early pen marks to the Effigies leaf recto, not affecting text, at foot of last leaf of text of The Tempest (B4r), including the name Thomas Thorp, and at the end of the Comedies, Z6r, with the names Joanna White and Richard Carrington; b) engraved bookplate of Sir Christopher Willoughby, Bart (1748–1808), perhaps the owner who commissioned the binding. Christopher Willoughby married Martha Evans in 1789, impaling her arms with his, and was created a baronet in 1794. He carried out extensive improvements at his 17th-century manor house, Baldon House, south of Oxford, rebuilding it in the 18th-century style. The house and grounds were considered sufficiently beautiful to be mentioned in 1830 by Thomas Moule in his English Counties Delineated. c) sold at auction, Swann Galleries, 19 May 1977, lot 217, $9,500 hammer, corner of N2 torn off, bought by Dr Kevin Harrington (no relation) of Mill Valley, California; d) restored by James Brockman and sold by Peter Harrington on behalf of Dr Harrington to the present owner in December 2003.
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