Auction of bookseller's private library set to raise €300,000

Diarmuid J Boyd's painting of the Nassau Street shop
MICHAEL PARSONS

THE PERSONAL library of one of Ireland’s best-known booksellers is to be auctioned on Tuesday in Dublin.
The rare books auctioneers, Mealy’s, expect the sale of the late Fred Hanna’s collection to raise up to €300,000.
Hanna, who died last month aged 77, was synonymous with bookselling and ran the family-owned book shop on Nassau Street, Dublin, for 47 years until its sale to Eason in 1999.
He was also a renowned collector and, at his home in Carrickmines, Co Dublin, had assembled a collection of hundreds of antiquarian rare books, modern first editions, maps and manuscripts.
Auctioneer George F Mealy said the collection was one of the most important private Irish libraries ever to come to market and that Hanna had travelled throughout Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales to find the best examples of rare Irish books.
The sale features all the luminaries of Irish literature and includes a first edition of Ulysses by James Joyce and an archive of letters from WB Yeats
Full piece at irishtimes.com