Washington Irving’s Original Handwritten Manuscript of Legend of the House of Omeya to Auction

Washington Irving’s original 90 page draft manuscript of Legend of the House of Omeya written during his years in Spain with revisions in the author’s hand is one of the stars of RR Auction’s Fine Autographs and Artifacts Featuring Art, Literature, Books, and Animation ending August 13. 

Other highlights include:

• James Joyce’s Ulysses, the 1936 Bodley Head limited edition (#6/100), signed by Joyce and bound in vellum with Eric Gill’s Homeric bow design
• Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, a rare deluxe large-paper edition (#40/250), signed by Wilde
• Charles Dickens’s silverware set of 32 monogrammed pieces used by Dickens at his Gad’s Hill Place home, each engraved “CD” 

In the correspondence section of the sale are two Ernest Hemingway letters (one recounting his injuries from the 1954 African plane crash, the other from 1943 on writing, boxing, and wartime life in Cuba), a 1922 F. Scott Fitzgerald’s signed letter written two weeks before the release of The Beautiful and Damned detailing family illnesses and the author’s disrupted social plans in St. Paul, and nine letters by John Steinbeck to actress Ann Sothern from 1949, filled with reflections on writing, parenting, lawsuits, gossip, and gratitude for a pair of handmade slippers.

Various Disney lots include a 48-page storyboard continuity sketch book for Pinocchio (1939), plus original concept art by Mary Blair (Dumbo, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland) and Eyvind Earle (Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp).