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The Art of the Book: From Medieval Manuscript to Graphic Novel edited by James Bettley, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 1851773339. £30 hb.

Hiroshige Fan Prints by Rupert Faulkner, published by V&A Publications. ISBN 01851773320. £30 hb.

Miller’s Collecting Science & Technology, by Lindsay Stirling, consultant George Glastris. ISBN 1840000791. £19.99 hb.

The long debate over droit de suite, the artists resale levy, is over after the European Union finally ratified the measure in Brussels last week.

A previously unknown and early draft of one of the key closing chapters of James Joyce’s Ulysses, the Eumaeus episode, was offered at Sotheby’s on July 10, and it was one of two committed private buyers who took the lot to £780,000, just short of the low estimate.

THERE WAS no competing with Harry Potter in the Sotheby’s sale of July 10, and bidding rose to £75,000 for Thomas Taylor’s original illustration for the the book that launched those wizard tales in 1997, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but Beatrix Potter did her bit too, as did Edmund Dulac, Kay Nielsen, W. Heath Robinson, E.H. Shepard, Lawson Wood, Ronald Searle, Dr Seuss and others.

IT is rare for childhood toys to emerge from years of love and affection unscathed by the ravages of time but a Kidderminster vendor was rewarded for the care taken with the 1960s battery operated robot, pictured, which came under the hammer at the Chester rooms of Halls (15 per cent buyer’s premium) on June 27.