Books and Works on Paper

Two books from Herman Melville’s library, both volumes of classical poetry that were annotated throughout and in one instance signed, topped a recent New York sale.

Focusing on south-east Asia, a 90-lot map section in an Essex sale comprised the extraordinarily successful first portion of a collection of maps and charts assembled by Christopher Beresford-Jones.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

A 1547 translation into Arabic of Euclid’s Elementa Geometrica sold for £17,000 as part of an October 23 sale of Islamic and Near Eastern works on paper at Bloomsbury Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) on October 22,

Golf books do not bring as many really high prices as was once the case, but the most recent of the regular sales in this category held by a Californian saleroom did contain a couple of surprises.

First work in photographer’s classic coverage of China and its people makes £48,000.

The sale at Knights Sporting Auctions in Leicester on November 2-3 includes a number of items previously sold by Christie’s as duplicates from the library of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 2010.

The ABA Chelsea Rare Book Fair is one of two major London events held annually by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000 in a Forum Auctions sale of November 21 is a French indenture agreement of 1421 with a certain added English appeal.

Estimated at £250-350 in a November 12 motoring and cycling sale being held by Transport Collector Auctions in conjunction with Lawrences, at the latter’s Crewkerne rooms, is a 1956 first of Darell Berthon’s Racing History of the Bentley.

Copy No 74 of the 100 signed, first issue copies of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses' is estimated at $120,000-180,000 in November 5 sale being held by Hindman of Chicago.

Two early maps of colonial north America come for sale at Ramsay Cornish in Edinburgh on December 7. They were discovered at the Edinburgh home of the late Dr Ann Carswell, an American born in Washington and educated at Cornell and Harvard.

English Civil War material is of particular note in a broad-ranging Somerset auction

As expected, the copy of Great Expectations shown below proved the star turn when Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9%) offered the splendid Charles Dickens collection formed by London accountant Lawrence Drizen.

A sale devoted to Military and Aviation History at Dominic Winter in South Cerney on November 7 includes a rare invitation ticket c.1913 to witness the first man to ‘loop-the-loop’ in a live demonstration at Brooklands Automobile Racing Club.

One curiosity from a book and manuscript sale held by Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) on July 10, this kid glove or gauntlet represents the final challenge to trial by battle in English legal history.

Billed as a ‘luminescent’ copy of one of the finer of all published florilegia, a copy of Jakob Christoph Trew’s 'Hortus nitidissimus… floribus' is estimated at £70,000-90,000 at Sotheby’s on November 12.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Shown below is one of the 96 woodcuts produced by Michel Wohlgemuth and Wilhelm Playdenworff for the 1491 edition of Stephan Fridolin’s 'Der Schatzbehalter oder schrein der waren reichtümer des heils unnd ewyger seligkeit' issued by Anton Koberger of Nürnberg.

Collector turned dealer is writing an in-depth series on this often overlooked aspect of books.