North America

The English-born political theorist Thomas Paine lived through the most turbulent of times.

More than $120m of Asian art was sold at auction during last week’s New York Asia Week.

None of the works by the Elizabethan poet, courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86) were actually published in his lifetime.

A signed and dated 1839 first (second issue) of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby was one of many lots in a Heritage (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of March 7 that came from the library of James Seacrest, a Nebraska publisher and philanthropist, that were sold to benefit charities.

'Busman’s Honeymoon: A Love Story with Detective Interruptions' was the 11th and last of the Dorothy L Sayers books featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.

A selection of stand-out lots from sales in Paris, Pennsylvania and Zurich.

A previously unknown copy of the Golden Age comic that heralds the arrival of Batman sold for a premium-inclusive $569,000 (£410,000) in York, Pennsylvania last week.

A number of books on plastic surgery featured in a recent Californian sale including an 1833, first English edition of Johann F Dieffenbach’s Surgical Observations on the Restoration of the Nose.

New York gallery show coincides with and adds to the Asian art week of events...

‘Rock Star’ of physics and Nobel Prize winner, Richard Feynman, habitually refused to sign copies of his books, telling his editor: “I’m not going to go on TV and I’m not going to sign any books!”

Sold for $28,000 (£20,820) by Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 5 was this original drawing by Ralph Steadman for the 1971 first appearance of Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

With options to sell at regular intervals in North America, Europe, Hong Kong or China, the major auction houses and their vendors take a global view of the Asian art market.

As well as the ‘big three’, a clutch of other US salerooms will be holding specialist Asian art sales in mid March.

Mid March in Manhattan is when the art market turns its cultural and commercial face east. This is the first of two New York Asian auction series (the other is in September), but what distinguishes the spring event, dubbed Asia Week New York (AWNY), is the input of dealer exhibitions.