A new chapter to begin for rare books at auction

A first edition of novel At Swim Two Birds and a copy of the ‘Irish Proclamation’ are among the lots.

WITH fine bindings, ancient maps, Irish literature, flora, genealogy and politics, journals, law books and even a silk handkerchief rescued from the flames of the Abbey Theatre in 1951, an auction by Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers in Kilkenny, next Wednesday (April 2), holds much to delight bibliophiles and collectors.

There is a rare, 1939 first edition of At Swim Two Birds, by Flann O’Brien, and a first American edition, from 1939, of Finnegan’s Wake, by James Joyce.