Last year, Pierre Bergé decided to auction his entire personal library: 1,600 books and manuscripts, spanning, in incredible depth, all the great cultural, literary and philosophical landmarks, from the 15th through to the 20th century. A long-kept secret, his collection is estimated at around €40 million, making it the most valuable library ever to come to the market.

Following the great success of the first sale in December 2015, a further selection - 376 books and manuscripts dedicated to literary Europe from 1780 until 1900 - will be offered at Drouot-Richelieu, in collaboration with Sotheby’s, in Paris on 8 & 9 November.

The core of this ensemble is dedicated to Flaubert - a key writer in Bergé’s literary pantheon - but all the British, Russian, American, German greats - Dickens, Dostoevsky,  Goethe, Nietzsche, Pushkin, Poe, Henry James, Walt Whitman, Shelley, Walter Scott, Oscar Wilde etc. - are there too.

Highlights exhibited in London include:·         Baudelaire’s first edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s French translation of Gordon Pym·         The complete works of Lord Byron annotated by Stendhal·         Flaubert’s last large autograph manuscript in private hands: 300 autograph pages of Par les champs et les grèves, including numerous innumerable crossing-outs, corrections and additions by the author·         The first edition of all three volume of Tolstoy’s War & Peace·         A famous holograph manuscript by the Marquis de Sade·         A rare off-print of Faust by Goethe·         A rare copy of the first edition of Keats’ Endymion