Books & Periodicals

THERE were notable sales in the first hour of the two fairs which opened at Olympia in West London last Thursday.

AS millions of Americans celebrated the victory of Barack Obama, Christie's announced that they will be offering an important memento from another historic Presidential election which brought a sense of hope to the country.

The British Library has secured the oldest surviving roll of arms in English history after a successful fundraising effort to keep it in the UK. The Dering Roll dates from the last quarter of the 13th century and depicts 324 coats of arms, approximately a quarter of the English baronage during the time of Edward I, making it a vital record for the study of heraldry in medieval England.

Online retail giant Amazon.com have announced their intention to purchase AbeBooks, the most important internet marketplace for rare and out-of-print books.

A DIARY kept by a sailor in Nelson’s navy was offered for sale in a US auction earlier this month. Given that diaries kept by ordinary sailors are exceptionally rare, there was huge interest in this visually striking document from both sides of the Atlantic with institutions, the trade and private collectors vying for the journal.

The only known copy of the world’s first telephone directory sold for $140,000 (£71,430) at Christie’s New York on June 17 as part of an $11m (£5.9m) sale of the Richard Green scientific library.

A HANDWRITTEN letter written by Albert Einstein in the year before he died giving his thoughts on religion drew spectacular bidding in London last week when it sold at £170,000 (plus premium) against an estimate of just £6000-8000.

READERS who watched the recent BBC drama Miss Austen Regrets will recall the scene in which a startled, bemused but not overly enthusiastic Jane is told by the Prince Regent’s librarian that his royal master is a great admirer and that she should feel quite at liberty to dedicate any new novel to the Prince.

SOMEWHERE on a shelf in a pub in the Midlands there may be five rare books that could throw a whole new light on the Brontë family.

A BATTERED old Bible in a strongbox with a woodcut pasted on the inside of the lid was sold with a boxed rosary for £6200 by auctioneer Paul Beighton of Thurcroft, near Rotherham on March 9. Behind it there was quite a story.

It was in 1908 that the American entrepreneur Charles Barnes convinced the British Columbia Development Association (BCDA), a London-based investment syndicate, to purchase 6000 acres of land to establish a farming community for British settlers next to the Thompson River.

The last privately owned copy of Magna Carta will remain in the USA after its $19m (£9.8m) purchase by billionaire David Rubenstein.

THE first book on swimming printed in England was Everard Digby’s De arte natandi of 1587.

PREVIOUSLY unpublished letters from the poet John Betjeman are to form part of the setting for a travelling display of early 20th century jewellery designer Helen Holmes at Bonhams.

What price one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy? On December 10, Sotheby’s New York will offer for sale one of just 17 surviving 13th century copies of Magna Carta.

DUBLIN auctioneers James Adam have negotiated a €3.5m (£2.4m) sale of remarkable papers setting a record for a single transaction of documents relating to the 1916 Easter Rising.

In the same way that Americans hold any material relating to the Pilgrim Fathers in the highest esteem, so anything associated with Australia’s earliest European settlers carries a huge premium for its domestic market.

HERITAGE grants have helped the British Museum acquire the 15th century illuminated manuscript known as the Wardington Hours.

IT must be every trustee’s nightmare. You dispose of vanloads of unwanted books for what you think is a realistic £36,000, but then over a period of less than a year you see the pick of them then raise around £500,000 at auction.

SIR Harry Newton (1871-1951), whose library provided some of the finest things in a £730,000 book sale held by Duke’s of Dorchester on March 8, was an adherent of the old ‘Cabinet’ school of collecting – buying key works of literature and science.