Book

No other Victorian could equal Charles Dickens for fame, earnings and sheer popularity. And few can match him today in the collecting arena.

The annual 'Rare Books London' schedule of events is cancelled this year due to COVID-19, but plenty of book dealers are still doing business.

Welcome to the fifth annual Books, Maps & Prints supplement produced by Antiques Trade Gazette showcasing the world of rare books and works on paper, writes Rupert Powell. It is the third to feature Forum Auctions as the primary sponsor.

Jeremy Carson’s passion for collecting a very appropriate sub-genre of crime fiction – bibliomysteries – led to a career as an antiquarian book dealer.

Alan Hewer of Seaford, Sussex, is a book collector who has turned a personal collection into a resource for others. Interview by Jeremy Carson

A selection of upcoming lots of books, maps and prints from auctions taking place around the UK.

One New York saleroom that has been notably active in the book market during the Covid restrictions is Doyle (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium). A recent sale included original illustrations for some well-known English children’s books.

Luxury edition adds rhyme and reason

Dealers collaborate on catalogues – building on existing trends of pooling resources

A selection of prices for a wide range of Dickensiana sold at auction in the last three years.

A selection of upcoming lots of books, maps and prints from auctions taking place around the world.

Diligently researched and documented by a local collector, the late William Toplis, a wide-ranging PG Wodehouse collection offered by Freeman’s of Philadelphia featured books, manuscripts, artwork and much more besides.

Two outstanding works on paper – a letter by Robert Burns and a page from the manuscript for Charles Dickens’ 'Pickwick Papers' – headline the June offerings across the field of books, maps and prints.

Five different texts from 16th century Germany are bound up in this intriguing vexierbuch.

Two of Ian Fleming’s books were among the highlights of a general book and manuscript sale held on April 18 at a saleroom probably better known on these pages for its specialist sales in the field of magic and conjuring.

Extensive collection of books and other material comes to auction from rare book shop duo.

Top lot in a recent sale conducted by Galerie Bassenge (23% buyer’s premium) of Berlin, at €140,000 (£121,800), was a 1687 first issue of Newton’s 'Principia mathematica….'

This set of 10 detective novels is by ‘Jim Dollar’, the pseudonym of Soviet author Marietta Shaginian (1888-1982), whose writing is described as ‘satirical fantasy fiction’.

Essay warns about considerable perils of the ‘indecent custom’ of burials in churchyards