The sale contains two outstanding highlights. Firstly, the earliest rules and historic archive of the world’s first football (soccer) club, Sheffield FC, including the first version of their laws of the game, detailed minute books, and the only known surviving copy of the first printing of the club’s rules of football. Secondly, the autograph manuscript of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel “The Watsons” – the only such manuscript remaining in private hands — extensively revised and corrected throughout. Join Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s specialist of Books & Manuscripts, as he discusses these two highlights – Watch Videos.

Other major highlights include James Joyce’s wartime family passport, recording his movements during his most creative period when he was composing his masterpiece Ulysses, two major series of letters by Benjamin Disraeli, a number of valuable books sold in aid of the Catholic charity CAFOD, rare first editions by the Brontë sisters, a first-hand account of the Battle of Trafalgar, watercolours by Beatrix Potter and a pen and ink drawing by E.H. Shepard of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger.