Books & Periodicals

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper sales

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.

Stephen Switzer (1682-1745), gardener, author, landscape designer and seedsman, was apprenticed in 1699 to George London, the senior partner of Brompton Park Nurseries.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper auctions

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

Further to Richard Fattorini’s article on second and later editions in ATG No 2643 (‘Worth having second thoughts’), first appearances are also of interest.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper auctions

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.

Manuscript ‘sold in 1776’ at forerunner of Sotheby’s emerges in New York sale

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.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish books and works on paper auctions

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.