Latest News Articles by Ian McKay
Early birds catch bidders’ eye
19 August 2019Lots offered towards the start of sales at the same auction house prove successful.
Sowerby minerals surface in Sweden
19 August 2019An exceptional 11-lot group of the works of James Sowerby featured in a Swedish summer sale.
Best foot forward for New York sale
19 August 2019Compiled for official British War Office use on the eve of the American War of Independence, this quarto volume bearing the manuscript title ‘The Uniform of the Several Regiments of Foot in His Majesty’s Service’ doubled the high estimate at Christie’s New York (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium).
Unsung monk nurtured new genetic study
19 August 2019'Versuche über Pflanzen Hybriden' by Gregor Mendel is a paper that marked the foundation of the science of genetics.
Horace taken to new heights by Captain Cook notes
19 August 2019The reason that an otherwise unexceptional 1737 English language edition of Horace’s 'Odes, Satyrs and Epistles' – lacking a portrait and three text pages – sold for the substantial sum of £50,000 in the Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9%) sale on June 26 is to be found on the front endpaper notes shown below.
British and Irish book auctions: August 20-September 9, 2019
19 August 2019Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.
Thar she blows for auction record
12 August 2019Published in 1851 by Richard Bentley as The Whale, the first English edition of Herman Melville’s tale preceded the American issue by four weeks.
Take the whaleway
12 August 2019Shown below is ‘Un Baleinobus’, one of a rare series of 78 chromlitho illustrations featured on eight uncut stock cards or sheets that sold for £1000 as part of a Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) sale of July 31.
Summer sale quest for first Harry Potter editions
12 August 2019Copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone impressed in several summer sales.
British and Irish book auctions: August 13-September 1, 2019
12 August 2019ATG's regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.
Buck’s 'The Good Earth' makes rare appearance in San Francisco
05 August 2019Published in 1931, Pearl S Buck’s 'The Good Earth' was the best-selling novel in the US for both that and the following year, as well as the winner of a Pulitzer Prize.
Adventures in the saleroom with Enid Blyton books
05 August 2019A copy of 'The Island of Adventure' offered in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of June 19-20 sold for £360 – just £10 short of the auction record set for a copy it had offered back in 2006.
Earlier great leaps for mankind
05 August 2019Pioneering astronomical works which appeared many centuries before the moon landing sell at auction.
Robert Burns on song
05 August 2019Shown below is a spread from a 120pp manuscript collection of Scottish songs with accompanying musical notation, on paper watermarked 1799, that sold at £600 in a Thomson Roddick (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale.
Winnie-the-Pooh signed first edition sold in online auction
05 August 2019Despite some minor loss to the head of 'When We Were Very Young', published in 1924 and a first edition of what are now collectively known as the ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ books, overall the set pictured below is an exceptionally well-preserved one.
Psalter soars with royal appeal
22 July 2019Associations including Queen Victoria’s daughter help to boost 17th century manuscript.
Elizabethan intrigues, invasion and execution
22 July 2019Beneath the famous anchor and dolphin device that denotes a product of the Aldine presses in Venice, the final leaf of a 1516 edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses below bears an inscription that reveals the reason this little work in its later vellum binding sold at £6000.
Cosmographical delight and colossal crustaceans
22 July 2019Top lot in a June 6 sale of maps, natural history and other colour plate books held in New York was a rare map by Lewis Evans of what were then still the ‘Middle British Colonies’ in America.
Mao as master of calligraphy underlined by 1940s letter
22 July 2019No record exists of any signed, autograph letter in the hand of Mao Zedong being previously sold on the international market, said Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) of the example it offered as part of a June 11 sale of manuscripts, Continental books and music.
Bloch hammers down at $80,000
22 July 2019The Hammerhead shark plate shown below is not as colourful as many of the other 432 featured in a generally fine and complete copy of Marcus Elieser Bloch’s Ichthyologie… sold recently, but certainly one of the more eye-catching.