Books and Works on Paper

In the bicentenery year of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Gothic genre continues to capture the popular imagination, writes Kate Quill.

Gothic literature is perhaps most alive in the public imagination today through cinema, with horror films inspired by the classic Gothic stories going back to the earliest days of the medium.

A list of the events taking place at this year's 'Rare Books London'.

A list of upcoming book fairs in the UK and overseas.

It’s a big year for London’s leading light in the international rare books calendar, writes Kate Quill. This month’s 'The ABA Rare Book Fair London' on May 24-26 – the flagship of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABA) – is the 61st but the first year at Battersea Evolution, in south-west London.

The photobook genre is almost as old as photography itself and can be collected at all price points, as Bonhams’ Matthew Haley reports.

How do aspiring dealers acquire the skills and expertise needed to enter the rare books or works on paper trade?

As we approach the second anniversary of our inaugural 2016 auction, we are again delighted to be the sponsors of Antique Trade Gazette’s ‘Books, Maps & Prints’ supplement.

The 'California International Antiquarian Book Fair' and the 'New York International Antiquarian Book Fair' give dealers the chance to access the US east coast and west coast markets within the first few months of the year.

Night after night in the summer of 1916, the artist and bookbinder Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson (1840-1922) visited the Thames near Hammersmith Bridge under cover of darkness, each time laden down with a package wrapped in brown paper and string.

In a journey starting with the Great Fire and taking in the 1980s, dealer Tim Bryars explores the collecting market for London maps

Kelmscott’s finest achievement is probably its edition of 'The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer'. It is described in Printing and the Mind of Man as “perfect… both in design and in the quality of the printing”.

ATG's pick of books and works on paper recently sold at auction...

A volume containing Richard Hooker’s sixth and eighth books dealing with The Lawes of Ecclesiastical Policy… is a 1651 re-issue of an edition first published three years earlier. The principal attraction, however, was the armorial binding.

Published in 1895, Wright & Dixon’s Guide to American Golf… was one of the very first books on the game to appear in that country. A copy sold on April 12 in San Francisco for $42,500 (£29,930) was billed as “perhaps the only copy extant”.

Printed for circulation only among members of the imperial family and those foreign dignitaries who had participated in the celebrations, an album recording the 1883 coronation in Moscow of Tsar Alexander III and the Empress Marie Feodorovna sold for $30,000 (£21,125) in a US sale.

Bound in recent times as six volumes in elaborately gilt crushed scarlet morocco, a 1614-17 Prague first of a major commentary on the Mishnah by Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Heller (1579-1654), was a highlight of a recent New York sale of Judaica.

First such pocket atlas published in England leads a look at highly diverse auction selection

Brought into a free valuation day held at Bishop’s Cleve, near Cheltenham, a copy of Eric Ravilious’ High Street sold on March 27 at what would appear to be a record sum in a Derbyshire sale.

Sold for $300,000 (£214,185) apiece in a recent New York sale were three very well-known works from the worlds of cartography and natural history.