Books and Works on Paper

Top-selling lot in Halls’ (24% buyer’s premium) books and manuscripts sale on November 15 was a collection of 14 letters written by the Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) between 1818-31.

Among the many highlights of the Alan and Simone Hartman collection at Bonhams New York is a copy of the monumental catalogue of the famed Bishop collection of Chinese jades. The deluxe volume, once owned by the last tsar of Russia, carries expectations of $100,000-150,000 as part of the 114-lot dispersal on December 14.

The Christmas Rare Books & Collectors sale at Irish auction house Fonsie Mealy on December 12-13 includes No33 of only 150 copies in a limited special edition of Bog Poems by Seamus Heaney illustrated by Barrie Cooke (London, Rainbow Press, 1975).

Pictured here are two fine 19th century presentation copies that, unexpectedly, topped sales in South Cerney and Cambridge in October.

A group of letters sent from a clipper ship captain in Shanghai during the Second Opium War (1856-60) to his sons in the Charlestown area of Boston resounded with bidders at Merrill’s Auctioneers (21% buyer’s premium) in Williston, Vermont on November 3.

Scrap of paper came as result of half a manuscript book being chewed into ‘confetti’ by Steinbeck’s dog

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

Dispersal of renowned collection launches with the first auctions including Aldine ‘crown jewels’

Wide-ranging items from Christopher Foyle of bookshop fame generate a white-glove sale in Gloucestershire

The Antiquarian Book auction at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood includes a travel album titled The Ramblings and Adventures of an Indian Officer.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

A pair of clipped tickets to the production of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, sold for $210,000 (£173,500) at RR Auction (25% buyer’s premium) in Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 23. It was the night of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

A first edition, first impression presentation of WB Yeats’ first book, Mosada (1886), was among the standout sales at the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair.

A photograph by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-98) - aka Lewis Carroll - was among the highlights of Hindman’s (26/20/15% buyer’s premium) October 19 sale of Photographs from the Joe Baio Collection.

The October 18-19 sale at Everard Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Savannah, Georgia, featured manuscripts, photos and ephemera focused on European royalty.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

German artists take many of the top spots as another colourful selection comes to the saleroom

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions available via thesaleroom.com

A collection of correspondence penned by leading figures of the 20th century to an Oxford academic raised more than £20,000 for charity at Chiswick Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) on October 10.