Books and Works on Paper

Now handsomely bound in full red morocco and contained in slipcases, a set of first-edition copies of what are collectively known as ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ of CS Lewis led a Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) sale of October 7 with a bid of £3400 from a buyer on thesaleroom.com.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Running to just 20 or so words, a tiny signed card in which Abraham Lincoln instructs Edwin Stanton to meet with the African-American abolitionist and officer Martin Delany in Washington led the bidding at Doyle (26/21/15% buyer’s premium) on September 23.

Distinguished naval officer admired by Nelson was also a talented watercolour painter

Sold for £16,000 in a September 23 sale was an album of 41 watercolour studies of birds produced by William Weston Young (1776-1847).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Relating to perhaps the most famous of all compositions for the lute, a version of John Dowland’s 'Lachrimae pavane' proved a major attraction in a music sale held by Sotheby’s (26/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

A great many of the lots that brought prices in the £1000-10,000 range in a recent Cheltenham sale were multiples of varying size – some running to as many as a hundred volumes – but noted here are a couple with that same Spetchley Park provenance that can be more precisely defined.

Top lot in a sale held by Mallams (25% buyer’s premium) of Oxford was a 1719-20, first edition set of 'The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe…', 'The Farther Adventures…' and 'The Serious Reflections…' in later but very smart bindings of red morocco gilt by Francis Bedford of London.

Spider-Man became the most expensive comic book superhero in a Heritage (20% buyer’s premium) sale this autumn.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Copies of the 1900, first edition of Winston Churchill’s novel Savrola have made as much as £3500 at auction.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Letter from cryptology expert describes his analysis of a Monte Carlo betting system

A couple of surprise results emerged in a sale held in Armadale, Victoria, by Australian Book Auctions (19.8% buyer’s premium).

Stand-out cartographic lots sold in Gloucestershire include a string of early rarities

Though the matching bindings were much later ones commissioned by London dealer Sotherans, a set of Charles Dickens’ five famous Christmas Books offered on August 28 by Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) of Chicago were all firsts of 1843-48, and in some instances first issue or first state copies.

Complete year runs of Beano from the years 1958 and ‘59 that sold at £3050 and £3550 topped the bidding in a Comic Book Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) timed online sale that ended on August 29.

Illustrated from drawings made by William Gibb, printed under his supervision and signed by the author, George Petree, one of 16 special copies of Dundee, its Quaint and Historic Old Buildings that were printed on Japanese paper in 1895 made a far higher than expected result at auction.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.