Led by Rare Shakespeare, Faulkner, Maugham, and Hemingway highlights, Freeman’s Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana auction on November 13 delivered a standout $1,251,140 total, driven in part by several strong single-owner sessions in which nearly every lot found a buyer. Overall, the auction achieved an impressive 128% sell-through rate by value and sold 91% of all lots, with 16% of buyers participating in a Freeman’s sale for the first time.
Christopher Brink, Senior Specialist, Books & Manuscripts, indicated, “It was an exceptionally strong day of bidding across all categories, with the majority of lots surpassing their low estimates—and, in several notable cases, achieving two to three times their pre-sale valuations. A number of offerings were fresh to the market, a rarity that invariably commands significant interest and robust prices among discerning collectors.”
The sale opened with the collection of noted Seattle collector Thurston Roach, where all but one of the 71 lots found a buyer. Over the past three decades, Mr. Roach assembled one of the world’s finest Faulkner collections, including the complete bibliography of William Faulkner’s works — the first time such a comprehensive grouping has appeared at auction — alongside significant works by major modern authors such as Twain, Steinbeck, Remarque, Milne, and others.
Leading the group was The Sound and the Fury, a first edition of Faulkner’s first major novel in the first-state dust jacket, achieving $15,360 against a low estimate of $9,000. Set in fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the novel follows the Compson family as they grapple with the decline of their family’s standing. Though not an immediate commercial success, it later became Faulkner’s most celebrated work — and, by his own admission, the one whose composition “caused him the greatest agony.”
Another standout was The Marble Faun, which fetched $8,320. This rare first edition — Faulkner’s first book — comprises a pastoral cycle of poems. While the publisher initially required Faulkner to pay for production costs, financial support from mentor Phil Stone ultimately made the project possible. Only a small number of copies are believed to have survived; this example features variant endpapers of heavier stock.
The next session featured Part One of the W. Somerset Maugham Collection of Craig V. Showalter, one of the world’s foremost Maugham collectors. His comprehensive library includes some of the rarest and most significant Maugham material known to survive. The star lot was a presentation copy of Of Human Bondage in the exceedingly rare, suppressed dust jacket -- one of only four known copies -- which sold for $38,400. Inscribed by Maugham to a New York collector on the half-title, this example is widely regarded as one of the finest copies extant. Its original jacket, cancelled shortly before publication, is among the scarcest in modern literature. Another highlight, The Making of a Saint, achieved $10,880 against an estimate of $6,000–8,000. The first English edition of Maugham’s second book, it retains an exceedingly rare dust jacket not recorded in Stott’s bibliography.
Selections from Richard Flaherty’s distinguished Shakespeare library were also offered, achieving a perfect 100% sell-through rate. The auction’s top lot was a previously unrecorded copy of the rare Third Folio, which realized $121,150 — more than triple the low estimate. This exceedingly rare first-issue example lacks both the portrait leaf and the seven added plays, and until recently was unknown to the Shakespeare Folio census. Long considered the scarcest of the seventeenth-century folios, the Third Folio is believed to have been largely destroyed in the Great Fire of London.
Another standout of the sale was Mr. William Shakespear's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies… Unto which is added, SEVEN PLAYS, Never before Printed in Folio, which sold for $51,200 — five times the estimate. The Fourth Folio, the final 17th-century edition of Shakespeare’s plays, is notable for its larger format, designed to fit more lines per page while keeping the book’s size manageable, and for including seven plays not previously printed in folio.
Ernest Hemingway, Three Stories and Ten Poems, 1923 sold for $83,050. The second highest price achieved in the sale, this superb, partially unopened first edition of Hemingway’s first book is an important presentation copy inscribed to his cousin Ruth. Published in Paris in an edition of 300 copies, the book contains three early short stories — two appearing here for the first time — and ten poems. This copy carries an especially rich provenance tied to significant moments in Hemingway’s early career.
Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965, sold for $48,000. Far exceeding the $8,000 – 12,000 estimate, this first edition - inscribed by Herbert and in the first-issue dust jacket — represents one of the finest surviving copies of the science-fiction classic. With only 3,500 copies printed and many destroyed or distributed to libraries, these collectible examples are exceptionally scarce.
Robert Burns, an autograph letter signed ("Robt. Burns"), to Frances Dunlop (addressed as "Mrs. Dunlop"), Mauchline, 2 August 1788 sold for $41,600. This deeply personal three-page letter to Burns’s confidante Frances Dunlop doubled the pre-sale estimate of $20,000 – 30,000 and includes the complete first version of “Written in Friars Carse Hermitage” and twelve lines of an early version of “First Epistle of Robert Graham, Esq.” The manuscript preserves variant lines later altered or omitted, offering a rare glimpse into Burns’s working process and intimate friendships.
Also of note: Audubon, John James, Louisiana Heron (Plate CCXVII), Ardea ludoviciana, sold for $76,700; Sangorski, Alberto, (calligrapher and illuminator) illustrated edition of Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. Le Morte d'Arthur. [London, ca 1910], fetched $41,600; Edward Curtis' The North American Indian... List of Large Plates Supplementing Volume Sixteen. [Norwood, Massachusetts: The Plimpton Press, 1930], sold for $25,600; Clemens, Samuel L. ("Mark Twain". A Tramp Abroad. Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1880, brought $21,760; Melville, Herman. Moby Dick, or, The Whale. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851, sold for $17,920; Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. [London: C. Whiting for Chapman and Hall, 1861] sold for $16,640; Shakespeare, William. The Life of King Henry the Fifth. - The first Part of King Henry the Sixt. - The second Part of King Henry the Sixt. - The third Part of King Henry the Sixt. [Extracted from: THE SECOND FOLIO]. [London: printed by Thomas Cotes, 1632], sold for $15,360; and the Lakeside Press edition, illustrated by Rockwell Kent, of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1930, sold for $12,800
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