Book

In a private collection since it was last sold in 1991, one of only two known autograph manuscripts by author and journalist Albert Camus of his masterpiece L’Etranger was sold by Tajan (23/20/12% buyer’s premium) in Paris on June 5.

Most Tudor and Stuart embroidered bindings that have survived from the 16th and 17th century cover Bibles, prayerbooks, and other devotional texts.

Not only is this 1960 first edition of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' inscribed by Harper Lee to her friend Harold Caufield, but it was sold with a Christmas card from the author penned with a lengthy message.

An 18th century folio bible in mosaic binding was among the notable sales at the recent Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair.

Seventeenth century guide to growing vines in England was published just before the Great Fire of London

Victorian mountaineering book annotated by the author climbs to 20 times the top estimate

A book elaborately illustrated with needle-work samples and commemorating Queen Victoria’s first trip to Ireland as monarch was one of the standout sales as 'Firsts London’s Rare Book Fair' opened.

Published between 1750-73, Plantae selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortis curiosorum (‘A selection of plants from natural specimens nurtured in London’s curious gardens’) is considered the most important botanical work ever printed in Germany.

Owen Simmons was a bit of a bread fan, it is fair to say. A lecturer at the National Bakery School in London, he produced the lavish book shown here.

The Science, Medicine & Early Technology auction at Flints (25% buyer’s premium) in Thatcham, Berkshire on May 1 was led by a complete seven-volume set of The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain by James Sowerby (1757-1822).

Cryptoryptomentyces et Cryptographiae has been described as ‘arguably the most complete tome on esoteric cryptography ever published’, an esoteric claim to fame in itself.

This miniature 17th century psalter in a contemporary pierced and engraved openwork silver binding is priced at £15,000 by Bernard Quaritch at Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair.

Remarkably, although a very successful and popular artist, no accounts of the work of the Georgian caricaturist James Gillray (1756-1815) were published in England during his lifetime.

First editions are not always the be-all and end-all for collecting

A selection of stand-out lots coming up at a variety of auctions

ATG meets Jeffrey Johnson, whose collection of classic ‘Whodunnits’ was recently on public display at the Grolier Club in New York