October 12 Toulouse Lautrec, Orient, Empire & the Written Word: Rare Books, Signed Firsts & Folio Society

Our October 12 sale brings together 203 lots spanning the breadth of antiquarian collecting, with particular depth in Oriental and imperial history, modern literature, and the illustrated book arts. Highlights include Schliemann’s first English edition of Troy and Its Remains (1875), the signed first edition of Princess Der Ling’s Son of Heaven with its vivid account of the Qing court, and S. Wells Williams’s revised Middle Kingdom in two volumes with its large folding map — all complemented by significant runs of Sino-British history from Bland and Backhouse, Mughal memoir in the Jahangirnama, and multiple Lawrence of Arabia studies from Graves and Storrs. Fine press and illustrated editions are well represented throughout, from the Napoleonic Description de l’Egypte facsimile plates in Monuments of Egypt to Picasso-illustrated Lysistrata from the Heritage Press, Toulouse-Lautrec chromolithographs in disbound issues of Le Rire, and David Roberts’s hand-coloured Holy Land plates in facsimile folio. The sale also rewards collectors of signed and association copies — among them a presentation copy of Don’t Call It Frisco signed by Herb Caen, the Dore Schary copy of Caro’s The Power Broker, and an 1882 Macmillan Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with a contemporary manuscript inscription — alongside strong groups of Folio Society editions, Kipling, Virginia Woolf, and mid-century American first editions in dust jackets.