Book

The second published work of the ‘flower book lady’ has no other auction appearance

A final selection of works from the London summer sale of books from the Fox Pointe Manor library* includes a gruesome account of London’s ‘Great Plague’.

How very different London’s Euston station looks in this coloured aquatint from a copy of Thomas Talbot Bury’s 'Six Coloured Views on the London and Birmingham Railway'.

Very different works by Daniel Defoe featured in an online summer sale in London: one famous, the other far removed in its subject matter and probably little known.

It was as recently as June 13 that a presentation copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species made a record $400,000 (£316,353) at Bonhams New York – as reported in ATG No 2398. However, barely a month had passed before another 1859 first attracted a substantial six-figure bid in London.

A first edition of the most famous work in angling literature will be offered at auction in North Yorkshire.

Vivid and lifelike, the lithograph of an Ariel Toucan shown below first appeared in a monograph by British naturalist John Gould (1804-81), 'The Bird Man'. Despite being in the hand of his wife Elizabeth (1804-41), this, like most of the illustrations in John’s publications, was long considered to be essentially his work.

A rare copy of the earliest-known depiction of a book auction emerged for sale in Gloucestershire at the end of last month.

Two men will appear in court in connection with the 2017 theft of rare books from a west London warehouse.

A Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of May 30 ran to well over 540 lots in all, but it was very early in proceedings that a much, much higher than predicted bid of £26,000 was made on an 1853, presentation first of 'Palm Trees of the Amazon and their uses.

Early printed books, among them a Bible of 1476, were a notable feature of a recent West Sussex sale.

Sporting a torn and defective but rarely seen dust jacket, a 1911, first American printing of Gaston Leroux’s 'The Phantom of the Opera' sold for $10,000 (£7750) in a recent New York sale.

After more than two centuries of collecting history, the market is once again changing how it evaluates – and values – rare books by women. Bonhams’ head of books Matthew Haley reports...

Old cookery books are more than simply receptacles of food history. They speak of technological change, the availability and discovery of ingredients that came with the expansion of the known world and how the social standing of the cook or chef changed over time. They are also very much in collecting vogue.

A trio of exhibitors at London’s rare book fair 'Firsts' ponder the market, their motivations – plus flooded shops and heavy metal.

A selection of highlights appearing at upcoming auctions.

Forthcoming buying opportunities in the UK and around the world.