Books & Periodicals

A substantial collection of works by just one multi-talented and enormously influential figure was presented as part of series of sales held by Adam Partridge (20% buyer’s premium) in its Macclesfield rooms.

Sold online to a collector in France in a sale held by McTear’s (24% buyer’s premium) of Glasgow was a scarce copy in original boards of 'On Naval Timber and Arboriculture'.

A two-volume manuscript used to determine swan ownership in East Anglia from the 16th to the 19th century was sold by Sworders for a remarkable £54,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium).

A volume containing first editions of two important geological works by Dr Gideon Mantell sold for £2000 in West Sussex.

Visitor numbers are likely to be swelled above the usual 1000 a day at the annual 'York National Book Fair' held at the city’s racecourse on Friday and Saturday, September 9-10.

Copy of his first book was a later gift from Sir John Heygate to Tarka the Otter author

Making its third appearance at auction in almost 60 years, the 34pp autograph manuscript of Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter’, a tale from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes collection of his stories that first appeared in The Strand magazine in 1893, has sold for $280,000 (£236,090) in Dallas.

A 1914 edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland proved one of the principal attractions in a July 26 sale held by Gorringe’s (23% buyer’s premium).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

The highlight of the latest maritime sale at Adam Partridge in Liverpool was a collection of 40 menus for dinners held between 1899-1919 in honour of various British and foreign dignitaries.

The headline borrows the title given to an online Christie’s (26/20% buyer’s premium) sale – one that presented more than 80 modern first editions.

In the years 1881-82, the Rev William Essery was for many months a passenger on the SS Ceylon.

Inscribed to her husband and fellow poet, Ted Hughes, the dedication copy of the first and only collection of Sylvia Plath’s poems to be published in her lifetime, 'The Colossus and other Poems', sold for a record £75,000 in a Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) sale.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Priced on the cover at nine pence, it was a British copy of a Marvel comic of 1983, one that saw the first appearance of the mighty Thor, that led the bidding at £6300 in the comics section of a July 21-22 sale held by Fieldings (24% buyer’s premium).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Firsts: London’s Rare Books Fair has added an impressive 49 dealers to the roster for its 65th edition thanks to an influx of international traders.

James Eaton runs Alastor Rare Books specialising in British and continental antiquarian books, manuscripts, archives, and ephemera, with an emphasis on Italian and French imprints.

“Dear Tom, I should like to write a story called ‘Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street’ (the title, I suppose, could be changed if necessary). I should certainly expect to let you have it by Oct. 1st.”

Bearing as its title ‘Certain Directions for the Sending of Men and Comodities, & Cattle to Virginia’, a 10pp secretarial manuscript thought to date from c.1609 proved a major attraction in a July 14 sale held by Forum (15/20/12.5% buyer’s premium).