First Edition

A tiny Oxfam shop in Headington, Oxfordshire, was celebrating after a set of 12 books dropped off by an anonymous donor later sold at Bonhams for £13,000 (£16,640 with premium).

Helen Day is a language teacher, collector of Ladybird books and expert on the history of the books and the company behind them.

A recent Freeman’s Hindman (28/27% buyer’s premium) sale in Chicago included a first edition of John Locke’s foundational text on civil society and the nature of government 'Two Treatises of Government….'

Inscriptions and annotations can make a massive difference to value

To mark the new-look Harrogate Book Fair dealer Anthony Smithson of The Keel Row Bookshop in Whitley Bay will be offering for sale a 1948 first edition of the Hercule Poirot novel 'Taken At the Flood' signed by Agatha Christie.

Turned down by several publishers, Beatrix Potter shouldered the expense of privately printing The Tale of Peter Rabbit with Strangeways Printers in December 1901.

Forum Auctions has set a record for a copy of JRR Tolkien’s 'The Lord of the Rings'.

Highlights from the The Detective Fiction Collection of John Cooper offered at Forum

Copies of the Lord of the Rings trilogy just don’t get much better than the set shown here.

The inaugural sale at Rare Book Auctions (26.5% buyer’s premium) in Lichfield included this signed and inscribed first printing of Terry Pratchett’s 'The Colour of Magic'.