Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Gray, Thomas 05f. AN ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. Black, London, 1914.
Price: US$25.00 + shipping
Description: VG book, no DJ. Front cover of country church. Extrems lightly bumped or frayed. FINE inside. 10" high. 75pp. VG book, no DJ. FINE inside, in particular the tipped in plts.
Seller: Quiet Friends IOBA, Lyndonville, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$48.95 + shipping
Description: 75pp. In the main printed on one side of the page, text in brown and decorative border in green. With 8 tipped in colour illus by G. F. Nicholls. Pictorial cloth boards, little scuffed and bumped. Spine rubbed. Covers sprung. Top edge gilt. Fore edge and decorated end papers browned. 26x20cms.
Seller: Jane & John Kinnaird, Carlisle, United Kingdom
Gray, Thomas. AN ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. Adam and Charles Black, London, 1914.
Price: US$50.00 + shipping
Description: Quarto. 75p. Illustrated with 8 tipped-in plates by G. F. Nichols, each text page with large pictorial frames in green signed "RJR". Bound in sage green cloth with stylized titles and large scene on the upper cover in black, green, blue, gray, and yellow. Pictorial endpapers also by "RJR"
Seller: First Folio A.B.A.A., Paris, TN, U.S.A.
Gray, Thomas. AN ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. Adam and Charles Black, London, 1914.
Price: US$69.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Hardcover; 4to; 75 pages. Green cloth hardcovers with gilt lettering on spine. Lovely pictorial cover in green and blue. Covers bowing outwards. Gilded tops, other edges deckled. Lightly sunned spine. Printed on heavy grey paper with many tipped in plates. With a aper jacket, wrapped in a mylar jacket. Large rip missing from back and top-of-spine. Chipped edges. VG-/G
Seller: J. Wyatt Books, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Price: US$70.85 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: First Edition Thus. Hardback. Dust Jacket. 4to. pp 75. Original publisher's illustrated green cloth, lettered cream on spine and on front cover. Copiously illustrated in colour and black and white throughout. Very slight browning to endpapers, otherwise very good+ in near very good illustrated dust jacket, with slight edge wear and one inch chip missing at head of spine.
Seller: Burwood Books, Wickham Market, United Kingdom
Price: US$75.00 + shipping
Description: 75 [1] pp. Illustrations by G. F. Nicholls. Every page is decorated, tipped-in color plates. 4to, publisher's pictorial cloth in dust jacket. The lower corners of the boards are bumped; a little tanning to endsheets; otherwise a lovely copy in a beautiful example of the dust jacket, with a bit of creasing to the lower outside corners (matching the bumped corners of the boards).
Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.
Gray, Thomas. An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Adam & Charles Black, London, 1914.
Price: US$96.62 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Quarto. 75pp. Original green cloth with illustrative decoration. Light rubbing to head & tail of spine. T.E.G. In grey dust wrapper with matching decoration. Some edge wear to wrapper including several nicks/tears to extremities, spine faded. Off-setting to end papers. Illustrated with 8 tipped-in colour plates. Illustrative decoration to end papers and page margins by R.J.R. Book designed and printed by W. W. Curtis Ltd. Overall a Very Good copy.
Seller: Kerr & Sons Booksellers ABA, Cartmel, CMA, United Kingdom
Gray, Thomas. AN ELEGY Written in a Country Churchyard. A & C Black, London, 1914.
Price: US$106.25 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Light green boards with dark green and blue design of trees and a church. 8 tipped-in plates from watercolors; 8vo; 73 pages
Seller: Complete Traveller Antiquarian Bookstore, Westport, CT, U.S.A.
