Books & Periodicals

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Painted with an image of an urn to the front cover of its vellucent binding and with a view of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire to the rear, the Book of Common Prayer & Book of Psalmes shown below was printed in 1774 by T Wright & W Gill for the University of Oxford.

An exceptional, expanded and specially cased example of Ippolito Rosellini’s 'I Monumenti dell Egitto e della Nubia' of 1832-34 topped the bidding in a Fonsie Mealy (20% buyer’s premium) sale of the library from Howth Castle.

Among the book lots offered as part of an October 7-8 sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) the earliest was a Burgundian ‘Hours of the Virgin’ manuscript.

Two very different lots shared the highest bid honours in a September 30 sale held in Norfolk. A manuscript recipe book dating from the late 17th/early 18th century onwards was, as such, accomplished in several different hands.

Buying online took off in the trade last year with one notable example being The Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA) which launched its monthly online back-to-back book fairs in April.

Library on offer at Forum auction in London was based on works collected by a man whose roles ranged from alchemist to diplomat

Running to just 20 or so words, a tiny signed card in which Abraham Lincoln instructs Edwin Stanton to meet with the African-American abolitionist and officer Martin Delany in Washington led the bidding at Doyle (26/21/15% buyer’s premium) on September 23.

I have just received ATG No 2516 wherein the old question of first edition and first impression is raised in the Letters section.

Now handsomely bound in full red morocco and contained in slipcases, a set of first-edition copies of what are collectively known as ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ of CS Lewis led a Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) sale of October 7 with a bid of £3400 from a buyer on thesaleroom.com.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Sold for £16,000 in a September 23 sale was an album of 41 watercolour studies of birds produced by William Weston Young (1776-1847).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Distinguished naval officer admired by Nelson was also a talented watercolour painter

Top lot in a sale held by Mallams (25% buyer’s premium) of Oxford was a 1719-20, first edition set of 'The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe…', 'The Farther Adventures…' and 'The Serious Reflections…' in later but very smart bindings of red morocco gilt by Francis Bedford of London.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Relating to perhaps the most famous of all compositions for the lute, a version of John Dowland’s 'Lachrimae pavane' proved a major attraction in a music sale held by Sotheby’s (26/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

For just a few short days in October, the white-walled contemporary space of the Saatchi Gallery was transformed into a veritable feast of rare and sought-after first-edition books, prints and posters.

A great many of the lots that brought prices in the £1000-10,000 range in a recent Cheltenham sale were multiples of varying size – some running to as many as a hundred volumes – but noted here are a couple with that same Spetchley Park provenance that can be more precisely defined.