Collectables

This rare Victorian copper jelly mould shaped as a tortoise or turtle on rockwork sold for a remarkable £2000 at Brighton & Hove Auctions.

A prayer book once owned by a priest who helped Charles II hide after defeat at the Battle of Worcester, and later heard his death-bed confession, has sold at auction to a national heritage organisation.

Before the familiar image of a lady in tall black hat and shawl took hold, the stereotype of Welsh identity was Shon-Ap-Morgan or Poor Taff.

The sale of automobilia at Richard Edmunds Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) in Chippenham on March 25 included a total of 16 different glass pump globes advertising Shell products.

By far the most desirable wares from the Goodwin & Harris ‘Metropolitan Scenery’ series of blue and white transfer printed earthenwares are those featuring cricketers in the grounds of Windsor Great Park.

Letter sent from a very young Charles to his grandma with doodles and kisses emerges at auction

Inscribed as a gift and sent with his kind regards to Miss Anne Stephenson, the daughter of his aunt and uncle, Abigail and Samuel Longfellow Stephenson, an 1868 edition of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 'The Courtship of Miss Standish and other Poems' was offered in a sale held by Sarasota Auctions (26% buyer’s premium).

The dust jacket in those familiar red, black and yellow colours favoured by the publisher, Gollancz, had a few shortcomings in terms of condition, including some chips and losses, but this ‘Just out!’ 1935 first of 'Gaudy Night', signed by its author, Dorothy L Sayers, was bid to £2100 on March 3.

Offered as part of a March 2 sale held by Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) that was billed as a Pulp Magazine Showcase was this October 1919 issue of 'The Thrill Book'.

Shown here is what would be an arachnophobe’s nightmare: one of the 29 hand-coloured engraved plates that illustrate a copy of John Blackwell’s 'History of Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland'.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

This military tunic was worn by the English soldier and friend of the Romantic poets Edward John Trelawny during the Greek War of Independence.

A personal collection of Second World War pictures compiled by dealer John Noott over more than 40 years is on display at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum.

Shrewsbury sale offered rare opportunity to bid for a letters by the great writer and lexicographer

First published in 1755, Samuel Johnson’s 'A Dictionary of the English Language' had taken eight years to compile with six helpers.

Sculpture of a personal nature leads a fine collection of memorabilia offered in Gloucestershire saleroom

Complete with the often missing dust jacket and entirely unrestored, as the cataloguer’s notes were pleased to point out, a 1925 Hogarth Press first of Virginia Woolf’s famous novel Mrs Dalloway was offered as part of a March 2 sale at Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of New York.

A sale held by Martel Maides (20% buyer’s premium) of Guernsey to disperse the contents two island homes included some 60 or more single and multiple lots of books, a number of which boasted special bindings.