Sotheby's (London)

(28 cm), 157 (11) pp., illustrations. 63 lots. Printed list of prices realised: “Sold by private Treaty”. Publisher’s printed boards. - The “Trumbull Papers”, an archive gathered by the diplomat William Trumbull (1639-1716), containing letters of Stuart kings, and from his personal friends, including the poets John Dryden and Alexander Pope, entered the Downshire family when the last Trumbull married in 1786 the heir of the 1st Marquess of Downshire. In the summer of 1989 the archive was removed from Berkshire Record Office and sent to Sotheby’s, where it was divided into 63 lots, and advertised as “the most important collection of 17th Century English State Papers on the market this century” (estimated to realise £2.5m). On the eve of the sale, the auction was cancelled, and the British Library took the papers. ¶ Unmarked copy