Irish and English first editions, limited copies and books at Fonsie Mealy

This narrative on Jack Dempsey signed by Rocky Marciano is at Fonsie Mealy's sale.

A complete set of Moore’s Dublin Edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, totalling 19 volumes, illustrated with nearly 400 copper plates features at Fonsie Mealy’s timed online Spring Rare Book and Collector’s timed auction which runs until next Wednesday (April 24). James Moore’s 1791-97 reprint of the third edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica was technically legal because British copyright protections did not apply in Ireland until after the Act of Union in 1800.

Unlike Britannica volumes, all dated 1797, Moore’s title pages were dated the year they were printed, from 1788 to 1797. The result is that the pirated version of the Irish work has an earlier date than the original. The
estimate on what was the largest and most expensive publication to appear in Ireland at the time is €700-€1,000.

A poster for a 1959 excursion to Youghal at Fonsie Mealy.

On offer is a selection of English and Irish first editions, signed and limited copies; periodicals and books on history, travel, and science; along with pamphlets, maps, and ephemera. Included is the residue of the library of the late Dr Philip Murray of Sligo.

More than 700 lots will come under the hammer with everything from a signed first edition of Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy complete with a two-cassette audiobook read by Brad Pitt (€800-€1,000) to a 1959 poster for an excursion to Youghal by train from Cork (€300-€400) and a 1929 book on champion boxer Jack Dempsey signed by Rocky Marciano (€400-€600).

An 1857 work on Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone at Fonsie Mealy. This was 14 years before Dr. Livingstone by found by Henry Morton Stanley near what was then Lake Tanganyika in present day Tanzania.

A collection of programmes from Manchester United home games from 1949-69 (€300-€400), a 1912 first edition of Life in the West of Ireland with coloured illustrations by Jack B Yeats (€550-€750), a framed emigrants testimonial to ships surgeon J J Tighe from passengers of the Rangitiki after a 13-week voyage to New Zealand in 1876 (€250-€350), an 1809 printing of The Works of James Barry, Historical Painter by Edward Fryer (€200-€300) and a set of five signed first editions by Lawrence Durrell including two inscribed to Dr Philip Murray (€250-€320) demonstrate the depth and breadth of this sale.

You could travel in 3rd class in comfort with CIE according to the poster advertising an excursion to Youghal from Cork on Sunday, September 6, 1959. It announced that a non-stop special train would leave Cork at 10.45am and return at 11.55pm. The return third-class fare was seven shillings and sixpence. Freighted with memories, this poster is estimated at €300-€400.

A set of Manchester United home games programmes from 1949-1969 at Fonsie Mealy.

Elsewhere in the online catalogue is an illuminated address to Thomas Brisbane Warren, Dean of Cork (€120-€170), a large collection of more than 1,100 postcards (€300-€400), and a bound set of six varied acts of King George III owned by John Hely Hutchinson, 2nd Earl of Donoughmore, relating to matters including paving the streets of Cork and improving the butter trade. Hely-Hutchinson represented Cork City in the Irish House of Commons, and the set is estimated at €250-€350.

Lot 580 is an 1815 Smith’s History of Cork and other books of local interest, estimated at €200-€300.

The sale is on view next Monday and Tuesday in Castlecomer, and the catalogue is online.