Books & Periodicals

The artist, cleric, schoolmaster and author William Gilpin (1724-1804) is best known as a champion of the Romantic idea of the picturesque.

Unpublished work by mathematician John Wallis who was also a major influence in code breaking sells at Dominic Winter

A single leaf from a Gutenberg Bible that sold for a higher than expected $65,000 (£50,980) in a Philadelphia sale this autumn.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Several decades on from the last of the five major auctions Sotheby’s held to disperse items from the remarkable collections of American historical documents and letters formed by Philip (1902-75) and Elsie Sang (1906-97), a further selection appeared at Sotheby’s New York (26/20/13.9%).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Edinburgh auction offered 1592 book from first European press dedicated to such a typeface.

Estimated at just $5000 or so but sold at $110,000 (£85,270) in an October 2-3 sale at Brunk Auctions (23% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina, was an extensive archive of documents and letters relating to the career of Captain James N Sever.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Two very different manuscript lots provided the high spots of a sale in Westport, Connecticut

Top lot in a golfing sale at PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) was a 1927 first of Down the Fairway: The Golf Life and Play of Robert T Jones, Jr.

Three of the lots noted here from a Chicago sale of books, manuscripts, pictures and prints sold at record sums – and the fourth brought a price that has only once been bettered.

An item of local interest to bidders at Bamfords in Derby was this 18th century account book for Radbourne Hall, the seat of the Chandos-Pole family.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

The term ‘works on paper’ encompasses a diverse range of media from artist’s prints to posters, ephemera and documents. Pictured here, along with an array of books, is a section of items available to buy from dealers or bid for at auction.

With only eight of the 178 lots offered left on the shelves at the day’s end and a top lot in the six-figure bracket, a Doyle (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) online auction was certainly a success.

Offered as part of a sale held in Bristol were two copies of 'The Merchants Avizo….', a work by a local man, John Browne.

Chaucer and Shakespeare, Darwin and Tolkien were among the big-name and more expensive lots sold as part of the Gerald and Barbara Weiner library at Hindman (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Chicago.