Books and Works on Paper

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Golf books do not bring as many really high prices as was once the case, but the most recent of the regular sales in this category held by a Californian saleroom did contain a couple of surprises.

Two books from Herman Melville’s library, both volumes of classical poetry that were annotated throughout and in one instance signed, topped a recent New York sale.

A 1547 translation into Arabic of Euclid’s Elementa Geometrica sold for £17,000 as part of an October 23 sale of Islamic and Near Eastern works on paper at Bloomsbury Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) on October 22,

Focusing on south-east Asia, a 90-lot map section in an Essex sale comprised the extraordinarily successful first portion of a collection of maps and charts assembled by Christopher Beresford-Jones.

Venerable London rare book dealership Bernard Quaritch, established in 1847, has recently moved from Mayfair to Holborn. Here ATG talks to two members of the firm, Andrea Mazzocchi and Donovan Rees, about its new location and some wider trends in the book trade

Pictured below is one of the 26 views, after Coke Smyth, that form a first edition copy of John Frederick Lewis’ 'Illustrations of Constantinople, Made During a Residence in that City &c., in the Years 1835-6'.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000 in a Forum Auctions sale of November 21 is a French indenture agreement of 1421 with a certain added English appeal.

Coming up for sale at Swann Galleries in New York on December 10 is an original, initialled ink and wash drawing by EH Shepard for a lesser-known work by Kenneth Grahame, Bertie’s Escapade, that was published by Lippincott in the US in 1949.

From November 26-28 Christie’s Paris will disperse part of the family library of the Comtesse Martine de Béhague (1869-1939) and Hubert de Ganay (1888-1974).

This newly discovered ledger, dated August 18, 1660, to March 16, 1661, was kept in person by Edward Backwell while acting as paymaster to both the Excise and the House of Commons. It carries an estimate of £20,000-40,000 at Bonhams’ Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in Knightsbridge on December 4.

Two early maps of colonial north America come for sale at Ramsay Cornish in Edinburgh on December 7. They were discovered at the Edinburgh home of the late Dr Ann Carswell, an American born in Washington and educated at Cornell and Harvard.

The ABA Chelsea Rare Book Fair is one of two major London events held annually by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association.

Collector turned dealer is writing an in-depth series on this often overlooked aspect of books.

With the title and 26 plates tipped onto brown paper leaves, a large ‘library edition’ copy of William Nicholson’s famous Alphabet, published by Heinemann in 1898, is estimated at $800-1200 in a November 7 sale at PBA Galleries of San Francisco.

Copy No 74 of the 100 signed, first issue copies of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses' is estimated at $120,000-180,000 in November 5 sale being held by Hindman of Chicago.

A sale devoted to Military and Aviation History at Dominic Winter in South Cerney on November 7 includes a rare invitation ticket c.1913 to witness the first man to ‘loop-the-loop’ in a live demonstration at Brooklands Automobile Racing Club.

English Civil War material is of particular note in a broad-ranging Somerset auction

A sale of Modern First Editions at Bloomsbury Auctions on November 14 includes this ‘near mint’ 1950 copy of Graham Greene’s 'The Third Man and The Fallen Idol'.

Shown below is one of the 96 woodcuts produced by Michel Wohlgemuth and Wilhelm Playdenworff for the 1491 edition of Stephan Fridolin’s 'Der Schatzbehalter oder schrein der waren reichtümer des heils unnd ewyger seligkeit' issued by Anton Koberger of Nürnberg.