Books & Periodicals

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

From 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' to 'The Last Duel', films nearly always depict the Middle Ages as dark, dingy and beset by bad weather.

Top-selling lot in Halls’ (24% buyer’s premium) books and manuscripts sale on November 15 was a collection of 14 letters written by the Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) between 1818-31.

Among the many highlights of the Alan and Simone Hartman collection at Bonhams New York is a copy of the monumental catalogue of the famed Bishop collection of Chinese jades. The deluxe volume, once owned by the last tsar of Russia, carries expectations of $100,000-150,000 as part of the 114-lot dispersal on December 14.

The Christmas Rare Books & Collectors sale at Irish auction house Fonsie Mealy on December 12-13 includes No33 of only 150 copies in a limited special edition of Bog Poems by Seamus Heaney illustrated by Barrie Cooke (London, Rainbow Press, 1975).

Pictured here are two fine 19th century presentation copies that, unexpectedly, topped sales in South Cerney and Cambridge in October.

A group of letters sent from a clipper ship captain in Shanghai during the Second Opium War (1856-60) to his sons in the Charlestown area of Boston resounded with bidders at Merrill’s Auctioneers (21% buyer’s premium) in Williston, Vermont on November 3.

Scrap of paper came as result of half a manuscript book being chewed into ‘confetti’ by Steinbeck’s dog

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

Dispersal of renowned collection launches with the first auctions including Aldine ‘crown jewels’

Wide-ranging items from Christopher Foyle of bookshop fame generate a white-glove sale in Gloucestershire

The Antiquarian Book auction at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood includes a travel album titled The Ramblings and Adventures of an Indian Officer.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

A first edition, first impression presentation of WB Yeats’ first book, Mosada (1886), was among the standout sales at the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair.

A photograph by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-98) - aka Lewis Carroll - was among the highlights of Hindman’s (26/20/15% buyer’s premium) October 19 sale of Photographs from the Joe Baio Collection.

The October 18-19 sale at Everard Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Savannah, Georgia, featured manuscripts, photos and ephemera focused on European royalty.

ATG takes a look at some of the many dealer exhibitions being staged in the run-up to Christmas

Anthony Pincott, who lives in Islington, north London, has gathered an extensive collection of bookplates.