Scarce Spanish book fetches thousands at British auction

A FIRST EDITION, untrimmed and unopened copy of Federico García Lorca’s book Impresiones y paisajes has been sold for £7,500 (€9,300) at Bonhams auction in London. 

It was expected to fetch just £6,000, but its rarity meant that the final bidder paid 25 per cent more than it was predicted to sell for. The Spanish poet’s collection of lyrical prose pieces was published in 1918, and documents the twenty-year-old’s trip he made through Castile, Leon and Galicia in 1916 and 1917. This first edition is extremely scarce; it is said so few copies were sold that the disillusioned writer gathered together all those he could lay his hands on and set them on fire.

ertainly no copies are recorded as having sold at auction since 1975, and institutional copies traced seem to total just four, three in the USA and one in Madrid.