"Literary Property Changing Hands"
In our June issue, Ian McKay wrote a short piece on the Peyraud Collection, auctioned by Bloomsbury earlier this year. This fascinating collection-including Samuel Johnson, Jane Austen, and Fanny Burney, etc.-was formed by the late librarian Paula Peyraud. (Pictured here is the three-volume first edition of Burney's Evelina in contemporary calf with gilt tooling.)
Interested readers can now take note of a more extensive report on the Peyraud collection, written by Maureen E. Mulvihill, a scholar and writer with the Princeton Research Forum. In her essay, "Literary Property Changing Hands: The Peyraud Collection," Dr. Mulvihill takes an in-depth, post-auction view at the lots and their bidders. She also enlightens readers about Peyraud, book-collecting's "dark lady." A selection of fine images from the original sale catalogue accompanies the text.
Dr. Mulvihill's report was recently published in the journal Eighteenth-Century Studies, Autumn 2009, vol. 23, no. 1 (2009). You can download a PDF version here:
![Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–253) Homilia in Genesim, Homiliae in Exodum, in Latin, translation by Rufinus, decorated manuscript on parchment [Austria, Lambach Abbey? c. 1150–1175]. Estimate: $150,000-$200,000.](/sites/default/files/styles/category_card/public/media-images/2026-06/origen.jpeg?itok=0V_4_Lt2)
