17th Century Book of Feminist Literature Outsells a King’s Autograph at Auction

A 17th century book regarded as the first piece of English feminist literature and a gory gothic novel owned by one of the UK’s largest female landowners have out-sold a King’s autograph at auction.

The rare second edition of the first English feminist tract ‘Women’s Rights: An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, 1696’ by Judith Drake made £5,000 following enthusiastic bidding online and in the saleroom at Cotswolds-based Chorley’s Auctioneers. The treatise is a defence against male accusations of ignorance, vanity and enviousness in women and it also addresses the faults of men, particularly satirizing some of Drake’s contemporaries.

The volume was one of over 1,000 rare books and manuscripts auctioned by Chorley’s this week from the unique Ombersley Court Library in Worcestershire, owned by the Sandys family for centuries.

A first English edition of gory Gothic novel ‘The Necromancer’, bearing the crested monogram of Mary Hill, Marchioness of Downshire, Baroness Sandys (one of the country’s largest female landowners in the early 19th century), achieved £12,500. The book is one of the “horrid novels” referred to in Jane Austen's classic novel 'Northanger Abbey' and features graphic scenes of killings, hauntings and violence in the Black Forest.

In the same sale, a signed manuscript letter by William III (of Orange), King of England (1689-1702) to Henry, Viscount Sidney instructing the formation of a Regiment in Ireland in 1692 was sold to a private collector for £3,500.

With strong bidding both nationally and internationally from collectors and antiquarian book dealers, the Library sale made 2.6 times its lower pre-sale estimate selling all but one of the 520 lots offered. The final total of the sale was £374,321 (Buyer’s Premium 23.5%).

Werner Freundel, director and book specialist for Chorley’s stated “It was an honour to handle this impressive library, collected over centuries by members of the Sandy’s family. It took us three months to catalogue and value the full collection, which had been well cared for by generations of the family. Rarity and condition were crucial factors in the striking sale results we achieved.”

With volumes ranging from the 16th century to the 18th century, other star lots included:

•a 1702 Boston printing of Increase Mather’s Discourses, which alongside other volumes in the lot achieved £8,500 hammer;

•Thomas Nicols A Lapidary: Or, The History of Precious Stones, the first book written in English about gemstones, published in 1652 in an almost filigree gilt tooled vellum, reached £8,000;

•James Lind’s An Essay on the most effectual Means, of preserving the Health of Seamen, 1757 sold for £3,800 hammer.

About Ombersley Court and its unique Library:
The Ombersley Court library, which had been largely untouched since the early 19th century, contained some of the greatest works and authors of the previous two centuries. Its contents reflected multiple generations of collectors, their tastes, occupations and interests as well as their associations and the literary circles in which many of the family travelled. As a private collection, it was not publicly accessible and its importance known to only a few scholars and bibliophiles.

Ombersley Court in Worcestershire was owned by the Sandys family from the early seventeenth century, when Sir Samuel Sandys (1560-1623) acquired the lease on the old manor of the Abbot of Evesham from the Crown in 1608. The Sandys family had originally moved to the area when Edwin Sandys, Bishop of Worcester from 1559 to 1570, bought a local property in the 1560s. The family would go on to further pre-eminence and made important contributions to the fields of literature and culture. Edwin, 2nd Baron Sandys was a founding trustee of the British Museum and a noted classical scholar.

You can find details about this sale at the following link. Click here.