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Collectively they went through many editions and the limerick form is now synonymous with Lear’s name (although he never used the word “limerick”). Lear wrote to Norah Bruce in 1870 that “nonsense is the breath of my nostrils”. The public responded to Lear’s inventive wordplay and gentle humour. Perhaps Lear’s greatest innovation, however, was the combination of limerick with a humorous pen and ink sketch. Throughout his life Lear copied and recopied his “Nonsenses” as gifts for friends, and also produced albums of nonsense for special recipients. Many examples of Lear’s own copies of his nonsense comprise limericks with text written in block capitals. In the present piece, he provides the text in his handwriting, which suggests one of the earliest examples of Lear’s nonsense verses. The text is presented in five lines and a correction in the fourth line (the third letter of “encountered” has been changed) suggests that Lear was composing the text as he wrote or was momentarily distracted. The spacing of the final word, which is squeezed into too small a gap, suggests that the pen and ink drawing came before the text. The text was first published in Bosh and Nonsense in 1982, using a manuscript in the Frederick R. Koch Collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The published illustration is less detailed than in the present version. There are a couple of minor textual variants (“But in coming downstairs” published as “But on coming downstairs” and “Who devoured that old person of Calais” published as “Who swallowed that person of Calais”). The simplification of the drawing and the correct number of syllables for the final line in the Koch variant strongly suggest that the present piece is the earlier of the two known versions. Provenance: from the collection of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. (1906–1990) and Nina R. Houghton (1937–2020). Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. was a major benefactor of Harvard University (he endowed the Houghton Library in 1942) and served as the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Philharmonic. He was also the curator of rare books at the Library of Congress at the beginning of the 1940s and, later, a vice president of the Pierpont Morgan Library.
Original pen and ink drawing (104 × 155 mm) on paper (124 × 200 mm), with text in Lear’s hand, unsigned. Mounted, framed, and glazed (framed size: 260 × 335 mm). A couple of creases, some consistent light browning, finger-soiling on top right corner, minor offsetting
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from previous mount; a very good and unfaded example. ¶ Edward Lear, The Complete Verse and other Nonsense , 2001. £12,000
62 LE GUIN, Ursula K. A Wizard of Earthsea. Berkeley: Parnassus Press, 1968 the first instalment in the Earthsea trilogy First edition, first printing, trade issue, with the publisher’s faint vertical smudge on the title page, running through the “r” in “Wizard” and ending at the “r” in press, not present in later printings. There are two bindings, trade and library,
without priority. “Although 6,800 copies of the first printing were produced, most copies were sold to public and secondary school libraries, and fine unmarked copies have proved to be quite elusive” (Currey). Octavo. Original blue-green cloth, spine lettered in black, lettering and pictorial design in black on front board, green endpapers. With pictorial dust jacket. Title vignette, 5 maps (including one double- page), and headpieces by Ruth Robbins. Bookplate of Lucile Hatch (1913–2002) to the front pastedown; Hatch was a collector and the acting dean of the Graduate School of Librarianship, University of Denver, Colorado. She was the author of several children’s books; her collection is housed at Denver. Spine ends lightly bumped and rubbed, tiny dampstain to top edge, else a near-fine copy, clean and bright, in the jacket, spine panel lightly toned, with a little creasing and rubbing, slight chips to spine ends, a few short closed tears to edges, still bright and sharp. ¶ Currey 3421. £2,750 [152145] 63 LEAR, Edward. “There was an old person of Calais”. [ c.1870] An original limerick with an unpublished pen and ink drawing A rare Edward Lear limerick featuring the text written in the artist’s distinctive handwriting. This limerick was unpublished during the artist’s lifetime and is presented here in the earlier of two known manuscript versions. The illustration remains unpublished in any work on Lear. In 1846 Lear first published his limericks and, despite a slow beginning, his work became a publishing phenomenon. Four collections of nonsense were published in his lifetime.
[150832]
64 L’ENGLE, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time; A Wind in the Door; A Swiftly Tilting Planet. New York: Ariel Books, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy; Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1962–73–78 The author’s copies First editions, first printings, of the first three works of the Time Quintet, from the author’s library, with her library stamp on the front free endpaper of each volume and half-title of A Swiftly Tilting Planet. The Time Quintet is notable as a sci-fi series with a female author and a female protagonist, and although originally marketed at young female readers it has proven to have a much broader appeal. A Wrinkle in Time , the first in the important children’s series, won numerous awards, including the 1963 Newbery Medal, the Sequoyah Book Award, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, as well as being a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. 3 works, octavo. Original cloth-backed boards and cloth, spines lettered in gilt and white, variously coloured endpapers, top edge of A Swiftly Tilting Planet green. With dust jackets; A Wrinkle in Time, second state jacket, Newbery Prize sticker on the front panel. Bookplate of one Wendy M. Feuer on front pastedown of A Wind in the Door . Spine ends gently rubbed, ends of A Wrinkle in Time faded, slight bumps to corners of A Wind in the Door , contents clean and fresh; a near-fine set in very good jackets, A Wind in the Door price-clipped, scuffs and tiny nicks to spine ends of A Wrinkle in Time , a couple of faint marks to panels, minor creasing to edges, overall sharp. £6,750 [157067]
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All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
CHILDREN’S BOOKS & ORIGINAL ARTWORK
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