55 DIANA, Princess of Wales. Dresses from the Collection of Diana, Princess of Wales. New York: Christie’s, 1997 SIGNED BY PRINCESS DIANA Signed limited edition, number 175 of 250 copies signed by Princess Diana a few months before her death. This luxury auction catalogue was produced by Christie’s to illustrate the 80 dresses that were sold on 25 June 1997, raising over $3.6 million dollars for the AIDS Crisis Trust and the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Fund. The catalogue was issued by Christie’s as an enticement to wealthy prospective bidders. Most copies have remained with their original owners as a memento of both Diana and the record-breaking sale, and are consequently scarce in commerce.
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Loosely inserted in this copy is ephemera related to the sale – entrance tickets, an absentee bidding form, the auction results and summary letter, invitation for a private viewing of the dresses and another for a reception, and an advertisement for the unsigned catalogue. Quarto. Original purple imitation leather, with sewn-in silk bookmarkerer. Illustrated throughout with full colour photographs by Terence Donovan, Patrick Demarchelier, Tim Graham, Barry Swaebe, Lord Snowdon, Glenn Harvey, N. Hinkes, and Mark Stewart. Minimal bumping at top corner; a fine copy. £9,750 [150303] 56 DICKENS, Charles. Bleak House. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1852–53 composed at the height of his powers First edition, in the original monthly parts as published between March 1852 and September 1853. “Writing at the height of his powers, Dickens adopts a virtuoso form of double narration, and the novel has since the middle of the twentieth century been widely acclaimed as his greatest work” ( ODNB ). Of note is the inclusion of ten dark plates, a new mode of illustration particularly fitting to the novel: “As Dickens’s vision of society darkened, Browne adjusted his techniques, pioneering in the use of ‘dark plates’, where the plate was machine-ruled in parallel grooves which printed an almost uniform
tone either before or after the figures and background were hand drawn. These brooding, atmospheric designs harmonized with the gloomy, foggy world of Bleak House and Little Dorrit ” (Schlicke, p. 59). Some variation between the make-up of a set and the exhaustive collation of an ideal copy provided by Hatton and Cleaver is almost always found – this set nonetheless is remarkably similar to their requirements, with all the advertisements and slips they call for, except that in Part IV the Household Words slip is on dark rather than light green paper (although a light green copy is loosely inserted), and Part V has 4 rather than 8 pages of the Edward Lloyd advertisement. The “Village Pastor” booklet in Part XV, described by Hatton and Cleaver as “rather scarce” and “often wanting”, is here present. The set was owned by the Liverpudlian Dickens collector W. H. Collis, with his loosely inserted slip noting that the parts were restored by Morrell between 1932 and 1935; it was common for collectors at the time to mix and match parts to build a set meeting all the desired points. 20 numbers in 19 monthly parts, as issued. Original pale blue pictorial wrappers. Housed in custom green cloth solander box, c .1930s. Frontispiece, vignette title page, and 38 engraved plates by H. K. Browne. Expert restoration to spines, a few plates somewhat oxidized as often, generally both contents and wrappers clean, part 19/20 with front wrapper slightly cropped at foot and rear wrapper slightly frayed with one small repair. Slight wear to box. An excellent set. ¶ Eckel, pp. 79–81; Hatton & Cleaver, pp. 275–304. Paul Schlicke, ed., T he Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens, 2001. £3,750 [153394]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
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