Jane Austen First Editions and Columbus Letter Estimated at $2m to Auction

All of the first editions of Jane Austen’s most popular novels plus early books from the Age of Exploration and the study of biology go under the hammer at Christie's next week.

Its Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts including Americana online sale which ends October 16 includes a first edition of Pride and Prejudice, printed for T. Egerton, 1813 (estimate: $120,000-$180,000), with ownership inscriptions dated less than eight weeks after publication that can be tied back to Austen’s own circle. 

Other first edition Austen novels in the sale include: 

• Sense and Sensibility, London, for the author by C. Roworth and published by T. Egerton, 1811 (estimate: $80,000-$120,000)
• Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, London: John Murray, 1818 (estimate: $40,000-$60,000)
• Mansfield Park, London, T. Egerton, 1814 (estimate: $30,000-$50,000)
• Emma, London, John Murray, 1816 (estimate: $15,000-$20,000)

The lead lot in the sale comes from Valuable Books from the Library of Antonio Bonchristiano, a collection that offers some of the rarest books from the Age of Exploration. De Insulis nuper inventis, Christopher Columbus, 1494, (estimate: $1.5m-$2m) is the earliest obtainable illustrated edition of Columbus’s famous letter announcing his discoveries of the “new world” which was sent to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain upon Columbus’s return to Europe in the spring of 1493. 

Another important group of works in the sale comes from the collection of Renaissance scholar and bibliophile Phyllis Goodhart Gordana who concentrated on early printed books. The top lot from this collection is the first edition of the first printed text on biology, De animalibus, Aristotle, 1476 (estimate: $70,000-$100,000). There is also Cato’s Distichs printed by Caxton, a fine Grolier binding, and the first edition in print of the great Middle English poem Pierce Plowman. 

Also included in the sale is a selection of manuscripts, documents, and ephemera relating to Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Sir Thomas More, as well as presidents Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and James Buchanan, plus an extremely rare signed placard from John Lennon and Yoko Ono's War is Over! campaign (estimate: $8,000-$12,000).