Categories


News

Book


Fodinæ regales

Rare book on mining history features among five lots to watch

16 September 2024

With estimates from £800, here are five previews of items coming up at auction this week

img_40-1.jpg

Disappearing American tribes brought alive thanks to Thomas McKenney

16 September 2024

Copy of well-known enlightened work featuring portraits and biographies comes to London saleroom

Polydore Vergil’s Anglica Historia

Hand-drawn maps lift demand for Mary Tudor’s personal copy of Anglica Historia

12 September 2024

Mary Tudor’s personal copy of Vergil’s history of England has sold at auction for £140,000.

Harry Potter 1St Edition Paperback Front

Soft cover Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone bought for £3.50 in 1997 now hammers at £6600 in auction

11 September 2024

The bad news if you have a first edition of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' in soft covers is that they are not as rare as the hardback version which numbered 500 copies.

img_34-4.jpg

Gutenberg Bible leaf priced at six figures

09 September 2024

Bayliss Rare Books is offering a fine leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, the first Western book printed with moveable type. The leaf in question is the end of Chapter 45 through to the beginning of Chapter 48 of Isaiah (45:6-48:6).

img_46-4.jpg

Whitman’s personal touch creates a surprise performance

02 September 2024

An author printed and signed copy of Walt Whitman’s 'Leaves of Grass' sold for $37,500 (£29,400) with buyer’s premium at University Archives.

img_46-1.jpg

On an original visit to Busytown

02 September 2024

The children’s author Richard Scarry (1919-94) was at the peak of popularity when he published 'Nicky Goes to the Doctor' in 1972.

img_5-3.jpg

Tudor propaganda: Queen Mary’s own copy of Vergil’s history of England comes up for sale boosted by maps

02 September 2024

Mary Tudor’s personal copy of Vergil’s history of England comes to auction in Gloucestershire this month.

img_46-2.jpg

Look through the keyhole courtesy of a grand picture book

02 September 2024

The 504-lot book sale at Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) in Chicago on July 25 was topped by a four-volume set of one of the great records of the Gilded Age.

Provisional Articles of the Treaty of Paris

Ombersley Court library to be sold at Chorley’s

26 August 2024

Gloucestershire saleroom Chorley’s will offer works from the library from Ombersley Court in Worcestershire, seat of the Sandys family for 400 years, at auction next month.

Thomas Mathison's The Goff

Copy of earliest printed book dedicated to golf doubles estimate in Cornwall

13 August 2024

The latest Books & Works on Paper sale at Lays in Penzance included a copy of the first printed book entirely dedicated to golf: Thomas Mathison’s ‘The Goff. An Heroi-Comical Poem. In three Cantos....’

img_18-1.jpg

The Hobbit stands tall for new auction high

12 August 2024

Spotlight on copy sold in superb Strutz collection – plus a look at other recent results for the Tolkien classic

img_20-1.jpg

Pink Frankenstein shines in Strutz sale part one

12 August 2024

William Strutz’s library built within his home in Bismarck, North Dakota, consisted of some 15,000 books, which the attorney began assembling while in college in the late 1950s

Dedication To Lilian White From William Cody

Signed collection of Buffalo Bill biographies sell at Hansons

22 July 2024

Buffalo Bill biographies dedicated to UK tour partner sold by the latter’s family

img_8-1.jpg

Pick of the Week: Recipe book cooks up saleroom storm

22 July 2024

Ralph ‘Randolphus’ Ayres is recorded as being head cook at New College, Oxford at various times in the 18th century.

img_26-1.jpg

Key Mormon work was taken in the spirit intended

22 July 2024

First edition of key Mormon work lists Joseph Smith as ‘author and proprietor’ of text not ‘translator’

img_27-1.jpg

Poetry work that awakened the genius of John Keats

15 July 2024

Only 29 books from the library of John Keats are recorded - among them a 1679 printing of the collected works of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser given to him by the artist Joseph Severn (1793-1879).

img_26-1.jpg

Illustration done on a grand scale: fantastic fish watercolours from naturalist Sarah Bowdich Lee

15 July 2024

Naturalist produced a fish-focused work featuring nearly 3000 original watercolours across 50 copies

img_20-2.jpg

Original Harry Potter artwork takes a magical $1.6m result

08 July 2024

The original artwork for 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' sold at Sotheby’s for $1.6m (£1.3m) plus 20% buyer’s premium in New York on June 26.

img_25-1.jpg

Camus classic written in poverty takes six-figure sum

01 July 2024

In a private collection since it was last sold in 1991, one of only two known autograph manuscripts by author and journalist Albert Camus of his masterpiece L’Etranger was sold by Tajan (23/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Paris on June 5.