The following update to yesterday’s blog entry appears in this morning’s Globe and Mail:
Green Gables first edition sells for more than $8,000 [Globe and Mail, 6 December 2008, R14]
Toronto—A rare first edition of the original 1908 Anne of Green Gables by Canada’s L.M. Montgomery sold at auction in New York yesterday for $8,125 (U.S.), including buyer’s premium. The clothbound edition, offered without the even-rarer dust jacket, went into bidding with a presale estimate of $8,000-$12,000.
What made the Christie’s consignment something of a rarity was its tan cover. Most first editions—it’s believed Montgomery’s Boston-based publisher printed no more than 7,000 copies in spring, 1908—have a green binding. The record for a first-edition Anne sold at auction is $24,000, set by Sotheby’s New York in 2005. That book was consigned by a collector in Victoria. (James Adams)