Books and Works on Paper

Described as being a little fragile but otherwise good, this Victorian transformation game was drawn on both sides of a single sheet of cut and folded paper.

A handsome group of eight volumes commemorating the Great Exhibition of 1851 sold in Exeter had been presented to one of its commissioners, England’s serial Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone.

Bidding on an exceptionally fine, virtually mint first edition of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone offered in the special Firsts into Film section of a December 9-10 sale opened at $75,000.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Superb set of the Dickens classic was painstakingly assembled as originally issued

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Original French text, translated by Caxton, then illustrated by 1930s engravings

In Rodney Shirley’s monumental study of 'The Mapping of the World… 1472-1700', the very first entry is a simple, circular woodcut known as a ‘T-O’ map, one in which the continents of Asia, Europe and Africa are very simply shown as named segments.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Copy of ‘most influential work in the history of microscopy’ surfaces in Chicago saleroom.

Two very different lots from a November 10 sale held by Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) are noted here.

The undoubted star of the November 24 sale at Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) was the early 15th century folding almanac, or girdle book, that took £95,000.

In a world in which American superhero comics featuring Superman, Batman and other characters regularly sell for substantial six and seven-figure sums, it is really quite refreshing to be reminded of more modestly priced British rarities.

Single page was used as a promotion for this classic Conan Doyle work.

A single-page letter sent on the day before Steve Jobs’ 19th birthday to a close school friend, Tim Brown, sold for $400,000 (£292,825) in New York.

A Christie’s New York (25/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) online timed sale achieved six-figure bids for no fewer than eight lots and very high prices for a great many others while running up an impressive and premium-inclusive total of close on $4.75m (£3.45m).

Modestly estimated at $3000-5000, a richly illustrated manuscript that presents in two finely bound folio volumes a pictorial record of the ‘Costumes et Plantes de L’Hindoustan’ made $80,000 (£58,395) in a New York auction.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

A live online October 28 sale held by Forum (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) attracted a much higher than expected bid for this small and rather browned poster promising that, for one day only, visitors to The ‘Stockton House’ could view not only the preserved head of the renowned bandit Joaquin, but ‘the hand of Three Fingered Jack!’

A third selection of 16th and 17th century English books from Fox Pointe Manor was offered by Forum (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on October 21.