Books and Works on Paper

The most important Greek printing project of the 15th century, and the greatest achievement of the great Venetian printer Aldus Manutius’ Greek publishing programme, was one of the landmark works seen at auction this summer.

The first copy to come onto the market since 1895 and one of only six recorded in all, the Breviarum Romanum Glagoliticum printed in Venice in 1493 by Andreas Torresanus de Asula was another highlight of the Christie’s sale of July 11.

A fine copy in a well-preserved dust jacket of DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow of 1915 was sold at a record £13,000 as part of the eighth portion of the ongoing disposal of ‘The Library of an English Bibliophile’ – a sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) on July 10.

A cartographic highlight of the summer came with the appearance in an 11-day, online US sale of a remarkably detailed early 18th century manuscript map of the American south-west.

Preparatory and other unused drawings relating to Roald Dahl classics come to auction

Two of only 11 leaves of the original, working manuscript of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species… known to remain in private hands were sold at auction in London last month.

Sold for £2500 in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of July 25 was an enormous archive of work produced in the 1950s and ‘60s by Leslie Starke (1905-74), a cartoonist once very popular in both the UK and US.

Illustrated with coloured engravings, The History of Sixteen Wonderful Old Women is a work of 1821 that is “thought to be the first printed book of Limericks”.

A selection of fine or unusual bindings seen at auction during the summer months will feature more prominently in a future issue, but shown here is a 1751 first of Thomas Gray’s An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard in a striking later binding that was among lots offered at Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) on July 12.

Sold at £620 in a July 2 sale held by Hansons (20% buyer’s premium) was a leather-bound promotional catalogue issued by the Walturdaw Cinema Supply Co of Birmingham.

One of the earlier big attractions of the new season will be the September 18-19 auction at Sotheby’s of the Erwin Tomash library on the history of computing.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from August 7-18, 2018.

June and July brought a rich crop of auctions in London, around the country and overseas. A few of those sales and stand-out results have already been reported on these and the ATG news pages, but many more hammer highlights were achieved.

Comprising some 3000 books ranging in date from 1473-1840, one of the finest collections of books on agriculture ever assembled was dispersed by Forum Auctions (30/24/14.4% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in a July 10-11 sale that totalled £1.6m.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from July 25-August 15, 2018.

A copy of the posthumously published, 1633 first edition of John Donne’s Poems in a neatly rebacked but contemporary sheep binding is a desirable volume in itself.

There were two 1997, first-impression copies of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the June 21 sale held by Bonhams.

One of a collection of ornithological and other natural history works from a country house library offered in an Edinburgh sale was a scarce, complete copy of a work that created a bitter fall-out between author and illustrator.

Issued by ‘Hunt & Sons, Card Makers to His Majesty’, a ‘Great Mogul’ deck of playing cards of c.1830, the labels that seal the packaging still unbroken after all those years, featured in a recent Suffolk sale.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from July 17-28, 2018.