Books & Periodicals

Tintin was a major player in a sale of Comic Strip art staged in Belgium.

A very early railway guide, still in the original decorative boards, was a rare and unusual lot in a recent held by Mullock’s (20% buyer’s premium).

Sold at $60,000 (£46,295) in a recent New York sale was a broadside, Noticia Estraordinaria, printed in Mexico City in 1836, that brought news of the fall of the Alamo in March of that year.

Key to a price tag of £95,000 for a slightly bumped first impression copy of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' offered in a recent Bonhams sale lay in an inscription.

Comprising essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, all of which were published under the same pen name, ‘Publius’, The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution… is a key American contribution to political theory.

British and Irish book auctions, March 31-April 11, 2020.

An album of 35 photographs relating to the Alaskan ‘Gold Rush’ of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries sold for £1900 rather than the estimate of £50-70 in a recent North Yorkshire sale.

First editions of all of Jane Austen’s major works featured in a sale last month held by Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Rare works in South Cerney sale document the formative years of the Bank of England

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Containing some 600 hand-coloured engraved plates, a set of Sowerby and De Carle’s 'The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain…' of 1812-29 was just another of the many attraction in a sale last month held by Lyon & Turnbull.

Susanne Schulz-Falster deals in rare books from Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

Offered very early on in the books section of the Travel & Exploration sale at Bonhams (27.5/25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium), a 24-lot collection relating to George Anson amassed by the late Colin Paul, a descendant of the admiral, attracted considerable interest.

A copy of Sylvia Plath’s 'The Bell Jar' in a well-preserved dust jacket sold for £3000 in a recent Surrey auction may have set a record for any uninscribed or association copy.

A copy of JRR Tolkien’s 'The Hobbit' offered in a recent Surrey sale was a first-impression one of 1937, but essentially defined by its truly sad and defective condition.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from March 11-31, 2020.

Shown below is a plate from A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pyrates… sold at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) on February 19

Said to date from the 12th-14th century, an incomplete and dampstained Middle Eastern medical manuscript sold for £70,000 at Bellmans (22% buyer’s premium) on February 22.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.