Books & Periodicals

A major attraction in a PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) sale of April 6 was the Samuel Hessel ‘DNA’ collection of scientific papers, journals and books.

A Beatrix Potter collection running to 62 lots got a Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of March 30 up and running.

Offered by Keys (20% buyer’s premium) on April 6, the Sir Malcolm Arnold Collection proved to be a problematic one.

Published in 1631 in Rinteln, a small town in Lower Saxony, Friederich Spee’s Cautio Criminalis, seu de Processibus Contra Sagas is a first edition in much later boards of a book that has been described as the first serious attack on witchcraft trials and their use of torture.

Tintin has had another good day out in Paris. In an Artcurial sale on April 8 a European collector paid €753,000 (£643,815), including premiums and taxes, to buy an ink drawing done by Hergé for the 1937 comic book Tintin in America.

The March 29 sale by Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of books from the library at Glyn Cywarch featured many highlights.

Torn, punched with holes, creased, wrinkled and showing loss at the folds, an ‘Organizational Clothing and Equipment Record’ used at Fort Hood, Texas, in 1958 would not at first sight seem an attractive proposition.

A carte-de-visite album of the 1860s containing a previously unknown photograph of the abolitionist heroine Harriet Tubman was one of the high points of the March 30 sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Otto von Guericke’s Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) magdeburgica de vacuo spatio… of 1672 describes the experiments in which he produced an air pump able to create a vacuum and thus demonstrate the pressure exerted by our atmosphere.

A collection of ethical maxims, proverbs and moral reflections compiled by Solomon ibn Gabirol and translated from the Arabic by Judah ibn Tibbon was printed for the first time in Venice in 1484 as Mivchar HaPeninim (Choice Pearls).

This weekend Oxford hosts the PBFA’s 100-dealer antiquarian and out-of-print book premier fair, one of the largest in the association’s calendar. It is held at the Oxford Brookes Wheatley Campus on Saturday and Sunday, April 22-23.

First editions of Jane Austen’s most popular book, Pride and Prejudice of 1813, in contemporary bindings don’t come along often. But one such prize – a copy with a rather distant but nonetheless attractive family link – appeared at Mellors & Kirk (20% buyer’s premium) in Nottingham on March 22-23.

The Charterhouse saleroom must be under doctors’ orders. Two private collections included in the Dorset April 20-21 auction come from consignors with ‘Dr’ in front of their names.

The extra push of archive items accompanying medals at auction is well recognised but such material is increasingly on the advance in its own right. Honours offered with log books, diaries, maps, letters and so on are very attractive to buyers given the background story they create about the recipient.

A photo collection sold at C&T formed part of an archive relating to Brenda Long, secretary to General Sir H Ismay (later Lord Ismay), Chief of Staff to Sir Winston Churchill from mid-1944 until the end of 1945.

A famous military name always in demand at auction is Richthofen. However, the two lots sold at Dickins Auctioneers (19.5% buyer’s premium plus VAT) on March 31 related not to the Red Baron of Great War fame, but to his cousin, Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (1895-1945).

Early children’s books and games provided some of the highlights of a March 15 sale held by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood (21% buyer’s premium).