Books & Periodicals

Accounts of youthful travels in Britain and on a Grand Tour contain often blunt assessments

Two very different lots helped Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) to boost its first major sale of the year.

A remarkable collection of books from The Birmingham Assay Office Library will be offered at Forum Auctions in London on March 26.

The complete original artworks for two of Edward Ardizzone’s much-loved children’s books were sold for £30,000 apiece at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

As ever, the most recent sale held by Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) contained a great many maps and atlases and shown below is one of the highlights.

Our regular listing of books and works on paper auctions the UK and Ireland.

‘Masterpieces’ from the celebrated collections of Dr Martin Schøyen offered at a recent Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) sale in London included some real rarities.

In ATG No 2427 we noted the sale at Sotheby’s on December 10, at a very much higher than expected £50,000, of a rare copy of the 1553 translation into ‘Scots English’ of Virgil’s Aeneid by Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld.

Rare book dealer Dr Jörn Günther of Switzerland specialises in manuscripts, miniatures, and rare early printed books from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Extraordinarily high prices paid for the works of the Russian writer Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev were noted in ATG No 2425, and there were many more lots of interest in the sale held by Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) in which they were offered.

Bible suggests confusion over ‘he’ or ‘she’ may not be purely a modern-day phenomenon.

Two ‘Frost Fair’ broadsides printed at one of the many stalls set up on the Thames during a hard 18th century winter in which London’s river froze over were sold in a recent sale held by Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium).

Published anonymously in Boston in 1828, a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s youthful first book, 'Fanshawe', sold for $38,000 (£28,790) at Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9%).

Fifty or so lots from the library of the Earls of Haddington that were offered as part of London sale included their fair share of exceptional lots.

Book dealer Tom Lintern-Mole runs Antiquates in Corfe Castle, Dorset.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Two men have pleaded guilty in connection with the theft of rare books and manuscripts from the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

‘Long and intensive build-up’ on Facebook brings in younger buyers to one-day event, writes Jeremy Carson.