Nov 8 & 9: Round 2 for La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé
- by Thomas C. McKinney
Highlight lots from the second sale of La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé
A little less than a year ago I wrote an auction preview for the first sale of La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé, which is the collection of French industrialist and co-founder of Yves Saint Laurent Couture House, Pierre Bergé, that is being auctioned off over a series of sales lasting into 2017. The first sale was a tremendous success, containing seven of Rare Book Hub’s top 50 most valuable auction lots of 2015. The material consistently topped high estimates, with two particularly shocking results being a drawing by Victor Hugo selling for over €500.000 after an initial estimate of €50.000-80.000 and a copy of Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal fetching €282.450 after an estimate of €40.000-60.000.
This month, in conjunction with Sotheby’s Paris, La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé is back for round two. The auction is set to take place November 8th and 9th and features 376 lots broken into four sections:
Precursors, containing pre-romantic material, noir fiction, and material by the Marquis de Sade.
Romanticism.
Material by Gustave Flaubert.
Modern material by realists and dreamers.
Highlights of the sale are numerous. The item with the single highest estimate is an autograph manuscript by Flaubert of Par les Champs et les Grèves (Voyage en Bretagne), an account of his travels in Britain with Maxime du Camp. The manuscript is heavily annotated and revised throughout, serving as Flaubert’s working copy, and carries an estimate of €400.000-600.000.
The collection of Bergé was amassed over fifty years, with an eye and a passion for the material that few, if any, possess. This fact, combined with a financial situation conducive to collecting allowed him to acquire the best of the best for subjects he focused on. The following items are but a few indicators of the quality of his collection:
A first edition copy of Victor Hugo’s La Légende des Siècles and the only copy printed on vellum. Est. €60.000-80.000.
Another copy of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, this one a better copy than the lot offered in the first sale. It was bound by Lortic, Baudelaire’s favorite binder and contains an inscription to Alcide-Pierre Grandguillot, chief editor of the Constitutionnel du Pays. Est. €100.000-150.000.
A first edition of Arthur Schopenhauer’s Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, and the only known copy in private hands of the rare larger paper printing. Est. €40.000-60.000.
A first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, one of 795 copies printed at the author’s expense and one of 599 bound in green cloth. Est. €40.000-50.000.
A first edition of Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol, one of 30 large paper copies on Japan paper and contains a four page signed autograph letter by Wilde to his editor Leonard Smythers.
A rare first trade edition of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment [in Russian] in its original first Russian binding. Est. €30.000-40.000.
A first edition set of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace [in Russian], containing all six volumes. Est. €20.000-30.000.
I made mention in my preview of the first sale that there are a number of videos featuring Bergé discussing his collecting. They have been added to in the last eleven months and are very interesting. You can view them here.
The second sale of La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé takes place November 8 and 9, 2016 with both sessions at 2:00 PM CET at Hôtel Drouot in Paris. The entire catalog of 376 lots can be viewed here.
Sotheby’s, July 14: Henry De La Beche. "Awful Changes," 1830. $6,000 to $9,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 11]. Flight Plan, Complete Original Printing Signed by Buzz Aldrin. $5,000 to $8,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: Thomas Alva Edison. Documents Establishing and Ending the Edison Electric Railway Company. $20,000 to $30,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: Richard P. Feynman. Feynman's Lectures on Gravitation 1-16, Including the Original Transcriptions of Lectures 12-16 by Morinigo and Wagner, With Richard Feynman's Manuscript Notations, 1971. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 9]. A Group of Manuals and Mission Documents used by Stuart Roosa as a member of the Astronaut Support Crew. $5,000 to $8,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [BYTE: The Small Systems Journal]. A collection of early foundational issues of Byte: The Small Systems Journal, with rare hardcover editions. $5,000 to $8,000.
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Inundation papyrus. P.Michael 4, the ‘Inundation papyrus’, a geographical account of the Nile near Canopus, in Greek, remains of two columns from a manuscript scroll on papyrus, Egypt, second century CE. £12,000-18,000
Forum, July 16: Book of Hours, use of Sarum, manuscript on vellum, 6 full-page miniatures, with famous Middle English inscriptions, Southern Netherlands for the English market, [c.1430]. £30,000-50,000
Forum, July 16: Qu'ran, Arabic manuscript on burnished, stencilled, and gold-flecked paper, 447ff., Sultanate Gujarat, Ahmadabad, [after 1411 but no later than 1442]. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Turner (William). A New boke of the natures and properties of all wines that are commonly vsed here in England, rare first edition of the first English book on wine, By William Seres, 1568. £20,000-£30,000
Forum, July 16: Spenser (Edmund). The Faerie Queene. first edition, Printed [by John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, 1590. £30,000-40,000
Forum, July 16: Shakespeare (William). The Comedie of Errors, extracted from the first folio, Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Fleming (Ian). Casino Royale, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1953. £40,000-60,000
Forum, July 16: d'Agoty (Jacques-Fabien Gautier). Anatomie de la Tête, first edition, Paris, chez le Sieur Gautier, 1748. £10,000-15,000
Forum, July 16: Martial Arts.- Lee (Bruce). 'Praying Mantis style' Kung Fu book, containing numerous annotations, diagrams and graphs in Bruce Lee's hand, c. 1960. £50,000-70,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Warre (Capt. Henry James). Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, first edition, rare hand-coloured issue, 1848. £30,000-40,000
Forum, July 16: Norie (John William). The Marine Atlas, or Seaman's Complete Pilot for all the principal places in the known world..., 1826. £30,000-50,000
Forum, July 16: Mao Tse-tung.- Kim Il-sung.-[Note book for visitors from China to Korea], signed by Mao and Kim, [Beijing, 1954]. £10,000-15,000
