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`ALICE' SETS A RECORD

NEW YORK CITY -- The sales of Printed Books and Manuscripts and Lewis Carroll

and Alice, The Private Collection of Justin G. Schiller on December 10 at

Christie's totaled $4,819,947.

The morning sale, Printed Books and Manuscripts, saw many lots going above

estimate. The top lot was a rare, large-paper issue of the first edition of

Redoute's Les Liliacees, which soared to $640,500 (est $350/450,000). The book

is considered one of Redoute's most ambitious works and a masterpiece of

botanical illustration.

Redoute was Josephine Bonaparte's botanical artist and a pupil of the great

Dutch flower painters, Gerardus van Spaendonck. There are only two other known

copies of this issue, one of which is located at the British Museum of Natural

History.

Also included in the sale was an autograph manuscript of Auld Lang Syne, which

fetched $189,500 (est $80/120,000) and was sold to Bernard Quaritch, on behalf

of Glasgow City Council.

One of only seven known surviving autographed copies of Auld Lang Syne, the

copy sold is the only one to include the whole of the text on one sheet,

making it easy to display. The manuscript will form the centerpiece in the

world's largest Burns collection, housed in the Mitchell Library, which

already contains 14 original manuscripts of letters and poems, including the

only extant letter written by Burns in Scots.

Glasgow's bid received political support as well as substantial financial

support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, BT Scotland, The Sunday Mail, and Lord

McFarlane. A world-wide broadcast of Auld Lang Syne will be sung from the

manuscript on December 31.

Top prices were also achieved for Presidential memorabilia, including a signed

photograph of the first official meeting between Winston Churchill and

Franklin D. Roosevelt during the secret meeting to draft the Atlantic Charter,

which realized $63,000 (est $8/12,000).

The afternoon sale, Lewis Carroll and Alice, The Private Collection of Justin

G. Schiller, was marked by intense bidding both on the telephone and in the

salesroom. The sale of works by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known as

Lewis Carroll, coincided with the 100th anniversary of his death.

The top lot, Carroll's working copy of the first edition of Alice's Adventures

in Wonderland, extra-illustrated with original drawings by John Tenniel, found

a determined collector at $1,542,500, making it an auction record for a

children's book.