Estimate: £300 - £500
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs | 792
Auction: 19 June 2024 from 10:00 BST
London: The British Library, 1994. First edition, collectors' issue, one of 250 copies, this copy inscribed by the author, ‘Edwin Moore, with the kindest of wishes from Patrick O’Brian' on the title-page (with the author's printed name crossed through), and with his autograph correction ‘nonsense: a goshawk’ to the printed caption ‘Patrick O'Brian with peregrine falcon' on the photographic plate facing p. 112, 8vo, original blue cloth, colour photographic frontispiece, slipcase (a few trivial marks to slipcase and frontispiece)
The recipient Edwin Moore was a senior editor at Collins (subsequently HarperCollins) in Glasgow from 1986 until 2004. He first wrote to Patrick O’Brian in 1992 to solicit a preface for a new edition of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, and corresponded with him until a few months before his (O'Brian's) death in 2000.
The total edition comprised a trade issue of 1,000 copies, the present collectors' issue of 250 copies, and a limited issue bound by Cedric Chivers of Bath.