Book

A book elaborately illustrated with needle-work samples and commemorating Queen Victoria’s first trip to Ireland as monarch was one of the standout sales as 'Firsts London’s Rare Book Fair' opened.

Published between 1750-73, Plantae selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortis curiosorum (‘A selection of plants from natural specimens nurtured in London’s curious gardens’) is considered the most important botanical work ever printed in Germany.

The Science, Medicine & Early Technology auction at Flints (25% buyer’s premium) in Thatcham, Berkshire on May 1 was led by a complete seven-volume set of The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain by James Sowerby (1757-1822).

Cryptoryptomentyces et Cryptographiae has been described as ‘arguably the most complete tome on esoteric cryptography ever published’, an esoteric claim to fame in itself.

Owen Simmons was a bit of a bread fan, it is fair to say. A lecturer at the National Bakery School in London, he produced the lavish book shown here.

This miniature 17th century psalter in a contemporary pierced and engraved openwork silver binding is priced at £15,000 by Bernard Quaritch at Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair.

Remarkably, although a very successful and popular artist, no accounts of the work of the Georgian caricaturist James Gillray (1756-1815) were published in England during his lifetime.

First editions are not always the be-all and end-all for collecting

Ladies and gentlemen of the Georgian period carried not only prayer books and bibles, but also books of poems and the annual miniature almanacs containing practical information on everything from the phases of the moon to the currency exchange rates of Europe.

The first ‘Thumb Bibles’, paraphrased or abridged versions of the good book, were published in the early 17th century – the London printer John Weever offering his 128- page An Agnus Dei, measuring just over 1in, in 1601.

Small books have long been objects of wonder. The history of tiny type can be traced back to the smallest cuneiform clay tablets of ancient Mesopotamia or the diminutive papyrus codices treasured by Christians in Roman Egypt.

A selection of stand-out lots coming up at a variety of auctions

ATG meets Jeffrey Johnson, whose collection of classic ‘Whodunnits’ was recently on public display at the Grolier Club in New York

First published by James Nisbet in 1858, 'Lays of the Holy Land from ancient and modern Poets' comprises verse from a range of authors together with black and white Illustrations from Victorian artists including Myles Birket Foster, John Everett Millais and Thomas Seddon.

The third book in the 'Blandings Castle' saga by PG Wodehouse was first published in the United States on July 1, 1929 by Doubleday Doran, New York, under the title 'Fish Preferred'.

One of the stand-out results at a three-day auction of a huge American book collection came for a very British lot.

Chicago sale offers more than 300 works related to the British author amassed by US collectors

John Newton (1725-1807) is today perhaps best remembered as the writer of the hymn Amazing Grace. However, before his religious conversion he spent his early life as a slave trader.

An original dust jacket made all the difference when Weiss Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) offered a first edition copy of Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness in Lynbrook, New York.