Probably the last great collection of modern literature begun before the second World War ever likely to be offered for sale will go under the hammer next month. Expected to total £1.5 million sterling (2.4 million), it includes a remarkable private collection of Thomas Hardy and many original Franklin D Roosevelt-related materials.
The Frederick B Adams Jr (1910-2001) collection also includes a comprehensive collection of works by Robert Frost.
EM Forster, Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot, AE Housman and Ernest Hemingway also feature in the Sotheby's auction, to be held in London on November 7th. Adams acquired his first rare book - a limited edition Orlando by Virginia Woolf, bought upon its publication - while studying at Yale in 1928.
He was director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York from 1949 to 1969. Following his retirement, he became the president of the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie.
He was a member of book collectors' clubs such as the Caxton Club, the Schweizerische Bibliophilen Gesellschaft and the SocietΘ des Bibliophiles Franτois.
Mr Peter Selley, specialist in the literature department at Sotheby's, told The Irish Times: " Adams collected the old-fashioned way. He collected all the editions of the works. Some collectors only go for the famous books by authors. Old-fashioned collectors had to have everything. Adams collected in depth, not just ticking off famous titles".
Moreover, he collected association copies- books inscribed to someone who had relevance in the authors life or someone important in the wider sphere of things.
" Adams was in the White House on the night of Pearl Harbour. Roosevelt was going to sign something, possibly a pamphlet of his inaugural address, when news came through of Pearl Harbour. Roosevelt never got to sign it but Adams joked that the story made up for the lack of a signature," said Mr Selley.
The collection includes an exhaustive array of Franklin D Roosevelt material, with rare pamphlets, speeches and ephemera, many containing amusing inscriptions by Roosevelt, who was the first cousin of Adams mother.
In all, more than 100 works associated with Franklin D and Elanor Roosevelt feature, including an advance copy of Looking Forward - a presentation copy inscribed to Frederick Adams, estimated at £4,000 to £5,000.
A complete series of Roosevelt's inaugural addresses with associated ephemera, some inscribed, is estimated at £5,000 to £6,000, while original paintings of US's Declaration of War on Japan and Germany in 1941 are estimated at £800 to £1,200.
The collection of Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) material is a major highlight of the auction. This section includes more than 260 letters signed by Hardy to authors, editors and friends.
Some letters recount the hostile reception given to his novel Jude the Obscure, which led to Hardy writing poetry rather than novels for the remaining 30 years of his life.
First editions include Hardy's first published book Desperate Remedies (1871), estimated at £6,000 to £8,000, The Trumpet-Major (1883) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), each expected to fetch £3,500 to £4,500.
Hardy's typescript of Tess of the D'Urbervilles is estimated at £4,000 to £6,000.
The annotated typescript of The Spectre of the Real, written in collaboration with Florence Henniker, with whom he fell in love, is estimated at £25,000 to £35,000.
Adams's comprehensive collection of his good friend and poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) includes a first edition of A Boy's Will (1913) inscribed to Marie Hodge, estimated at £4,000 to £6,000.
An inscribed North of Boston (1914) is estimated at £1,500 to £2,000.
Frost and Adams travelled together to the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war. Adams subsequently retold the adventure in his book To Russia with Frost.
Sotheby's reports that when asked in a US newspaper in the 1950s what advice he would give to book collectors, Fredrick B Adams, one of the most celebrated bibliophiles ever, replied "collect from the heart".
