Books & Periodicals

A handful of copies of Robert Morden’s 'Geography Rectified, or a Description of the World' have made a little more at auction than a 1680 copy offered in a Stacey’s (24% buyer’s premium) sale of September 10 – but all bar one of them were second or third editions of 1688 and 1693.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from October 30-November 9, 2018.

All rather slim – one in fact a single sheet broadside – the three items noted here were all part of a Bonhams New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of September 25 and, spanning some 80 years, all bear Boston imprints.

Rude Rowlandson print is among the highlights of Gloucestershire auction.

They may not have been the most photogenic lots in the catalogue of a recent London sale, but a couple of lots were highly attractive for their significance in the maths and measurements field.

Private Collections, an October 3 sale at Bonhams (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium), offered works of art from a number of sources and among lots from the estate of the late Victor, 3rd Viscount Churchill – a cousin of Winston – there were a few books.

The dust jacket is far from pristine, but this 1933 first of The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas is signed and inscribed by both its subject and her lifelong partner, the writer Gertrude Stein.

Eleven years after John Kennedy Toole committed suicide, fellow writer Walker Percy was the man who ensured that his only book, A Confederacy of Dunces, finally got into print.

It may seem hard to credit nowadays, but photographs of fairies at the bottom of the Cottingley (Yorkshire) garden of two young girls, produced in 1917 as a practical joke, were taken to be genuine by many people – most famously, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Brought into a West Sussex saleroom some months ago, a manuscript grimoire, or collection of magic spells, invocations and more practical advice on ailments and aspirations, offered quite a challenge to the cataloguer.

Investigation into wine storage is unusual success in computing library auction.

Catching the eye in a German auction was a fine example of the most beautiful of all piscatorial plate books.

Leading New Zealand firm Webb’s – established by Auckland gallery owner Peter Webb in 1976 – became part of Mossgreen in October 2014. Two businessmen and art collectors from the city, Ewen Mackenzie-Bowie and Bruce Qin, rescued the saleroom earlier this year following the collapse of the parent company and a regular calendar of sales is now in operation from new premises in Mount Eden.

The first book printed and published in Antarctica was 'Aurora Australis', a work produced during the 1908-09 Nimrod expedition led by Ernest Shackleton.

Types of the Indian Army… of 1897 is a photographically illustrated oblong folio work from which the mounted carbon print shown below, one of 60 in all, is taken.

Head in his hand and seated on a bucket for his 1941, first annual appearance, Oor Wullie, a favourite character from the Scottish Sunday Post, led the bidding in a September 9 comics sale.

“Conteyning divers Excellent & Approoved Remedies in Physique – and Chirurgery…”, an early 17th century manuscript of some 130 or so pages that seems to have been intended for publication, brought a much higher than expected bid in a recent London sale.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from October 9-20, 2018.

Science fiction is the theme for the 110-dealer BiblioMania in Paris’ 17th arrondissement, held at the Espace Champerret from Wednesday to Sunday, October 17-21.