Books & Periodicals

Pictured below is one of the 26 views, after Coke Smyth, that form a first edition copy of John Frederick Lewis’ 'Illustrations of Constantinople, Made During a Residence in that City &c., in the Years 1835-6'.

Parsonage Museum ‘determined to make the most of second opportunity’ to own miniature manuscript

It was a visit to the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino with his parents that first whetted the 15-year-old Thomas Vroom’s appetite for perspective.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000 in a Forum Auctions sale of November 21 is a French indenture agreement of 1421 with a certain added English appeal.

From November 26-28 Christie’s Paris will disperse part of the family library of the Comtesse Martine de Béhague (1869-1939) and Hubert de Ganay (1888-1974).

This newly discovered ledger, dated August 18, 1660, to March 16, 1661, was kept in person by Edward Backwell while acting as paymaster to both the Excise and the House of Commons. It carries an estimate of £20,000-40,000 at Bonhams’ Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in Knightsbridge on December 4.

The ABA Chelsea Rare Book Fair is one of two major London events held annually by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association.

Collector turned dealer is writing an in-depth series on this often overlooked aspect of books.

With the title and 26 plates tipped onto brown paper leaves, a large ‘library edition’ copy of William Nicholson’s famous Alphabet, published by Heinemann in 1898, is estimated at $800-1200 in a November 7 sale at PBA Galleries of San Francisco.

Copy No 74 of the 100 signed, first issue copies of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses' is estimated at $120,000-180,000 in November 5 sale being held by Hindman of Chicago.

English Civil War material is of particular note in a broad-ranging Somerset auction

A sale of Modern First Editions at Bloomsbury Auctions on November 14 includes this ‘near mint’ 1950 copy of Graham Greene’s 'The Third Man and The Fallen Idol'.

The sale at Knights Sporting Auctions in Leicester on November 2-3 includes a number of items previously sold by Christie’s as duplicates from the library of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 2010.

Estimated at £250-350 in a November 12 motoring and cycling sale being held by Transport Collector Auctions in conjunction with Lawrences, at the latter’s Crewkerne rooms, is a 1956 first of Darell Berthon’s Racing History of the Bentley.

As expected, the copy of Great Expectations shown below proved the star turn when Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9%) offered the splendid Charles Dickens collection formed by London accountant Lawrence Drizen.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Billed as a ‘luminescent’ copy of one of the finer of all published florilegia, a copy of Jakob Christoph Trew’s 'Hortus nitidissimus… floribus' is estimated at £70,000-90,000 at Sotheby’s on November 12.

Diaries, journals and letters kept by Lady Anne Cullum (1807-95) of Hardwick House, near Bury St Edmunds, sold for a total of around £8000 in a recent East Anglian auction.

Three pieces of original artwork were the big money spinners in a Comic Book Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) timed online sale on thesaleroom.com which closed on September 1.