Books and Works on Paper

Bonhams holds faith with specialist travel and exploration auctions

Collection offered in London auction included Agatha Christie and other crime classics

John Faber’s mezzotint version of a portrait by John Vanderbank of Nicholas Saunderson (1682-1739), a celebrated blind scientist and mathematician, was bid to 10 times the high estimate in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) general clear-out sale.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

Sold at $34,000 (£25,185) apiece, two very different lots headed the bidding in a New York sale of December 17.

A magnificent copy of Liber chronicarum, or ‘Nuremburg Chronicle’ as it is more familiarly known, made a record $350,000 (£265,150) at Bonhams New York.

Almost a hundred lots in a New York sale came from the extensive Dickens collections assembled over four decades by Martin Nason.

Published in Paris, a 1613 first edition of a pioneering American exploration work sold for $160,000 (£114,285) in Philadelphia.

At nearly 7ft high, a fine example of a four-sheet coloured lithograph of the Sutro Baths sold for $10,000 (£7355).

Though a Bösendorfer grand piano topped bidding at $42,500 (£31,250) in a January 16 sale, the main attractions for many came from a different source.

Famous brothers’ fairy tales take top spot in an exceptional selection of children’s works.

Offered at Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) was a first selection from the medical library of James Tate Goodrich (1946-2020).

Sold at a rather higher than expected $1900 (£1440) by Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) of Chicago was a lot offering not one, but two early copies of Rafaele Frianoro’s Il Vagabondo overo Sferza de Bianti, e Vagabondi.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book sales.

In Praise of America was a very mixed sale of furniture, silver, folk art, prints, broadsides and more held in New York.

Sporting subjects were very much in evidence and definitely among the best-sellers in an illustration art sale held in New York.

One 1870s Thomas Hardy work that was hated by the Spectator magazine critic, the other hailed

This first edition, first printing of Raymond Chandler’s 'The Big Sleep' is the book that introduced detective Philip Marlowe.

Contained in an old buckram folder, a collection of scouting ephemera proved a highlight of a sale of books and ephemera held in Chichester.

Given a modest estimate of £100-150 in a January 3 sale at Oxfordshire auction house Jones & Jacob (18% buyer’s premium), an edition of Hero & Leander published in 1949 by Christopher Sandford sold instead at £1500.