Sotheby’s to Offer the James S. Copley Library Sotheby’s to Offer the James S. Copley Library A Remarkable Trove of Original Manuscripts of American History, Worldwide Literary, Artistic and Scientific Achievement
Art, the Copley Library at the University of San Diego, Copley Symphony Hall, the Copley Center at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation and a YMCA facility, among others. After several years of collecting on a small scale,
Mr. Copley embarked on journey to assemble a substantial collection and enlisted the help of a curator, Richard Reilly. For the remainder of Mr. Copley’s life and for many years following, Reilly, together with Mrs. Copley, worked to build a collection that keenly reflected Mr. Copley’s interests, chief among which was his own national heritage and the patriotic principles embraced by the family’s newspapers. Reilly later recalled that Mr. Copley wanted, “Not only documents relating to
important events in American history, but those portraying some sentiment or giving some feeling for people who made the history. He wanted every item to represent dramatic, humorous, romantic, passionate, or tragic events in the lives of real people unconsciously caught in the weave of American history. ”1 The Collection Americana Mr. Copley was appointed to the Bicentennial Media Committee by President Nixon in 1969 and, not surprisingly, the greatest strength of his collection are the manuscripts, broadsides, pamphlets and other publications relating to the struggle of the United States to gain its
independence and establish its own Constitution. Virtually every Revolutionary patriot is represented, from Thomas Paine to Patrick Henry; while the holdings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams are particularly remarkable for their 1 Richard Reilly, A Promise Kept: The Story of the James S. Copley Library. Copley Press, 1983, p. 11. number and historical
significance. Less expected is the emphasis that the collection places on the British perspective of the American Revolution with King George III prominently represented, as well as the Howe Brothers, General Burgoyne, Edmund Burke and most significant, the vast archive of papers belonging to Henry Strachey. Perhaps closer to Mr. Copley’s heart is a substantial collection relating to the settlement of California. While a new nation was in its nascent stages on the east coast, there was significant exploration and development on the west coast and the Library features letters and documents relating to many of the key players: Father Junipero Serra, Juan Pantoja y Arriaga and John Augustus Sutter. Among the most significant Americana highlights to be offered include:
*One of a few surviving broadside Declarations of Independence printed in the weeks after July 4, 1776(est.
$600/800,000, pictured on page 1)
*An official letter from 12 July 1776 from the Marine Committee of Congress to John Ashmead signed by
Button Gwinnett, the most prized of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence (est. $500/700,000)
*A significant collection of papers and correspondence belonging to Henry Strachey, Secretary to the British
Commission for Restoring Peace in America (est. $700,000/1.2 million)
*Personal notebooks belonging to John Lansing, Jr., kept while acting as a delegate for New York to the
Constitutional Convention of 1787 (est. $600/800,000)
*Abraham Lincoln instructing General McClellan to either attack Richmond or come back to
