BRITAIN: A rare first edition of James Joyce's Ulysses yesterday achieved a price of £30,000 (€43,500) when it went to auction at Sotheby's in London. But this price was eclipsed by another item, a first folio edition of William Shakespeare's plays, which made £2.8 million (€4.1 million) as part of the same sale.
The strong price achieved by the Shakespeare first folio, published in 1623 - seven years after the author's death - reflects its importance to the history of English literature.
It contains 36 plays, 18 of which had never previously been printed. Experts believe these plays - including Macbeth, Twelfth Night and Julius Caesar - might have been lost to posterity were it not for their appearance in the collection.
However, the price achieved yesterday is not a record for a first folio of Shakespeare's works.
This was achieved at an auction by Christie's in New York in October 2001, when a similar copy sold for $6.16 million (€4.86 million).
But the first folio copy which sold yesterday is considered to be among the finest books to appear at auction in London since the second World War.
The book retains its 17th century binding and is enhanced by "extensive" markings and annotations, including a number which were made by a single reader, probably in the 1600s.
It was put up for auction by Dr Williams's Library in London, and was bought by a London book dealer, according to Sotheby's. The library has held the book since at least 1716.
It intends to use the proceeds of yesterday's sale to secure the finances of the library and safeguard its historic collections of manuscripts and printed books.
About 750 copies of the book were originally printed. However, only about a third of them have survived to the present day and most of those are incomplete.
The price achieved for the Ulysses first edition was also within the guide price quoted by Sotheby's.
However, a less rare version of the book sold for considerably more - £66,000 (€95,800) - at a previous auction hosted by Sotheby's last December.
A spokesman for the auction house said the price achieved yesterday could largely be explained by demand on a particular day.
"If it is going to be competitively fought for by a number of bidders this will push the price up," he said.
The copy of Ulysses which sold yesterday was one of just 150 "large paper" first editions of the book.
A spokeswoman for the National Library of Ireland was unavailable to comment yesterday on whether it had made a bid for any of the lots in the sale of English literature and history at Sotheby's offices in London.
The world record auction price for a printed book was set in 2000 when the illustrated four-volume The Birds of America by John James Audubon sold in New York for $8.8 million (€6.9million). - (Additional reporting: PA)