Book sale is ‘first’ for first editions

FROM a 15th century book of hours to photographs of the Co Clare RIC, the Fonsie Mealy rare book and collectors’ sale, in Dublin next Tuesday, goes on view today.

The catalogue offers a rich array of ancient Irish land deeds, literary history, maps, memorabilia and sporting material, like the signed Munster team jersey from the 1978 All Blacks match at Thomond Park, pictured last week on these pages.

First editions include a signed copy of Down All the Days, by Christy Brown, the first Irish language edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, from 1933, and Virginia Woolf’s last book, The Years, from 1937.

There are works by Yeats, Lady Gregory, Seamus Heaney, and a first edition of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. There is a rare, 1883 sketch book of The Aran Islands. Kevin Barry’s last letter to his mother is estimated at €700 to €1,000, and Robert Emmet’s death mask has an estimate of €500 to €700.

There is work of interest to every locality in Ireland, including two volumes of The Orrery Papers, from 1903, and a first edition by Florence O’Sullivan of The History of Kinsale, dated 1916.

Waterford during the Civil War, by Thomas Fitzpatrick, was published in 1912 and relates to the English Civil War of 1641-53. There is a first edition of Dubliners (€2,500 to €3,500), and a first American edition of Finnegan’s Wake, both by James Joyce (€500 to €850). A first edition of Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol is estimated at €250 to €350.

The c1440 manuscript book of hours, from Flanders, or the southern Netherlands, is estimated at €4,000 to €6,000 and contains 153 leaves.

Viewing at the Clyde Court Hotel, Dublin, is from 1.30pm to 7.30pm today, and from 10.30am to 7pm on Monday. The sale of 750 lots gets underway on Tuesday at 10.30am