Books and Works on Paper

It was as recently as June 13 that a presentation copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species made a record $400,000 (£316,353) at Bonhams New York – as reported in ATG No 2398. However, barely a month had passed before another 1859 first attracted a substantial six-figure bid in London.

The highest prices recorded in a Space Exploration sale on July 20 were for video recordings and documents relating to the Apollo 11 mission that featured the first moon landing, but a much earlier, fictional account of a lunar expedition also impressed.

Almost exactly contemporary, the two works featured here came from the library of Christian Heuer and were offered as part of a July 1-9 summer sale at Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium). Both are distinguished by the observations of their authors.

Works by Russia’s most revered literary figure rack up auction records in London saleroom.

Jane Austen’s House Museum in Hampshire has successfully raised the £35,000 required to buy a fragment of a letter written by the novelist in 1814. The rare manuscript was being sold on behalf of its private owner by London dealer Maggs.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

This double-page engraved chart is from an early-17th century pilot book which is another of the highlights from the Mopelia Collection of atlases and travel books offered in London.

Among a number of finely bound works offered in a July 4, Cambridge sale were three family owned examples of the work of Captain Charles Elsden Gladstone (1855-1919), a retired Royal Navy officer.

“The wayfarer, as he reached him, saluted with a gesture of courtesy that had something foreign about it”.

A 1538 Coverdale New Testament was one of the high spots of a 39-lot section of books from a single family collection that opened the Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) July 31 auction.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Useful buys if you want to know how to ‘pott a Swan’, ‘fry Harticholk’ or even ‘stew Lettice’

Lots offered towards the start of sales at the same auction house prove successful.

An exceptional 11-lot group of the works of James Sowerby featured in a Swedish summer sale.

Compiled for official British War Office use on the eve of the American War of Independence, this quarto volume bearing the manuscript title ‘The Uniform of the Several Regiments of Foot in His Majesty’s Service’ doubled the high estimate at Christie’s New York (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium).

'Versuche über Pflanzen Hybriden' by Gregor Mendel is a paper that marked the foundation of the science of genetics.

The reason that an otherwise unexceptional 1737 English language edition of Horace’s 'Odes, Satyrs and Epistles' – lacking a portrait and three text pages – sold for the substantial sum of £50,000 in the Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9%) sale on June 26 is to be found on the front endpaper notes shown below.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Published in 1851 by Richard Bentley as The Whale, the first English edition of Herman Melville’s tale preceded the American issue by four weeks.