A collection of 12 books by Karl Popper personally inscribed to the philosopher and writer Bryan Magee sold for £13,000 at Bonhams.
The books, including inf luential works such as The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959) and Realism and the Aim of Science (1983), were all personally inscribed by the author, Karl Popper (1902-94), to fellow philosopher, and TV broadcaster, Bryan Magee (1930-2019).
They were left in a bag at the store and opened by shop volunteer Nina Curtis, who immediately realised the books could be important.
“I used to work at a rare book shop in Oxford, as well as at Oxford University Press, which published a number of philosophy journals, so I knew both Popper and Magee’s names,” she said. “That’s when I thought these books could have value.”
Headington Oxfam shop volunteer Nina Curtis.
The books were originally donated in 2023, and Curtis had first emailed an auction house she knew to see if it would value them. But after getting no reply to three emails sent over an 18-month period, she had almost given up hope of trying to sell them.
“By now it was spring of this year.
Just as I was wondering what we should do with them, I noticed a first edition Karl Popper sold at a Bonhams auction featuring Oxfam items for more than £1000,” she recalls. “That was when I thought we should get in touch and see if they’d be interested in running these in a standard auction.”
The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper, one of 12 books which sold at £13,000 at Bonhams.
The Popper book in question was one of 23 lots sold at a Bonhams auction specifically including items donated from Oxfam shops across the country, held in March this year. The Headington Oxfam had not submitted the books to that sale because any items submitted have to be assessed to be worth more than £500, and at that point the charity had no idea still of their value.
Included in that auction (ATG No 2690) was a copy of the first complete Bible in Chinese, which sold for more than £56,000, as well as a first edition of Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol, which sold for £16,640. Bonhams has been running auctions with a selection of lots from Oxfam for well over a decade now.
Curtis said: “Bonhams were enthusiastic about our set of books from the start, and scheduled them to appear in their Fine Books, Maps & Manuscripts timed auction on June 19.”
Realism and the Aim of Science by Karl Popper, one of 12 books which sold at £13,000 at Bonhams.
Magee lived in Headington until his death in 2019 and both Curtis and Oxfam shop manager Derek Scott believe the books were donated by a member of the Magee family after clearing out his library.
Scott said the build-up to the auction was a nervous one. “I was at an area managers’ meeting, and we had the last 10 minutes live on a screen in the background. Bidding opened two weeks before the end-date, and the books had sat still on £3400 for all that time, until the final day. When we saw it reached £12,000 and saw it carry on going we couldn’t believe it really.”
Headington Oxfam shop manager Derek Scott.
According to Scott, the small Headington shop - with just one wall of books - probably sells around £30,000 worth of books in an entire year. “To think we made almost half our annual sales with a single set of books is phenomenal,” he added. “These books are by far the most expensive item we’ve sold from this store.”
Scott and Curtis say Oxfam is being increasingly vigilant for books that could be valuable and is looking to deepen its relationship with Bonhams.
“Being close to Oxford, there’s lots of bookish-people here, and we get some very good donations,” said Scott. “But this was by far the best result I’ve witnessed. Bonhams didn’t charge us a seller’s fee, so we’ll get the full hammer price of more than £13,000.”
The set (estimated at £4000-6000) was bought by London antiquarian bookseller Maggs Bros, jointly with another book dealer.
