Books & Periodicals

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Darwin and Newton impress in US auction while Adam Smith brings wealthy sums.

Comics and comic artwork selling at a very high level were evident in a three-day sale held recently in Dallas.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Copy of only the fourth book to be printed using the new types comes to auction

A selection of books relating to conjuring dating back to the 17th century is one of the features of the latest Potter & Potter Magic sale to be held on December 14 in Chicago.

A fine-looking copy of the 1931, US first of The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett sold right on the low estimate at $60,000 (£46,875) at Christie’s New York (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) to match a previous auction high.

The binding of a copy of 'Vocabularis rerum' of Wenceslaus Brack sold in a recent West Sussex sale was a 19th century one and now broken, but this was in its time a very popular and much reprinted work.

Though the splendid but incomplete copy of Jakob Christoph Trew’s 'Hortus nitidissims… floribus' previewed in ATG No 2018 got close to the high estimate in selling at £85,000 as part of the opening, natural history section of a recent London sale, a number of other top lots failed to find buyers.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Although Charles Dickens is often credited with creating the ‘modern’ Christmas, some of the recognition should go to John Leech.

A 1637 first edition of 'New English Canaan…' was one of the homegrown highlights of a sale held by Christie’s New York (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium).

Containing numerous diagrams, a manuscript manual on 18th century shipbuilding techniques and practices sold for £3600 in a recent sale.

Possibly dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, a Spanish text manuscript version of Andrea Alciato’s 1531 'Emblemata', the first and most frequently reprinted emblem book, sold for $9000 (£7030) at Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in New York.

Personal devotional prayer books, known as a Book of Hours, were popular among the wealthy and powerful in late medieval Europe. Illuminated with miniature paintings depicting the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary and saints, they were sometimes personalised for the patrons who commissioned them.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Book dealer John Lawson joined EM Lawson & Co, the firm that his father had started at Sutton Coldfield in 1921, when he was demobbed from national service in the RAF in 1952.