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Rupert Humphries Foreword | Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper | Thursday 27th March 2025

We are delighted to present the first of a series of auctions dedicated to ‘The Library of Barry Humphries’. Taking place on Wednesday 26 March the auction features a remarkable array of books, manuscripts, works on paper and objects from the extensive library of the legendary comedian, actor, author, and satirist Barry Humphries (1934-2023). Ahead of the auction, Barry’s son, Rupert Humphries, shares fond memories of his father’s antiquarian passion.

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Barry Humphries in his library | Photograph by Henry Bourne ©

My first memories of my father are of books. I remember sitting in his lap as he let me leaf through a collection of Japanese fairy tales collected by Lafcadio Hearn. The woodcut illustrations of goblin spiders, ghosts and samurai, the rough texture of crepe paper and gossamer rice paper overslips challenging my childish mind. How could rice be paper? Wasn’t that food? The exoticism of the stories, their content and presentation, has stuck with me ever since. It was intoxicating.

Lot 72: Pope (Alexander), The Rape of the Lock, one of 25 copies on Japanese vellum, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, 1896 | Estimate £4,000-6,000 (+ fees)

Dad’s library felt exotic, not a room you would expect to discover on the first floor of a house in South Hampstead. Thick curtains were shut to keep out natural light, and deep purple, red, black and yellow spines lined the sagging shelves with books stacked two, sometimes three layers deep. Many in Morocco leather boxes with ornate gilt designs that he had commissioned and took great care over. Amongst the books were strange curios - an Indonesian puppet, a bat and a funnel-web spider preserved in glass, various masks and erotic statues. The warm glow of iridescent glass lamps and a heavy art-deco chandelier, the smell of incense in the air. It was like a setting from one of the decadent stories he loved so much, maybe Prince Zalesky’s dilapidated abbey in Wales.

Lot 115: Douglas (Lord Alfred), ‘Sonnets’, first edition, the dedication copy, with signed presentation inscription from the author to his wife Olive Custance, 1909 | Estimate: £2,000-3,000 (+ fees)

He loved having his library and all the books in it, but he also loved collecting: the active pursuit of missing editions and better association copies. So much of my childhood was spent watching him crawl on his belly as he inspected the bottom shelf in an antiquarian bookshop. He spoke with great nostalgia for the times before the internet, when a second-hand store in Detroit couldn’t check the latest auction prices in London with the click of a button, but it didn’t diminish his enthusiasm for visiting bookshops, bookfairs and private libraries. Every jacket he had tailored had a “poachers pocket” sewn into the lining so he could make off quickly with a new acquisition.

Lot 221: Louÿs (Pierre), Les Aventures du Roi Pausole, 2 vol., one of 99 copies, with 2 original drawings, superbly bound in blue goatskin by Georges Cretté, Paris, 1930 | Estimate: £3,000-4,000 (+ fees)

Growing up around books, a love of literature naturally rubbed off on me. Although my tastes aren’t as highbrow as his, he helped expand my horizons with every brown-paper wrapped parcel that arrived at my boarding school from Heywood Hill. When I got into detective fiction, he showed me how it was rooted in Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allan Poe and M.P. Shiel. When I said I liked William Burroughs, he made sure I read Thomas De Quincey and Aleister Crowley. I went on to study Literature at Edinburgh University and was amazed to find out he knew just as much about the critics as the authors he loved. I would call him, and he was able to recommend the best essays on Shakespeare or Baudelaire. In my third year, I was taking the train back up north and I realised I didn’t have my copy of Thomas Moore’s Utopia. Dad said he’d pick one up for me. A few days later, I looked around my seminar at my fellow students’ Oxford World Classics and Norton Critical editions. Mine was a large format edition, finely bound in vellum with silk ties.

Lot 177: Nesbit (E.), ‘Fear’, first edition, the dedication copy with signed presentation inscription from the author to her son, 1910 | Estimate: £2,000-3,000 (+ fees)

Now that he’s gone, his library, along with his collection of art and music, is the closest thing we have to a map of his incredible brain. All his knowledge and taste is there, on those shelves, in those books. They are where his spirit resides. As this sale commences, I like to think he will be happy knowing that a little part of him will continue to be treasured in other libraries and bookcases around the world, and perhaps even in a few old book shops.

Rupert Humphries

Auction information

Wednesday 26th March 2025 1:00pm GMT

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We are delighted to offer a printed version of the catalogue, which can be purchased for £25 post free (UK) and £35 post free (Rest of World). Please contact our office for more details or alternatively the page turning catalogue can be viewed online.

Viewing:

The auction can be viewed at Forum Auctions, 4 Ingate Place, London, SW8 3NS, strictly by appointment only, Monday-Friday, 9.30am-5.00pm. Please contact us to make an appointment.

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