Books & Periodicals

Estimated at just $5000 or so but sold at $110,000 (£85,270) in an October 2-3 sale at Brunk Auctions (23% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina, was an extensive archive of documents and letters relating to the career of Captain James N Sever.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Two very different manuscript lots provided the high spots of a sale in Westport, Connecticut

Top lot in a golfing sale at PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) was a 1927 first of Down the Fairway: The Golf Life and Play of Robert T Jones, Jr.

Three of the lots noted here from a Chicago sale of books, manuscripts, pictures and prints sold at record sums – and the fourth brought a price that has only once been bettered.

An item of local interest to bidders at Bamfords in Derby was this 18th century account book for Radbourne Hall, the seat of the Chandos-Pole family.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

The term ‘works on paper’ encompasses a diverse range of media from artist’s prints to posters, ephemera and documents. Pictured here, along with an array of books, is a section of items available to buy from dealers or bid for at auction.

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.

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

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.

In 1793, well in advance of the Slave Trade Act (1807) and the Slavery Abolition Act (1833), 275 British men, women and children attempted to settle an uninhabited island off the coast of Sierra Leone.

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.

Estimated at £200-300 in a Kent sale, a military commission that bears the signature of King George III and is additionally signed and endorsed by William Pitt the Elder, Britain’s prime minister at the time of the Seven Years War, sold online instead for £7500.

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

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions. While care has been taken in compiling these previews, we strongly advise that you also check with the saleroom concerned in case of cancellations or postponements because of the latest Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.

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