Books & Periodicals

Over three busy days in May Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium) mounted a three-catalogue sale that presented close on 1600 lots in all.

The general sale at Dominic Winter was followed on May 11 by one of motoring literature, automobilia and historic bicycles and accessories – a 620-lot auction held in conjunction with Transport Collector Auctions.

The autograph sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in New York on May 4 included a musical quotation in the hand of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the theme from the finale of his Orchestral Suite No.3 in G Major (Op.55), which sold for $14,000 (£10,855).

First Professor of Cornish Studies at Exeter University and Bard of Gorseth Kernow, Charles Thomas (1928-2016) was both a prolific writer and a bibliophile.

The builders were still applying the finishing touches to book dealership Maggs Bros’ new premises in London’s Bedford Square on the morning before the shop was officially opened with a party on May 23.

Next month’s 'London International Antiquarian Book Fair' at the National Hall, Olympia on June 1-3 will be the last held at the West Kensington venue.

The London International Premier Fair (June 2-3) is the flagship book fair of the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA).

Early Dutch discoveries in Australia and those made in Tasmania and New Zealand on Abel Tasman’s first voyage are outlined in a 1659 wall-map by the Amsterdam cartographer Joan Blaeu (1596-1673).

The late Hubert Dingwall began a lifetime of book collecting in 1935 with the purchase of a vellum bound copy of the second part only of a 1697 Antwerp edition of Don Quixote for one shilling and sixpence.

ATG’s weekly selection of items on sale at auctions and dealerships.

An unexpected highlight of an April 28-29 sale held by Brussels saleroom The Romantic Agony (24% buyer’s premium), was a leaf from an illuminated manuscript.

Finely bound sets featured in the high spots ofa third Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of modern literature from the Maurice Neville library held on April 25.

Artwork produced for the much-loved ‘Ladybird’ books by the late John Berry (1920-2009) were offered by Tennants (18.5% buyer’s premium) on April 28.

Containing over 150pp of notes and fragmentary drafts for two of her novels and a play, an autograph notebook used by Agatha Christie while in Baghdad around 1948 – perhaps while travelling with her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan – sold for $15,000 (£11,625) in a Swann Auction Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of May 4.

Coming up in early June are the two stalwart fairs of the London antiquarian book trade: 'The London International Antiquarian Book Fair', hosted by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABA), and 'The London International Premier Fair', hosted by the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA).

We are sad to announce that Roy Davids, formerly head of Sotheby’s book department, died aged 74 on April 30 after a long illness.