Books and Works on Paper

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

High demand today for manuscripts revealing 17th century domestic arrangements.

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.

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.

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.

A copy of the first modern atlas by Abraham Ortelius, which set the standard for all following atlases, will be on offer at Ketterer Kunst in Hamburg on November 29 with an estimate of €80,000.

Bellmans is selling the script and production archive of film director, producer and screenwriter Lewis Gilbert (1920-2018) on November 17-18.

This chromolithographed plate is one of 52 (of 55) included in a copy of Dickinson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851.

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.

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

This illuminated initial comes from a late 14th century Book of Hours that carries an estimate of £20,000-30,000 at Forum Auctions on November 25.

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.

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

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

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

On October 25 Philadelphia firm Freeman’s will offer the Alexander Hamilton collection of John E Herzog.

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.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Printed in Amsterdam in 1685, Anatomia humani corporis, centum & quinque tabulis, per artificiossis by Godard Bidloo (1649-1713) was the first large-scale anatomical atlas since Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica in 1543.