The Library of Barry Humphries to be sold on March 26th at Forum
- by Bruce E. McKinney
The Library of Barry Humphries to be sold on March 26th at Forum
On 26th March, Forum Auctions will offer the library of Barry Humphries. The sale will feature a remarkable array of books, manuscripts, works on paper and objects from the extensive library of the legendary comedian, actor, author, and satirist Barry Humphries (1934-2023), who delighted audiences for several decades with his eccentric stage and television characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson.
Ben Macintyre, a long-time friend of Humphries, once noted that while most people knew ‘Humphries as Dame Edna Everage or Sir Les Patterson […] another of his characters, and a defining one, [was] an old-fashioned, self-proclaimed bibliomaniac’. Born and raised in a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, the renowned entertainer was in his personal life an ardent literary enthusiast, who purchased rare books from a very early age and ultimately became one of Australia’s foremost collectors in the field. One of just 40 members of the exclusive Roxburghe Club – a society for bibliophiles – his house in south Hampstead, London, contained 7,000 books, many of them first editions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The sale at Forum comprises highlights from the remarkable library, a testament to Humphries’ taste for the beautiful and the unusual. The 1890s and the Decadent Movement are an undoubted focal point of the collection. While this certainly includes plenty of works by or relating to the better-known figures from the period such as Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley, Humphries’ love of the obscure drove him to unearth rare titles by lesser known figures: Lionel Johnson, Andre Raffalovich and Ernest Dowson, to name a few. Even when collecting standard works by Wilde, Humphries could not resist to bring his unique sense of humour to the fore – a first edition of Wilde’s Dorian Gray, published in Lippincott’s magazine, is here found bound in purple cane toad.
Bindings were another passion for Humphries and again, while he owned many sumptuous bindings that you might expect to find in other great libraries, including richly gilt morocco bindings by Cretté and Paul Kersten, his unique eye and style is evident here. A large number of the books are housed in boxes designed by Humphries himself and these can range from replications of pictorial cloth (the eponymous mist of M.P. Shiel’s The Purple Cloud is recreated with inlayed purple morocco) to more abstract decorations and even the odd sly joke (his native cane toad again makes an appearance here).
The Gothic and macabre are also a running theme, from the likes of Ann Radcliffe and Beckford (including his own copy of his gothic masterpiece Vathek and several books owned and annotated by him) to later masters of supernatural and weird fiction such as Sheridan Le Fanu, M. P. Shiel and M. R. James. Aleister Crowley was clearly another favourite, appealing both to the bibliomaniac with the extraordinary rarity of some of his works (Humphries owned one of only two copies on vellum of Ahab and other poems, the only copy that remains in private hands) and seemingly also to Humphries’ humour and his love of the bohemian and transgressive; an aspect of his character that is evident in so many items in this extraordinary collection.
SD Auctions, Apr. 16: Fredrik Kolstø. Aftenstemning ved Kysten. c.1890-t.
SD Auctions, Apr. 16: Knut Yran. OL-plakaten Oslo 1952.
Swann Fine Books Featuring Focus on Women April 23, 2026
Swann, Apr. 23: Thomas Heywood. An Apology for Actors. London: Printed by Nicholas Okes, 1612. $3,000 to $5,000.
Swann, Apr. 23: Illuminated Islamic Devotional Manuscript. 19th century. Approx. 90 leaves with gilt-decorated title and 2 full page miniatures of Mecca and Medina. $800 to $1,200.
Swann, Apr. 23: Antiphonal in Latin. Manuscript on Parchment. Cologne, early 16th century. $7,000 to $9,000.
Swann Fine Books Featuring Focus on Women April 23, 2026
Swann, Apr. 23: Mohammed ibn Jafir Albategnius. De Scientia Stellarum Liber. Bologna: Victor Benati, 1645. $8,000 to $12,000.
Swann, Apr. 23: Frank Herbert. Dune. Fine First Edition. Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1965. $5,000 to $7,000.
Swann, Apr. 23: William Shakespeare. Five Plays from the Second Folio. London: Thomas Cotes for Robert Allot, 1632. $6,000 to $8,000.
Swann Fine Books Featuring Focus on Women April 23, 2026
Swann, Apr. 23: John Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men. New York: Covici-Friede, 1937. First edition, first issue. $800 to $1,200.
Swann, Apr. 23: Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. With an A.L.S. London: Chapman and Hall, 1859. First edition, first issue. $1,200 to $1,800.
Swann, Apr. 23: Ursula K. LeGuin. The Left Hand of Darkness. Inscribed First Edition. New York: Walker and Company, 1969. $800 to $1,200.
Swann Fine Books Featuring Focus on Women April 23, 2026
Swann, Apr. 23: L. Frank Baum & Ruth Plumly Thompson. Five First Canadian editions including Ozma of Oz; The Emerald City of Oz; Glinda of Oz; [and others]. $1,000 to $1,500.
Swann, Apr. 23: Corita Kent. Different Drummer. 1967. Color screenprint; signed "Corita" in pencil on the lower edge. $1,000 to $1,500.
Swann, Apr. 23: Bible in English. Tyndale-Taverner Translation. The Bugge Bible. The Holye Bible. London: Imprinted by John Daye and Willyam Seres, 1549. $1,500 to $2,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts & Objects from Three Important Collections Open for Bidding 2-17 April
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: [Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun]. Le Roman de la Rose, [Geneva or Lyons, c.1481], first printed edition of the most important medieval French vernacular poem. £200,000 to £300,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Castiglione. Il libro del cortegiano. [Venice], April 1528, first edition, in a magnificent binding by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Jacobus de Cessolis. Schachzabelbuch, Strasbourg, 1483, von der Lasa copy. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: World Championship, 1972. A collection of 84 press photographs of the famed match between Spassky and Fischer. £2,000 to £3,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Ben Franklin. Autograph letter signed, to Lord Shelburne, British Prime Minister, during peace negotiations, November 1782. £15,000 to £20,000.
