Books & Periodicals

A group of illuminated manuscripts valued at £100,000 that were stolen from a London auction house in 2016 have been recovered in Italy.

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABA) has joined forces with Shakespeare’s Globe as its charity partner for the next edition of its June flagship fair.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from February 12-21, 2019.

Close to 300 lots in a recent London sale that focused mainly on private press and other illustrated books came from the library of the late Bruce Beatty, a banker whose artistic and bibliographic collecting preferences included fin de siècle literature.

Copies of Giacomo Franco’s Habiti d’huomeni et donne venetiane…, a collection of detailed views and scenes of Venetian life and costume published c.1610, vary in the numbers of plates they present.

On January 10, Tennants (20% buyer’s premium) sold a single-owner collection of polar and other travel books – reported in ATG No 2376 – but the Christmas/New Year period was a busy one overall for the North Yorkshire auction house.

Dated London 1679 in a Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) sale of January 10 was a job lot that included four unframed Hogarth prints, a framed royal proclamation of 1800 relating to the production of grain and a “1679 broadside, printed for T.N. that is headed A List of the Parliament of Women”.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from February 5-14, 2019.

A “legendarily rare first edition” of the first book to describe the workings of a stock exchange sold at a high-estimate $300,000 (£238,095) in the days leading up to Christmas.

Lots relating to explorer Matthew Flinders are particularly topical given that his grave has just been re-discovered in a graveyard under Euston station as part of works for the HS2 high-speed railway line.

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association has signed up US online marketplace Biblio as chief sponsor of its flagship annual fair on June 7-9.

Eight examples of beautiful bindings feature in a selection from recent auctions held across the world.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from January 29-February 9, 2019.

A recently released new film about the relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, one in which certain historical liberties appear to have been taken concerning the generally accepted belief that the two women never actually met, brings a topicality to a letter offered last month in London.

Illustrated below is the title page of a copy of the very first book by CS Lewis to be printed, Spirits in Bondage of 1919.

A work once said to have “…set the course for the modern world by its effective destruction of the anthropocentric view of the universe” made a rare auction appearance.