?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
Bonaparte, Napoleon (1769-1821) Sloane, William Milligan (1850-1928) Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
New York: The Century Co., 1896.
Unique, voluminously extra-illustrated in 12 volumes extended from four, quarto enlarged to folio with text leaves inlaid to size, letterpress titles replaced with hand-colored, gilt lithograph titles with a mounted lithograph or engraved vignette on each, expanded to three times its original size by the addition of over 100 autographs and 1,700 plates, many of which are enhanced with color, comprised of letters, maps, battle plans, portraits, scenes, and manuscript facsimiles relating to the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods (see list of highlights below), most with manuscript descriptions in lower margin corresponding to the calligraphic manuscript list of materials bound in each volume; sporadic, minor repaired marginal tears; full red levant elegantly gilt by the Monastery Hill Bindery, multiple fillet panel designs on each board with floral tooling in corners and morocco onlays with Napoleonic arms in center, spines in 6 compartments separated by raised bands, lettered in 2 with Napoleonic insignias in the rest, dark green levant doublures, green silk endleaves, upper edges gilt while others uncut; a few volumes lightly rubbed at extremities, green silk flyleaf partially detached in vol. 1; each contained in original cloth slipcases, except vol. 4 where the slipcase is lacking; 13 5/8 x 10 3/4 in.
Memorial bookplate presenting this set to The Sheldon Library by Oliver Newberry Brooks in honor of his late brother, Lt. (J.G) Frank Wilks Brooks, III who was killed in the line of duty on May 2nd, 1943.
The autograph material consists mainly of Documents and Letters Signed by French, English, and other European notables of the time, including French royalty and nobility, members of the Bonaparte family, many of the Marshals of France created by Napoléon, and miscellaneous military and political figures.
From the Library of the late Stanley DeForest Scott, sold to benefit the Library of the Grolier Club.
