Book

Collection offered in London auction included Agatha Christie and other crime classics

Hindman is holding an auction of Literature from a Private New Orleans Collection on March 19.

This first edition, first printing of Raymond Chandler’s 'The Big Sleep' is the book that introduced detective Philip Marlowe.

A rare, candid autobiographical account by a soon-to-be-executed 18th century brickmaker has been bought by Horsham Museum.

Presented on vellum with luxury colouring and illuminated with silver and gold, this is a rare first edition of Theuerdank.

Americana, travel and natural history were billed as the main attractions of a sale at Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

A spate of thefts from central London shops has put the antiquarian book trade on high alert.

Four lots between them raised $1.5m including premiums to rack up more than half the total at an online sale in New York.

Unpublished work by mathematician John Wallis who was also a major influence in code breaking sells at Dominic Winter

A single leaf from a Gutenberg Bible that sold for a higher than expected $65,000 (£50,980) in a Philadelphia sale this autumn.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Offered as part of a sale held in Bristol were two copies of 'The Merchants Avizo….', a work by a local man, John Browne.

With only eight of the 178 lots offered left on the shelves at the day’s end and a top lot in the six-figure bracket, a Doyle (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) online auction was certainly a success.

Chaucer and Shakespeare, Darwin and Tolkien were among the big-name and more expensive lots sold as part of the Gerald and Barbara Weiner library at Hindman (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Chicago.

Principal attraction in a Crewkerne book sale at Lawrences (25% buyers premium) was the Browning family archive that featured as Pick of the Week in ATG No 2459, but three other items from that 370 lot sale are noted here.

Two very different lots were bid to $22,000 (£17,325) each in a sale of printed and manuscript Americana held in New York.