Valuable Books & Manuscripts

Christie’s Valuable Books, Manuscripts and Photographs, including Highlights from The Royal Society of Medicine auction in London features a curated selection of works that illuminate the extraordinary history of medicine, science, cartography, literature, religion and philosophy. At the heart of the sale is a group of 100 books, manuscripts and photographs from the library of The Royal Society of Medicine.

Chief among the highlights is William Harvey’s Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis et sanguinis in animalibus (1628, estimate: £800,000–1,200,000), the groundbreaking first description of blood circulation — a publication that transformed medical knowledge and practice. Other notable lots from the library include James Parkinson’s An Essay on the Shaking Palsy (1817, estimate: £50,000–70,000), the exceptionally rare first edition of a foundational work on the neurological disease that would later bear his name, as well as a group of 18 autograph letters (estimate: £50,000–70,000) by the ‘father of immunology’, Edward Jenner, who coined the term ‘vaccine’ to describe his technique of inoculating against smallpox.

Also offered is a group of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts from the collection of Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (1913–1994), including texts by Ovid, Cicero, Statius, Plato and Lucan, among others. The highlight is an illustrated manuscript of English chronicler Ralph Higden’s medieval magnum opus, the Polychronicon (estimate: £50,000–70,000), previously in the Duke of Newcastle’s collections at Clumber Park.