1915 copy of The Rainbow – £13,000 at Sotheby’s.
A fine copy in a well-preserved dust jacket of DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow of 1915 was sold at a record £13,000 as part of the eighth portion of the ongoing disposal of ‘The Library of an English Bibliophile’ – a sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) on July 10.
There were around 2500 copies of first printing, of which several remained unbound, but some 1200 were subsequently destroyed as a result of court action. They were burned by a hangman outside the Royal Exchange, according to one source.