First Edition

Christie’s sale Charlie Watts: Gentleman, Collector, Rolling Stone combined stardust with an extraordinary library of modern first editions.

A round-up of art and antiques news from the previous seven days, including the book collection of the late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts being offered at Christie's.

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

Two of Jane Austen’s works, both from the same Wyoming collector’s estate, were stand-out lots in a May 11 sale held in Chicago.

Works by the three sisters including copies published under pseudonyms come to a Cambridge auction

The best-selling lot in a recent Carlisle auction was a 1919, Collins first of Heritage, the debut novel of Vita Sackville-West, who at that time was better known for her poetry.

'A Magician Among the Spirits' by Harry Houdini conjured up one of the highest prices in the Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) Houdini-related sale in Chicago on April 8 when it sold for $15,000 (£12,095).

This copy of 'The Study of Sociology' by Herbert Spencer is a first edition from 1875 in original cloth.

The dust jacket in those familiar red, black and yellow colours favoured by the publisher, Gollancz, had a few shortcomings in terms of condition, including some chips and losses, but this ‘Just out!’ 1935 first of 'Gaudy Night', signed by its author, Dorothy L Sayers, was bid to £2100 on March 3.

Complete with the often missing dust jacket and entirely unrestored, as the cataloguer’s notes were pleased to point out, a 1925 Hogarth Press first of Virginia Woolf’s famous novel Mrs Dalloway was offered as part of a March 2 sale at Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of New York.

A 15th century first edition of a pioneering work by Johannes Gallensis surfaced at auction late last month.

Included in Potter & Potter’s latest sale of Books and Manuscripts is a rare first edition limited issue of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest.

Small group of the author’s ever-popular works makes a big impression at Gloucestershire saleroom

Having featured prominently on television in a specially made part of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Paddington Bear hardly needs any more publicity.

Though the dust jacket featuring one of Pauline Baynes’ illustrations for the book is torn with loss and exhibits a number of patched repairs, a 1950 first edition of 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' did sell for £1100 against a guide of £500-700 on October 6 at Buckinghamshire saleroom Bourne End Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium).

The ‘property of a lady’, this concertina-style wallet book by Beatrix Potter, 'The Story of Miss Moppet', is a first edition published by Frederick Warne & Co, London & New York, 1906.

Freeman’s September 21 Books and Manuscripts auction, in Pennsylvania is led by an ‘extremely rare’ first edition of 'New Englands First Fruits' (estimate $20,000-30,000), a 1643 account of Puritan evangelisation in New England.

Catalogued as a ‘very good, complete copy in original condition of the first really modern scientific book published in England’, a 1600 first edition (Peter Short) of De Magnete by William Gilbert is estimated at £10,000-15,000 in Forum Auction’s Fine Books, Manuscripts & Works on Paper sale in London on September 29.

Copy of his first book was a later gift from Sir John Heygate to Tarka the Otter author

The headline borrows the title given to an online Christie’s (26/20% buyer’s premium) sale – one that presented more than 80 modern first editions.