Robert Hoe (1839-1909) - photo 1
Robert Hoe (1839-1909) - photo 2

Robert Hoe (1839-1909)

Lot 184
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 2 500
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 470264
Lot 184 | Robert Hoe (1839-1909)
Estimate value
£ 2 500 – 3 500
Robert Hoe (1839-1909)

Catalogue of the Library 1912

HOE, Robert (1839-1909) -- Arthur SWANN. Catalogue of the Library of Robert Hoe of New York. New York: Anderson Auction Company, 24 April 1911-11 November 1912.



Major Abbey’s very fine set of catalogues of the library of Robert Hoe, specially bound for Abbey and annotated by him with his purchases of Hoe books at the Schiff sale. A founder and first President of the Grolier Club, Hoe was ‘Infected by book collecting’, counting among his treasures a Gutenberg Bible on vellum ($50,000, then the highest price ever paid for a book), a Shakespeare First Folio, the Book of St. Albans (all bought for Henry E. Huntington), a Gutenberg Bible on paper (bought by Quaritch, now at Harvard) and a Morte d’Arthur (bought for J.P. Morgan). ‘In the manner of the disposition of his library, Hoe formed a careful plan. He was appalled at the condition of some of the institutional libraries he had seen in Europe and determined that his own books should never meet that fate. Arrangements leading up to the auction at the Anderson Auction Company in New York were elaborate. The annotated catalogs were done by talented bibliographer Arthur Swann and carried a special foreword by Hoe's friend and notable collector Beverly Chew [who called the collection "the finest the country has ever produced"]... The record-breaking prices paid by the glamorous bidders were reported as news events in the daily press.’ (Dickinson, p.161). The sale realized an unprecedented $1,932,000, a record held until the Thomas W. Streeter sale in 1966.



4 volumes, octavo (228 x 147mm). Plates. Contemporary vellum-backed marbled boards, upper covers with gilt arms of J.R. Abbey, gilt-lettered spines, original printed wrappers bound I; housed in 2 vellum-backed boxes, spines lettered in gilt. Provenance: J.R. Abbey (bindings, bookplate) – Bernard Breslauer (sale Christie’s, Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana, 22-23 March 2005, lot 895).

Auction house category:Books
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