Books and Works on Paper

Author’s works were well represented in London auction that included a £24,000 surprise

One of the more unusual lots that I have encountered in recent times is a piece of card bearing the only known example of Mahatma Gandhi’s fingerprints.

Highlights of Chiswick Auctions earlier this summer

Many of the lots in a June 16 sale of books, maps and pictures held by Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) in Carlisle came from the collections of the late Dr George Kozikowski of Skye, a microbiologist, archaeologist and antiquarian of Polish descent.

Collection now up for sale was owned by soldier killed in Korea but kept safe by his brother

Having secured his prize for a notably higher than estimate sum, the buyer of a ‘Fireball XLV’ artwork told Malcolm Phillips of Comic Book Auctions (19% buyer’s premium) that very few artworks by its creator, Mike Noble, ever come to auction.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

A recent sale in New York was led at $65,000 (£47,100) by a disbound but rare example of the work of Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-95).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Estimated at €50,000 but sold for €405,000 (£346,275) in a sale held in Turin by was a 1482 edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia.

New York sale maintains run of high JK Rowling prices while Dr Seuss surfaces also in UK

George Eliot’s much-admired novel 'Middlemarch…' made its first appearance in a parts issue in 1871.

Morris works and Sangorski & Sutcliffe bindings stand out in single-owner collection

In terms of improvement on expectations, the most successful lot at a Ketterer Kunst (25% buyer’s premium) sales earlier this year comprised early 19th century paper-cuts.

Two unpublished diaries sold in Sweden related to Salomon August Andrée’s ill-fated attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Armenian manuscript demolishes estimate to take six figures in London saleroom

A richly illuminated leaf from a late 15th century manuscript account of the life of St Catherine sold at a high-estimate £30,000 at Bloomsbury Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Published in 1862, one exceptional lot in a Californian sale that focused on food and drink was billed as “The Canonical Text in Bartending”.