Books & Periodicals

A group of some 40 letters and greetings cards sent in 1990-97 by Diana, Princess of Wales, to her good friend Roger Bramble sold for almost £70,000.

Having missed the ritual of perusing bookshelves in shops and fairs due to lockdown, Marc and Marcia Harrison of Netherlands gallery Harrison Hiett Rare Books have launched a digital ‘fully clickable’ catalogue to replicate the experience for their clients.

Henry Dean’s 'The Whole Art of Legerdemain; or Hocus Pocus in Perfection', is one of the rarities in the conjuring and magic publications’ section of Potter & Potter Auctions’ next Magic sale.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book sales.

The story of the fall of the Alamo is familiar to many, even if only from a famous film version

Lack of a dust jacket is not always crucial to a high price, as Erskine Childers’ much-loved The Riddle of the Sands of 1903 shows.

Manuscript demonstrating young lady’s educational achievements sells for £35,000

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

The binding is an early 20th century one, and the very last leaf has been supplied as an autograph facsimile, but on March 17 the 1578 first English edition of Rembert Dodoens’ A Nievve Herball, or Historie of Plants shown here was bid to £3000.

Talented amateur artist enjoyed riding excursions with the author to antiquarian sites

First published in the UK as a ‘Collins Crime Club’ title in 1970, an Agatha Christie novel brought a bid of £850 at Claydon Auctioneers (19.5% buyer’s premium).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Publishers’ file copies of the first 199 issues of War Picture Library, pocket-sized and essentially pictorial publications of the years 1958-63, brought a bid of £3250 in a Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) timed sale.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

From Hans Christian Andersen to Ian Fleming, ATG selects a clutch of literary highlights in catalogues launched this spring by several UK-based book dealers

Sold online for a far higher than predicted £600 in Norfolk on February 11 was a calling card of William Marwood (1820-83), who for many years was an official hangman.

Offered as part of a sale at Taylors (24% buyer’s premium) of Montrose with an estimate of just £20-30 was a catalogue of the library at Fasque House, or Fasque Castle as it is also known.

A travel sale held by Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) offered the usual mix of books, pictures, prints and photographs – and to very good effect in doubling the high estimate total.

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

John Faber’s mezzotint version of a portrait by John Vanderbank of Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739), a celebrated blind scientist and mathematician, was bid to 10 times the high estimate in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) general clear-out sale.