Books and Works on Paper

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Bid to a much higher than expected £4000 on August 19 at Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) was a lot offering 10 volumes of pamphlets, offprints, reports, legal evidence, etc, relating to licensing laws and the campaign to regulate consumption in the UK.

Oddly titled by its creator as such, an extraordinary watercolour featured on August 10 at John Nicholson’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Fernhurst.

It was when the book was in the process of being catalogued by Bretells (19% buyer’s premium) of Newport, Shropshire, that a second impression copy of Tolkien’s The Hobbit was seen to bear the author’s signature.

Bid to £2400, a signed and inscribed copy of Philip Pullman’s nowadays scarce first novel, The Haunted Storm of 1971, was an unexpectedly successful lot in an online modern literature auction held by Forum (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on August 5.

Housed in his home – Fox Pointe Manor in Anaheim, southern California – the rare book collection of radiologist Howard Knohl and his interior designer wife Linda reached more than 80,000 volumes.

The timed online sale of Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts including Americana that closes at Christie’s New York on October 15 includes books from the estate of Theodore Cohn, a professor of political science.

Coming to Cheffins’ October 21 auction directly from the library of the Hertfordshire estate, Julians Park, the home of society hostess Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie, is a collection of 70 of the principal books.

Uncut and in near pristine condition, an exceptional first-state copy of TS Eliot’s poem The Waste Land was the top lot and also a recordbreaker at a Sotheby’s New York (26/20/13.9%% buyer’s premium) online sale.

Consigned by Frieda Hughes, who was not yet three years old when her mother took her own life, a collection of Sylvia Plath’s letters to Ted Hughes was sold by Sotheby’s (26/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) in a timed online auction.

This calendar lists a selection of forthcoming specialist fairs and markets in the UK and around the world that feature categories including books, maps, posters, prints, works on paper and ephemera.

Tolkien classic in bespoke binding is one of the highlights as the London event returns

The sale of Early Printed Books at Swann in New York on October 14 includes this author’s presentation copy of Edward Jenner’s On the Varieties and Modifications of the Vaccine Pustule, Occasioned by an Herpetic State of the Skin.

On October 21 in London Plakas is offering this endowment document for the religious complex of the vizier Zaganos Pasha in Balikesir with the tughra of Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror, dated beginning of jumada i AH866/February.

This October, the capital hosts The London Autumn Book Fair – a fresh addition to the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association’s (PBFA) 2021 calendar.

In anticipation of an exhibition at London’s Somerset House, ATG reviews 10 landmarks of Beano comic collecting

To coincide with the belated launch of 'No Time to Die', Lyon & Turnbull of Edinburgh is offering a fine selection of 007 designs as part of a specialist sale of vintage posters held in partnership with specialist Tomkinson Churcher on October 19.

Two Marilyn Monroe lots were among the more successful entries in an Entertainment & Music Memorabilia sale at Heritage (25% buyer’s premium).

Sotheby’s New York is selling the Ricky Jay collection on October 27-28.

Tennants’ sale of Books, Maps and Manuscripts in Leyburn on November 24 will include this rare 15th century illuminated folding almanac on vellum.