Manuscript

Members of a crime gang believed to be behind the 2017 theft of 260 rare books in west London have been arrested in a joint operation with authorities across Romania, the UK and Italy.

The notebooks of Charles Darwin’s mentor, the Scottish geologist Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875), have been temporarily blocked from export in the hope of finding a UK buyer.

Six-hundred rare books, manuscripts and prints which were lost or stolen from a German library during the Second World War have been returned after they were consigned to Sotheby’s.

A rediscovered melody by Sir Edward Elgar has been bought by a private buyer at auction in Lichfield after it was found in an autograph book.

She wrote two of the 20th century’s great masterpieces of fiction. Now on the 30th anniversary of her death, letters and photos relating to ‘Rebecca’ and ‘Jamaica Inn’ author Daphne du Maurier will go under the hammer at an Ely auction house.

A rediscovered melody by Sir Edward Elgar will be offered at auction in Lichfield after it was found in an autograph book.

On March 15, 1493, Christopher Columbus disembarked from his ship in Palos and headed straight to Barcelona where he recounted tales of his discovery of America to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.

A group of 66 letters from the collection of an important patron of Pre-Raphaelite artists raised a £25,000 total at Shropshire auctioneers Trevanion & Dean.

An extraordinarily rare artwork by pre-eminent Chinese scholar Su Shi (1037-1101) will be offered at Christie’s Hong Kong later this year. The auctioneers are hoping that it could make a record for any Asian work of art.

A rare Islamic manuscript consigned to a Bonhams auction in London has been returned to Egypt in the latest example of Egyptian authorities succeeding in retrieving artefacts from abroad.

Canterbury Cathedral has bought a rare illuminated bible once owned by one of the last members of Britain’s monastic community before the Reformation.

The original drawing of the map of Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood by EH Shepard has been sold for a hammer price of £350,000, setting an auction record for a book illustration.

The Elgar Foundation is calling for the return of a draft score of the Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar shown on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.