Books and Works on Paper

Maps and views of San Francisco were among the principal attractions of an April 21 sale held by local auction house PBA Galleries (25/20% buyer’s premium) to disperse the first portion of the Charles Fraccia Collection.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Copy printed in Boston in 1744 and now offered in Chicago was defective but a real rarity

An inscribed copy of F Scott Fitzgerald’s 'The Great Gatsby' was the most expensive purchase in a held by Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium).

A children’s book estimated at £20-40 in a May 14 sale held by Pippa Deeley (15% buyer’s premium) in Bodiam, East Sussex, was sold instead at £2200.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Work sold in Cambridge is thought to reflect US author's friendship with Scottish physician and essayist

More than 60 Dickens lots appeared in an April 26 sale of the library of Jeremy and Penny Martin, several of them bearing presentation inscriptions.

A London saleroom offered what was billed as the only “known” surviving set of uncorrected galley proofs for Harry Potter & the Philosopher’s Stone.

Estimated at just $200-300, this folding map of the island of Antigua proved rather more expensive than expected.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Alchemical work is best-seller as Vishniac lots create a valuable mix in the saleroom

Negotiating the sometimes complex world of prints by the 17th century Dutch Master

In what was the auction house’s most successful sale ever in financial terms, and one that boasted a 97% selling rate, a March 4 sale at Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) was led at $65,000 (£49,240) by a 'Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s Captivity from the Time of his Being Taken by the British, near Montreal… in 1775, to the Time of his Exchange…in May 1778'.

This Victorian ‘Language of Flowers’ fan was published by Robert Canton c.1875 and is on offer at The Ephemera Society Summer Fair.

An historically significant document dating from 1785 and a previously unrecorded campaign handbill concerning the election that saw Thomas Jefferson become the third US president were highlights of a February 17 sale at Freeman’s (26/20/12% buyer’s premium).

The six lots described here are drawn from a hugely successful sale of comics and comic art held in Dallas by Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) over four days, from April 7-10.

Two upcoming lots at US book auctions.

Though it is the pineapple that is most prominent, it is the assortment of creatures that flutter around, climb or emerge from its leaves that are the principal attraction of this coloured plate, below.