Books and Works on Paper

Books, catalogues, ephemera, pictures and other material from the collections of the Shorthorn Society of the United Kingdom & Ireland formed a significant part of a recent Carlisle sale.

Puritan Cotton Mather’s defence of executions is latest work on the subject to surface.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from April 7-25, 2020.

Offered without a reserve, a job lot of “low grade” comics dating from the 1940s-50s ended up selling for £1200 in a Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) timed sale on thesaleroom.com.

Sold at $60,000 (£46,295) in a recent New York sale was a broadside, Noticia Estraordinaria, printed in Mexico City in 1836, that brought news of the fall of the Alamo in March of that year.

A very early railway guide, still in the original decorative boards, was a rare and unusual lot in a recent held by Mullock’s (20% buyer’s premium).

Key to a price tag of £95,000 for a slightly bumped first impression copy of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' offered in a recent Bonhams sale lay in an inscription.

Comprising essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, all of which were published under the same pen name, ‘Publius’, The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution… is a key American contribution to political theory.

British and Irish book auctions, March 31-April 11, 2020.

An album of 35 photographs relating to the Alaskan ‘Gold Rush’ of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries sold for £1900 rather than the estimate of £50-70 in a recent North Yorkshire sale.

First editions of all of Jane Austen’s major works featured in a sale last month held by Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Rare works in South Cerney sale document the formative years of the Bank of England

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Containing some 600 hand-coloured engraved plates, a set of Sowerby and De Carle’s 'The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain…' of 1812-29 was just another of the many attraction in a sale last month held by Lyon & Turnbull.

Offered very early on in the books section of the Travel & Exploration sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium), a 24-lot collection relating to George Anson amassed by the late Colin Paul, a descendant of the admiral, attracted considerable interest.

A copy of Sylvia Plath’s 'The Bell Jar' in a well-preserved dust jacket sold for £3000 in a recent Surrey auction may have set a record for any uninscribed or association copy.

A copy of JRR Tolkien’s 'The Hobbit' offered in a recent Surrey sale was a first-impression one of 1937, but essentially defined by its truly sad and defective condition.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 11-31, 2020.

Shown below is a plate from A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pyrates… sold at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) on February 19

Said to date from the 12th-14th century, an incomplete and dampstained Middle Eastern medical manuscript sold for £70,000 at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) on February 22.