Bloomsbury auction tomorrow 11am includes Children’s Books

Children’s Books, Private Press & Limited Editions, Livres d’Artistes, Modern Illustrated Books

The most comprehensive private collection of mauchline ware books ever to come onto the market, is being sold by Bloomsbury Auctions in London as part of the Children's Books, Private Press & Limited Editions, Livres d'Artistes, Modern Illustrated Books and Original Artwork sale (26th February 2009). Consisting of 54 lots (many with more than one item per lot), the collection was painstakingly put together over a period of about 25 years, and is considered to be more extensive than that in the National Library of Scotland.

These charming wood mementos were both useful as well as decorative and were created by William and Andrew Smith in the first half of the nineteenth century and continued to be made until about 1930. Initially made from sycamore and later other local woods, they were often covered in a tartan and then embellished with engravings of Scottish views.

The beautifully crafted books in Bloomsbury's Property of a Lady, span a wide spectrum of subjects such as prayer books, bibles and books on the language of flowers or birds' eggs to poetry books by HW Longfellow, Robert Burns, Thomas Moore, Sir Walter Scott or Lord AlfredTennyson. Particularly interesting is lot 18, The Poetical Works and Letters by Robert Burns decorated with transfer vignettes 'from Pitnacree, Dunkeld' and 'Dinna forget Pitnacree' with an unexpected vignette of the Italian patriot Garibaldi (estimate £150-200). Another attractive lot is the group of seven mauchline fern ware bindings from about 1870 (lot 24) estimated £300-400. The Scottish Keepsake by Robert Burns (lot 17) with a Campbell tartan mauchline binding and gilt leather spine is datable to1845 and is estimated £300-400. The Tourist's Guide to Loch Lomond (lot 31) is a typical souvenir piece with 12 chromolithographs and made of wood from the slopes of Stirling Castle (estimate £200-300). The main point of interest for lot 13 A Book of Common Prayer is that it was 'made from tree felled by ...Gladstone' with transfer views of Hawarden Castle and Church (estimate £50-100), while lot 49 consists of various works by Scott all in mauchline bindings of wood grown on the lands of Abbotsford and decorated with transfer vignettes and photographic portraits (£300-400). However the highlight of the collection is lot 48, a six volume box of Select Poetry by Sir Walter Scott in mauchline tartan bindings with a cameo bust of Scott on the lid, estimated £1000-1500 and datable 1869-70, Edinburgh.