This extensive collection comprises a broad range of volumes primarily focused on art history, theatrical and cinematic biography, and classic literature. Significant art historical texts include a two-volume set of Frederick Hartts Art: A History of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture published by Thames and Hudson, John Rewalds The History of Impressionism, and Werner Haftmanns Painting in the Twentieth Century in two volumes by Lund Humphries. The collection features a multi-volume set of The Movie published by Orbis, alongside several large-format monographs such as Dore: Fables of La Fontaine by Omega and The National Gallery Complete Illustrated Catalogue. Biographies are well-represented with titles concerning Laurence Olivier, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman. A substantial assortment of Penguin and Pelican paperbacks is present, featuring authors such as Sylvia Plath, Graham Greene, C.S. Lewis, and W. Somerset Maugham. Literary highlights include a Folio Society edition of The Bible Designed to be Read as Literature and a Victorian-era green cloth-bound edition of Byrons Poems. Other notable inclusions are multiple works by Beningfield and David Gentlemans Paris. The books are bound in a variety of styles including publisher’s cloth, pictorial boards, and wrappers.
Condition report:
The overall condition of the collection is mixed. Many modern hardcovers and art reference volumes are well-preserved and retain their original dust jackets, showing only minor shelf wear, light sunning to spines, and occasional small chips to edges. Older cloth-bound works, most notably the nineteenth-century Byron volume, show significant signs of age including fraying to spine ends, bumped corners, and loss to gilt decoration. The Penguin paperbacks exhibit typical age-related toning to the paper and some creasing to the covers. Some dust jackets are price-clipped. Internal pages appear generally clean across the collection, though occasional foxing or ownership inscriptions may be present in older volumes.
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