The weight of first words
Rare books, signed manuscripts, and illuminated texts. Not for sale — for safekeeping.
Current Acquisitions
Each volume authenticated, conserved, and awaiting its next guardian.
Paradise Lost
John Milton
One of twelve known copies retaining the original binding. Bears the armorial bookplate of Sir Thomas Phillipps. The cornerstone of English epic poetry, in its first printed form.
Estimate
£420,000 — £580,000
Principia Mathematica
Isaac Newton
The book that gave us gravity. This copy with Newton's own marginal corrections for the second edition, traced through the Macclesfield collection at Shirburn Castle.
Estimate
£1,200,000 — £1,800,000
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dust jacket Grade A with only minor toning. Inscribed by Fitzgerald to his editor, Maxwell Perkins: 'For Max — who saw the green light first.' Breathtaking.
Estimate
£280,000 — £350,000
Book of Hours
Workshop of Jean Bourdichon
148 leaves with 12 large miniatures in liquid gold and lapis lazuli. Calendar illustrations of extraordinary botanical precision. Attributed to the court painter of three French kings.
Estimate
£680,000 — £900,000
The Chain of Custody
Without this book, eighteen of Shakespeare's plays — including Macbeth, The Tempest, and Twelfth Night — would have been lost forever. Of the 750 copies printed, 235 are known to survive.
Featured · The First Folio
Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies
William Shakespeare · 1623
Published by Edward Blount and Isaac Jaggard. Printed in London. Estimated print run of 750 copies at fifteen shillings each.
Recorded in the library catalogue of Edward Gwynn, Chester. One of the earliest documented private owners of this copy.
Acquired at Sotheby's by Thomas Grenville for twenty-one pounds. He later bequeaths his library to the British Museum.
Deaccessioned by private treaty. Enters the collection of Henry Clay Folger, founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Consigned to Chronicle from a European private collection. Authentication verified by the Bibliographical Society of London.
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