Price: US$108.21 + shipping
Description: Tipped-in colour plates, initials, ornamental borders throughout and end-papers in green by Nicholls Large 8vo Cloth a little marked and rubbed and some foxing, free end-papers somewhat browned, else a very nice copy Original green pictorial cloth, upper cover illustrated in green, white and blue, uncut
Seller: Bertram Rota Ltd, Kintbury, United Kingdom
Price: US$579.72 + shipping
Description: A nice collection of ephemera, relating not only to one of Englands best-loved poets, but also to Sothebys auction practice during the Great War. The provenance of the Gray letters put up for auction by Mrs Turpin is given in a New York Times article of 27 June 1915 (To sell relics of Thomas Gray; many letters by the poet will also be put up at auction at Sotheby's), which stated in a report on the forthcoming sale that the letters were transmitted to the present owner, Mrs. Turpin, from her father, John Hobbs, to whom they came in about 1840 through the marriage of a relative to a connection of the Antrobus family (this information coming from p.39 of the auction catalogue, see Item Eleven). The consignor Sarah Turpin was the second wife of the organist Edmund Hart Turpin, who has an entry in the Oxford DNB. Eleven items. The material is in fair condition, with the Sotheby letters lightly aged; the other items are more heavily discoloured, and the title leaf of the catalogue (Item Eleven) has been torn into two pieces. ONE to SEVEN: Correspondence from Sothebys to Mrs Turpin, dating from between 28 July 1914 and 9 July 1915. The seven items are each 1p, 12mo; the first and last are in manuscript, four in typescript, and the last is a printed form. Begins with a simple receipt, 28 July 1914: Received of Mrs Turpin / Bundle of Grays letters / Knife & fork in Leather Case / Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge. In the second letter, 22 July 1914, the auction house states that Grays Desk on which he wrote the Elegy, his knife & fork and other personal items you mention should certainly be of interest, and, if you have authentic evidence as to pedigree, they should realise a good price at auction. Could you bring them down to us one day for inspection at an early date? We should be happy to give you our opinion as to value without charge provided, if satisfactory, they are left with us for sale. The volume of Grays Poems 1775 would, we fear, be of small value. On 6 January 1915 the firm reports that we have now found the knife and fork and letters of Thomas Gray the poet which you left with us early in August. Grays letters are very uncommon and those you have sent us are of importance though the majority of them are not unfortunately of much general interest in themselves. One of our principals will be very pleased to come down and see you to discuss matters relating to the sale & to examine the bureau. On 22 April 1915 Sothebys states that they have not however as yet thought it advisable to hold any sales of books, manuscripts or relics since the War began. A month later they state that they propose to include your letters and relics of Thomas Gray the Poet in a good sale which we hope to arrange for the beginning of July, sending a description for correction and asking for Mrs Turpins fathers full name and the approximate date at which he came into possession of the Relics. A printed for completed on 9 July 1915 records the sale of the material on 8 July, for the gross amount of £66 8s 0d. In the final letter, 12 July 1915, the firm states that it is sorry that you are disappointed at the result of your sale last week though we think that in the present circumstances the result of the sale was fairly satisfactory. The letter concludes: We shall be glad to sell your first editions of Dickens if they are clean copies though of course they have been greatly reduced in value through having been bound. EIGHT: Undated printed receipt, completed without date, giving the amount received by Mrs Turpin as £57 18s 6d. NINE: Manuscript accounts sent to Mrs Turpin, giving the Gross amount of Sale, £66 8s 0d; charges for Carriage, Mens time &c removing, 3s 6d; Commission @ 12½ per cent, £8 9s 6d, and amount recieved as per Item Nine. Written lengthwise on the recto of the second leaf of an 8vo bifolium, with the recto of the first leaf carrying an ornately-printed covering page for items Ten and Eleven, around which the bifolium is stitched. The sixteen lines of printed text are also printed lengthwise, and boast of the firms business as Auctioneers for the disposal of Libraries, Collections of Prints, Pictures, Drawings, Coins, Medals, Porcelain, Pottery, Silver, Antiquities, stating at the end that The original series of Sale Catalogues from the year 1744 is open for reference in the British Museum. In manuscript: July 7. 1915 and Mrs. Turpin, in a/c with. TEN: Printed form, completed for sale of 8 July 1915, stating that Mrs. Turpin is the proprietor of the following lots in the enclosed Catalogue (lots 371 to 384). ELEVEN: Cover (torn in two), title-leaf, first two pages and two leaves carrying pp.39-42 of the Sothebys sale catalogue for 7 and 8 July 1915. Lots 371 to 384 on pp.39 to 41 are Relics of Thomas Gray, the Poet, 1716-1771, and unpublished Autograph Letters from him to his favourite cousin, Mary (Molly) Antrobus, to whom he addressed his last recorded words: "Molly, I shall die." | The Letters and Relics have been transmitted to the present owner from her father, John Hobbs, F.R.C.S. to whom they came about 1840, through the marriage of a relative to a connexion of the Antrobus family. Lot 377 made the most at £11 5s 0d: A. L. s. 1 p. 4to, May 3, 1759, Gloucester Street, to the same, asking her to join him in town, and referring to Bob and Dolly, her brother and sister. In a postscript he alludes to Mrs. O. (the poets paternal aunt, Mrs. Olliffe, whom he once called "the Spawn of Cerberus upon the Dragon of Wantley"), who / is never good for anything, but when she is laid up, and can do nothing: as she recovers, she recovers her Tantrums, etc.
Seller: Richard M. Ford Ltd, London, United Kingdom