Books & Periodicals

A live online October 28 sale held by Forum (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) attracted a much higher than expected bid for this small and rather browned poster promising that, for one day only, visitors to The ‘Stockton House’ could view not only the preserved head of the renowned bandit Joaquin, but ‘the hand of Three Fingered Jack!’

Edition of Shakespeare’s works from 1663 heads varied selection in Cambridge.

A single-lot sale on October 19 offered an illuminated Ashkenazic prayer book that realised a premium-inclusive $8,307,000 (£6,019,565).

A third selection of 16th and 17th century English books from Fox Pointe Manor was offered by Forum (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on October 21.

One of York’s oldest bookshops is closing next year.

One of around 30 known medieval English folding almanacs, and one of only a few in private hands, sold for £95,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Tennants.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Gary Munson collection delivers a string of rarities sold for record-breaking sums

The World Chess Championship currently taking place in Dubai began on November 26 in familiar style.

Single-owner collections offer magical selections days apart in two salerooms

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Painted with an image of an urn to the front cover of its vellucent binding and with a view of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire to the rear, the Book of Common Prayer & Book of Psalmes shown below was printed in 1774 by T Wright & W Gill for the University of Oxford.

An exceptional, expanded and specially cased example of Ippolito Rosellini’s 'I Monumenti dell Egitto e della Nubia' of 1832-34 topped the bidding in a Fonsie Mealy (20% buyer’s premium) sale of the library from Howth Castle.

Among the book lots offered as part of an October 7-8 sale at Duke’s (25% buyer’s premium) the earliest was a Burgundian ‘Hours of the Virgin’ manuscript.

Two very different lots shared the highest bid honours in a September 30 sale held in Norfolk. A manuscript recipe book dating from the late 17th/early 18th century onwards was, as such, accomplished in several different hands.

Buying online took off in the trade last year with one notable example being The Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA) which launched its monthly online back-to-back book fairs in April.

Library on offer at Forum auction in London was based on works collected by a man whose roles ranged from alchemist to diplomat

Running to just 20 or so words, a tiny signed card in which Abraham Lincoln instructs Edwin Stanton to meet with the African-American abolitionist and officer Martin Delany in Washington led the bidding at Doyle (26/21/15% buyer’s premium) on September 23.

I have just received ATG No 2516 wherein the old question of first edition and first impression is raised in the Letters section.