An 1857 work on Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone – 14 years before Dr. Livingstone by found by Henry Morton Stanley near what was then Lake Tanganyika in present day Tanzania.
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 auction which runs until 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 unusual result of this is that the pirated Irish version 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.
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 audio book read by Brad Pitt (€800-€1,000) to a 1959 poster for an excursion to Youghal by train from Cork (€300-€400), a 1929 book on champion boxer Jack Dempsey signed by Rocky Marciano (€400-€600) and Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by Dr. David Livingstone.
A poster for a 1959 excursion to Youghal
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 10.45 am and return at 11.55 pm. The return third class fair was seven shillings and six pence. Freighted with memories this poster is estimated at €300-€400.
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 like 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 in Castlecomer on April 22 and 23 and the catalogue is online.
A narrative on Jack Dempsey signed by Rocky Marciano
