Latest News Articles by Ian McKay
All you need to know to make a ‘Harty Choke Pie’
09 April 2018Early recipe books can make for absorbing and, to modern readers, occasionally comic or puzzling reading, as demonstrated in three examples from recent sales.
Let there be Irish lights
09 April 2018Used to dramatic effect on the cover of the catalogue for a Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale, shown below is one of a collection of around 125 monochrome watercolour drawings of Irish lighthouses and the Irish coastline produced c.1860-67.
Oh my cod… a giant specimen in print
09 April 2018The work of the MacMahon photographic studio of Aberdeen, this extraordinary carbon print was made in 1908 and depicts ‘Giant Cod Specimens…’ bought and cured by A&M Smith, a local fish processing and curing business.
Stormy story of Plath and Hughes
09 April 2018A remarkable Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes collection which was consigned to auction by their daughter, Frieda Hughes, ran to some 100 lots and formed a separately catalogued part of a recent Knightsbridge sale.
Einstein and Beethoven in tune with bidding tastes
02 April 2018Successful lots in a Bonhams New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) March 9 auction included, at $85,000 (£61,595), a letter that Einstein wrote to his son, Hans Albert, on the very day in September 1945 that the Second World War officially ended.
Jeffrey Archer political cartoon collection sells at auction
02 April 2018In a career of remarkable highs and lows, incorporating high political office, financial scandal and near bankruptcy, enormous success as a novelist and imprisonment for perjury during a libel case that he had won years earlier, Jeffrey Archer has himself been the subject of many a caricature and cartoon.
Fancy lot turns out nice again
02 April 2018At some point in its life, an early photographically illustrated work on the art of wood turning offered in a recent Exeter sale had been converted for use as a postcard album, but it still sold for a four-times estimate £4300.
British and Irish book auctions: March 26-April 5, 2018
26 March 2018ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 26-April 5, 2018.
Sidney works gain life after death
26 March 2018None of the works by the Elizabethan poet, courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86) were actually published in his lifetime.
Busman on a honeymoon
26 March 2018'Busman’s Honeymoon: A Love Story with Detective Interruptions' was the 11th and last of the Dorothy L Sayers books featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.
Aldine books fly high at auction
26 March 2018Aldine press books of the early 16th century, mostly it seems in a good but much later full morocco or calf bindings, produced a number of the higher bids in a recent Yorkshire sale.
Seacrest library generates more sale gems
26 March 2018A signed and dated 1839 first (second issue) of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby was one of many lots in a Heritage (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of March 7 that came from the library of James Seacrest, a Nebraska publisher and philanthropist, that were sold to benefit charities.
Map lots go to plan at auction
26 March 2018Cartographic rarities showed the way to strong results at the Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) saleroom.
British and Irish book auctions: March 20-29, 2018
19 March 2018ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 20-29, 2018.
Marvellous moments in March
19 March 2018The first week of March ended with a flurry of sales in both the UK and the US. Together they brought a number of exceptional results.
Rudiments of reading and other tales of childhood
19 March 2018Early children’s books, many from a single collection formed by the late Mary Joy Sanger, provided a principal attraction in a February 27 sale held in Penzance by David Lay (18% buyer’s premium).
Comic book news flashes
19 March 2018A previously unknown copy of the Golden Age comic that heralds the arrival of Batman sold for a premium-inclusive $569,000 (£410,000) in York, Pennsylvania last week.
Bond first – second time around
19 March 2018An 80-lot James Bond collection offeredin a recent Lincolnshire sale had been formed over a 40-year period.
Plastic surgery fits the bill at auction
12 March 2018A number of books on plastic surgery featured in a recent Californian sale including an 1833, first English edition of Johann F Dieffenbach’s Surgical Observations on the Restoration of the Nose.
Vatican buildings book sells in Rome
12 March 2018One highlight of a February 20 sale held in Italy was the handsome, armorially bound 1694 first edition of the Swiss born architect Carlo Fontana’s Templum Vaticanum.