Books & Periodicals

The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) has put out a call for entrants to the 2018 ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography.

A copy of a pioneering work that has been described as “the first practical statement of socialist doctrine”, Robert Owen’s ‘A New View of Society...,’ of 1813-14, will be a major attraction in a Dominic Winter sale next month.

While relations between the English/Unionist and the Scottish powers-that-be are not exactly cordial at the moment, hopefully it will not lead to battle. If a referendum is indeed held to decide the fate of the union, a ballot rather than the bullet should be sufficient.

The Bodleian Library in Oxford has bought the historic customer ledgers of venerable Oxford shoemaker Ducker & Son.

Privately printed and distributed in Exeter in 1787, probably in quite small numbers, a copy of John Grave Simcoe’s ‘Journal of the Operations of the Queen’s Rangers, from the End of the Year 1777, to the Conclusion of the Late American War’ drew strong interest at a Bonhams New York sale earlier this month.

An auction house which sold a 1937 handwritten letter by Beatrix Potter is offering another fascinating collection related to the children’s author just over two months later.

A signed limited edition copy of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ is among the books on offer at the upcoming Edinburgh Book Fair.

Bound together some 200 years ago, rare copies of two Elizabethan satires that were first condemned and then burned will be among the books offered by Bonhams at the Glyn Cywarch sale later this month.

The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) has launched a mentoring programme to help encourage the next generation of book dealers.

Letters from the late Princess Diana surfaced at auction earlier this year in Cambridge and now another set is being offered in Gloucestershire.

A comic picture book issued by Fores in 1842 and titled ‘The Brother to the Moon’s Visit to the Court of Queen Vic’ would appear to be a great rarity, and a copy offered by Cheffins of Cambridge on February 22 made a much higher than predicted £1900.