First Edition

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

Signed by the author and all members of the cast, the stage manager and the props manager, a 1943, Heinemann first of 'Present Laughter' was one of two Noel Coward plays that made up a lot sold for £1600 via thesaleroom.com in a Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium) auction.

There were, inevitably, a few copies of Charles Dickens’ much-loved tale, 'A Christmas Carol', on offer at auction as the big day approached.

Sixteenth century book-maker’s creativity makes maths and astronomy more accessible

Peter Harrington’s Christmas 2020 catalogue features a selection of first and special editions such as this copy of 'Just So Stories' by Rudyard Kipling.

The artist, cleric, schoolmaster and author William Gilpin (1724-1804) is best known as a champion of the Romantic idea of the picturesque.

An 1859 first of Darwin’s seminal work shrugs off condition issues to be a best-seller

A 1776 first of Adam Smith’s '…Wealth of Nations' sold in a New York summer sale bore an understandably irritated inscription by the man to whom it had been gifted by its author.

An October 27-30 sale of more than 2800 lots at Reiss & Sohn of Königstein-im-Taunus includes a 1583 first of Georg Bartisch’s Opthalmodouleia…, a famous work on eye surgery that is also the first extensively illustrated account of any surgical speciality.

Inscribed copies of the works of Dodie Smith were among the attractions of a summer sale held by Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Always likely to produce one of the sale’s best results, a 1798 first of Thomas Malthus’ 'Essay on the Principle of Population' duly led the bidding in a recent German sale.

On September 12 Brunk Auctions of Asheville, North Carolina, is holding a single-owner sale comprising the estate of William N Banks Junior from his Georgia property, Bankshaven.

The gilt decorated blue cloth binding showed signs of age, but a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s 'Captains Courageous, A Story of the Grand Banks' offered in a Philadelphia sale bore the author’s signature on the title-page.

Harry Potter first deemed too scruffy by a public library brings a spellbinding result

A rare first edition of the first fully realised post-apocalyptic tale is on offer in Peter Harrington’s inaugural fantasy and science-fiction catalogue, 'In Other Worlds'.

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.

A copy of Sylvia Plath’s 'The Bell Jar' in a well-preserved dust jacket sold for £3000 in a recent Surrey auction may have set a record for any uninscribed or association copy.

A fine-looking copy of the 1931, US first of The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett sold right on the low estimate at $60,000 (£46,875) at Christie’s New York (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) to match a previous auction high.

Although Charles Dickens is often credited with creating the ‘modern’ Christmas, some of the recognition should go to John Leech.