Scarce Beatrix Potter, The Road to Serfdom, and First Map of Yorkshire to Auction

A scarce copy of Beatrix Potter’s The Fairy Caravan leads Tennants’ Books, Maps and Manuscripts Sale on December 11.

The Fairy Caravan is the story Potter felt was too personal and autobiographical for her to feel comfortable publishing in the UK, a tale of the adventures of a young guinea pig who leaves home to join a circus. Widely circulated in the United States, in order to secure English copyright a small number of copies were privately printed in Ambleside, England, for the author in 1929, one of which is the present copy. It will be sold with letters providing an insight into the publication process for the book (estimate: £1,000-£1,500).

Also going under the hammer will be the first edition of The Road to Serfdom by the Austrian-born British economist and philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek (estimate: £800-£1,200). Seldom seen at auction with its dust jacket, The Road to Serfdom was the most successful of the Nobel Prize-winning author’s books. 

Other highlights in the auction include:

• a 19th century manuscript maritime exercise book filled with handwritten and hand drawn diagrams, maps, illustrations, calculations, charts and notes relating to sailing (estimate: £300-£500)
• a copy of the first printed map of Yorkshire, published in Christopher Saxon’s I in 1579 (estimate: £2,000-3,000) and bearing the coat of arms of Thomas Seckford
• a large collection of Teesdale Photographs by Elijah Yeoman (1849-1930), a photographer from Barnard Castle who later opened a second studio in Kirkby Stephen (estimate: £300-£500)