Books and Works on Paper

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”.

Bid to £1500 in a Norfolk sale was a 1930 first of The Savoy Cocktail Book.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Edition marked the first time a person of African descent had work published

Illustrated with 76 hand-coloured flags, a 1794 Signal Book for the Ships of the Line sold to an online bidder for £11,000 in a Shrewsbury sale.

An intriguing condition report that mentions ‘water and smoke damage’ gives a clue as to what happened to this battered copy of the Encyclopedia Britannia sold in a Charles Miller (24% buyer’s premium) auction.

A Texas sale generated six-figure sums for two very different lots.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Set of urban views takes £220,000 in a sale where ornithological works also impressed

Toucans were the avian best-sellers in a recent sale held by Freeman’s (26/20/12% buyer’s premium) of Philadelphia.

A group of bird books were a feature of a sale held by Thomson Roddick (18% buyer’s premium) in Carlisle.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Among the earlier printed books, Bibles played their part in a wide-ranging auction held by Forum Auctions (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium), and none so financially well as a fine, clean example of Robert Estienne’s Greek text Bible of 1550.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

Gloucestershire sale offered ‘finest library of early numismatic books still in private hands’.

Valued at £2000-4000 in an Entertainment, Memorabilia & Movie Props sale held by Ewbank’s (25% buyer’s premium) of Send on May 27 was an uncorrected 1997 proof copy of a book that was soon to make publishing, cinematic and marketing history: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Books and periodicals from the John Warburton motoring library featured in a May 25 sale presented by Transport Collector Auctions & Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) in the latter’s Crewkerne salerooms.