Books & Periodicals

Susanne Schulz-Falster deals in rare books from Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

Offered very early on in the books section of the Travel & Exploration sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium), a 24-lot collection relating to George Anson amassed by the late Colin Paul, a descendant of the admiral, attracted considerable interest.

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 copy of JRR Tolkien’s 'The Hobbit' offered in a recent Surrey sale was a first-impression one of 1937, but essentially defined by its truly sad and defective condition.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 11-31, 2020.

Shown below is a plate from A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pyrates… sold at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) on February 19

Said to date from the 12th-14th century, an incomplete and dampstained Middle Eastern medical manuscript sold for £70,000 at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) on February 22.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

List of deaths is timely reminder that outbreaks are nothing new

Very much the surprise of an online sale held by Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) was a lot presenting incomplete fragments of 'An Almanacke and Prognosticatyon'… for the year 1552.

An unexpected star turn of a recent Norfolk sale was a job lot of works from the library of the late Ron Fiske of Morningthorpe Manor, an East Anglian collector whose books a Norfolk auction house first started dispersing a few years years ago.

One of the many memorable scenes in Charles Dickens’ 'Bleak House' was the portrayal of the apparent spontaneous combustion of Mr Krook, leaving “the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes”.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

A momentous letter of July 6, 1776, in which President of Congress John Hancock announced the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, was the most expensive lot in a printed and manuscript Americana sale on January 27.

Early-17th century Lithuanian plan sold alongside companion Dnieper river details

An eyewitness account of the trial of two elderly widows on charges of witchcraft proved one of the more successful lots in a truly Out of the Ordinary sale held in Essex on February 11.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Comics played a significant part in a recent held by Mitchells (20% buyer’s premium) of Cockermouth, undoubtedly helped by the presence of some 30,000 Marvel comics from one private collection.

Modestly estimated at just £100-150 in a recent Carlisle sale, an 18th century manuscript notebook offering ‘An Account of the Improvements in the Gardens & Park at Cannonhall’ proved a major attraction.

Two broadsides describing and illustrating with wood engravings the executions of convicted murderers were sold online at £1600 apiece by Forum.