LIBRARY OF THE LATE Major William H. Lambert OF PHILADELPHIA PART II Thackerayana TO BE SOLD FEBRUARY 25, 26, AND 27, 1914 WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 25, THURSDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 26, SALES BEGIN AT 2:30 AND 8:15 O'CLOCK ON PUBLIC EXHIBITION FROM FEBRUARY 13TH AT The Anderson Galleries Metropolitan Art Association MADISON AVENUE AT FORTIETH STREET NEW YORK 1. All bids to be per Lot as numbered in the Catalogue. 2. The highest bidder to be the buyer; in all cases of disputed bids the lot shall be resold, but the Auctioneer will use his judgment as to the good faith of all claims and his decision shall be final. 3. Buyers to give their names and addresses and to make such cash payments on accounts as may be required, in default of which the lots purchased to be immediately resold. 4. Goods bought to be removed at the close of each sale. If not so removed they will be at the sole risk of the purchaser, and subject to storage charges, and this Company will not be responsible if such goods are lost, stolen, damaged or destroyed. 5. Terms Cash. If accounts are not paid at the conclusion of each Sale, or, in the case of absent buyers, when bills are rendered, this Company reserves the right to recatalogue the goods for immediate sale without notice to the defaulting buyer, and all costs of such resale will be charged to the defaulter. This condition is without prejudice to the rights of the Company to enforce the sale contract and collect the amount due without such resale at its own option. Unsettled accounts are subject to interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum. 6. All books are sold as catalogued, and are assumed to be in good second-hand condition. If material defects are found, not mentioned in the catalogue, the lot may be returned. Notice of such defects must be given promptly and the goods returned within ten days from the date of the sale. No exceptions will be made to this rule. Magazines and other periodicals and all miscellaneous books arranged in parcels are sold as they are without recourse. 7. Autograph Letters, Documents, Manuscripts and Bindings are sold as they are without recourse. The utmost care is taken to authenticate and correctly describe items of this character, but this Company will not be responsible for errors, omissions, or defects of any kind. 8. Bids. We make no charge for executing orders for our Material on Exhibition twelve days before the sale. The Anderson Galleries Metropolitan Art Association, MADISON AVENUE AT FORTIETH STREET, NEW YORK. TELEPHONE, MURRAY HILL 7680. The Thackeray Collection of Major William Harrison Lambert L1 ESS than three years after Thackeray's death Sir Theodore Martin wrote to his daughter Anne, now Lady Ritchie, in reference to her father's drawings: "Every scrap from his hand is certain to be cherished more and more as the years roll by." But Sir Theodore could hardly have imagined when he wrote this, how much the money value of his old friend's drawings and manuscripts would increase in fifty years. Major Lambert lost few opportunities of adding to his Thackeray collection during the thirty-five years when he was amassing, with a singleness of purpose known to few collectors, his Thackeray and Lincoln treasures. He did not secure the great collection of autograph letters to Mrs. Brookfield, which sold in the Augustin Daly sale, though he was the underbidder, his successful competitor being the late J. Pierpont Morgan. Major Lambert did, however, secure a collection of thirty-two of Thackeray's letters to this lady, the larger number of them being unpublished and of the greatest personal interest. Many of Major Lambert's finest Thackeray items have come directly, or through the hands of a single agent, from the family. For almost twenty years priceless treasures in the way of drawings and manuscripts have been finding their way from Thackeray's daughter's possession into that of Major Lambert. These range from the complete and finished gem, "The Rose and the Ring" manuscript, to rough, though always expressive, pencil drawings. Now this collection, the finest ever brought together and well-known everywhere, is to be dispersed and scattered. It is the Thackeray collector's opportunity—no such opportunity can ever occur again. In a collection so notable and so large it is not easy to single out items for special mention. There is everything in the way of first editions and printed Thackerayana. There are complete sets of the two little college magazines to which Thackeray was a contributor, "The Snob" (1829) and "The Gownsman" (1830); that famous volume of nine lithographs, "Flore et Zephyr" (1836) and the much rarer privately printed little plays (probably by John Barrow) with illustrations by Thackeray, "King Glumpus" (1837), and "The Exquisites" (1839). These last two pieces have never been offered before by auction in America. Even rarer is the first number (all issued) of the "Whitey-Brown Paper Magazine" (1838), nine lithographic plates with slight descriptive text, all by Thackeray. This is the identical copy which was owned by Joseph Grego and which is described in "Thackerayana,' published by Hotten. It is also the copy which was shown in the Grolier Club Exhibition in 1912, no other being traceable. Addison's "Damascus and Palmyra," with eighteen colored lithographic plates by Thackeray, is of exceptional rarity, most copies having ten plates only. It was an enterprising Philadelphia publishing house which issued the first volume of Thackeray's writings, promptly reprinting a series of his contributions to "Fraser's Magazine," in a little volume with the title "Yellowplush Correspondence" (1838), and it was Major Lambert, we believe, who first called attention, in a letter to the London “Athenæum," to the importance and desirability of the volume to collectors. "The Second Funeral of Napoleon: In three letters to Miss Smith of London" (1841) is an untrimmed copy. Elsewhere in the catalogue is described another letter to this Miss Smith, with drawings of the battle-field of Waterloo. The regularly published books are all here in the choicest collector's state, and in many cases enriched by the insertion of portions of the autograph manuscript or of pen-and-ink or pencil sketches of some of the illustrations. Among many such unique items are: "VANITY FAIR," with nine of the original illustrations; all finished pencil drawings; "THE NEWCOMES," with a page of the autograph manuscript, besides letters, one referring to the book, inserted; "THE VIRGINIANS," with a page of the original manuscript; "PENDENNIS," with an original pen-and-ink drawing of one of the woodcut illustrations; "DOCTOR BIRCH AND HIS YOUNG FRIENDS," with thirty pages of the autograph manuscript; |