London, Nov 29 (AFP\/APP):Ed Maggs examines a shelf of leather-bound antique books that his family have been selling from their landmark London shop for the last 170 years.<\/p>\n
It was at Maggs Bros. Ltd that a Bolivian diplomat acquired two volumes of “Don Quixote”, the Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes, which are now up for auction.<\/p>\n
The books go on sale in Paris on December 14, where they are expected to fetch between 400,000 and 600,000 euros ($414,000 to $621,000) combined.<\/p>\n
They were last bought in the 1930s by diplomat, Jorge Ortiz Linares, who was subsequently Bolivia’s ambassador to France in the 1940s.<\/p>\n
He was the son-in-law of Simon Patino, a Bolivian industrialist living in Paris, who made his vast fortune in tin mining in the early 20th century.<\/p>\n
Ortiz was an avid collector and was on the hunt for an original edition of “Don Quixote”, which many consider to be the first modern novel.<\/p>\n
The tale of a poor Spanish gentleman who reads so many chivalric romances that he thinks he is a knight was a huge success when it was published in 1605.<\/p>\n
In the 1930s, Ortiz’s research led him to the British capital, which Maggs describes as “arguably the most important centre for the rare book trade” in the world. <\/p>\n
– ‘Real fortune’ –<\/p>\n
Maggs is the great-great-grandson of Uriah Maggs, who founded the bookstore in 1853.<\/p>\n
Over the years, it gained a reputation among British royalty and exiled monarchs such as Manuel II of Portugal and Spain’s Alfonso XIII.<\/p>\n
The bookshop, now in Bedford Square near University College London and the British Museum, came to own 1,358 rare editions of Spanish-language books.<\/p>\n
They were collected in a catalogue published in 1927 “still quoted by bibliographers today”, says Jonathan Reilly, an expert on the Maggs bookshop. <\/p>\n
Reilly points to one of the works that caught Ortiz’s eye: two first editions of “Don Quixote” — Book I, published in 1605, and Book II, which came out 10 years later.<\/p>\n
Both were on sale for \ufffd3,500 — the equivalent of nearly \ufffd174,000 ($210,000) — and “a real fortune at the time”, he added.<\/p>\n
Ortiz, however, was out of luck and found that the books had already been sold. But he left his details just in case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London, Nov 29 (AFP\/APP):Ed Maggs examines a shelf of leather-bound antique books that his family have been selling from their landmark London shop for the last 170 years. It was at Maggs Bros. Ltd that a Bolivian diplomat acquired two volumes of “Don Quixote”, the […]<\/p>\n
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