Audubon's Birds of America and Shakespeare's First Folio at Sotheby's

Today Sotheby’s is delighted to announce a sale of ‘Magnificent Books, Manuscripts and Drawings from the Collection of Frederick, 2^nd Lord Hesketh, The Property of the Trustees of the 2nd Baron Hesketh’s Will Trust’, to take place in London on 7^thDecember.  The selection of books, manuscripts and drawings from this distinguished collection was built up by successive generations of the family, and shows the best of every aspect of the bibliophile’s endeavour: typography, illustration, illumination, literary and historical importance, and fine binding.  Few collections can boast of both Audubon’s Birds of America and Shakespeare’s First Folio, yet Lord Hesketh acquired a magnificent subscriber’s copy of the Birds, and a crisp, textually complete Folio in an early binding within a space of a few years. 

The sale takes one on a journey of printed books from a rare example by England’s first printer, William Caxton, through indisputably the most important book in English Literature, Shakespeare’s First Folio, to a great landmark of natural history Audubon’s Birds of America; manuscripts range from a fine illuminated early gospel commentary from the eleventh century in Old Frankish, the language of Charlemagne, to an exceptional historical series of letters by Queen Elizabeth I, the Earl of Leicester and the spy Francis Walsingham relating to the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots, and there is as well a group of ravishingly beautiful original drawings from Redoute’s Les Roses, once owned by the Duchesse de Berry.  The sale has an estimate of £8-10 million.

http://www.sothebys.com/