Auctions

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about,” Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray - a prescient observation that has proven remarkably true.

The public may have been surprised to discover that Barry Humphries (1934-2023), the creator of Dame Edna Everage, was a great bibliophile with a passion for rare books by the ‘decadent’ writers of the fin de siècle.

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….'

Stand-out lots from Shakespeare to Sendak, Marie-Antoinette to Mary Queen of Scots, Gill to Waugh and Turing to Buffalo Bill

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

Noonans’ Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria sale on April 9 included a rare group of medals awarded to Lancaster Bomber pilot, Warrant Officer, later Flight Lieutenant, Edward Sydney Ellis of 625 Squadron of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.

This Wedgwood creamware tea or punch pot commemorating the launch of a gun ship at Deptford in 1784 was among 29 lots from the collection of The Worshipful Company of Shipwrights sold by specialist Charles Miller.

The etching 'A View in America in 1778' is a satire on the progress of the American Revolution.

The British War Medal 1914-20 is not exactly uncommon. Issued in the First World War, about 6.5 million were struck in silver and 110,000 in bronze.

Four medals awarded to members of the Robertson family included one to a Battle of Trafalgar veteran.