Books and Works on Paper

These days you have to pay for the privilege of spending the night at the former House of Correction in Folkingham, Lincolnshire.

‘Substantial’ was certainly the description to use when it came to an archive related to the Barrington family of Beckett Hall, Shrivenham, Oxfordshire.

Freddie Mercury mania in 2023 was not confined to Sotheby’s in London.

Printing of abolitionist Douglass’ famous speech on a ‘rich inheritance’ not shared takes nearly $70,000

Bidder in Massachusetts goes to £24,000 to secure an account of a 1764 trip along the eastern seaboard

The handstitched booklet titled Balls & My Partners, 1844-1845 was written by Adelaide Horatia Elizabeth Seymour (1825-77) as she enjoyed the life of a debutante.

Letters and books marking the deep relationship between author EM Forster and policeman Bob Buckingham and his family sold for £9000.

Fleetwood Mac are famous for the huge-selling Rumours album that propelled the band to superstardom but the original line-up and sound were very different.

The music memorabilia sale at Omega (28.8% buyer’s premium inc VAT) on November 29 included the handwritten lyrics to two tracks on David Bowie’s 1972 classic The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions taking place via thesaleroom.com

Newly discovered papers show how renowned mathematician and his collaborator worked hand in hand

Letter from German mathematician to English scholar takes £14,000 in Edinburgh saleroom

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions taking place via thesaleroom.com

Held by the same private New England family since 1792, a copy of 'A Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean' complete with its map came for sale at Bonhams Skinner (28/26/20% buyer’s premium).

Few people can profess to know more about the 1910-12 Japanese Antarctic Expedition than the Arizona book dealer Chet Ross.

A group of letters sent from a clipper ship captain in Shanghai during the Second Opium War (1856-60) to his sons in the Charlestown area of Boston resounded with bidders at Merrill’s Auctioneers (21% buyer’s premium) in Williston, Vermont on November 3.

Pictured here are two fine 19th century presentation copies that, unexpectedly, topped sales in South Cerney and Cambridge in October.

Among the many highlights of the Alan and Simone Hartman collection at Bonhams New York is a copy of the monumental catalogue of the famed Bishop collection of Chinese jades. The deluxe volume, once owned by the last tsar of Russia, carries expectations of $100,000-150,000 as part of the 114-lot dispersal on December 14.

Top-selling lot in Halls’ (24% buyer’s premium) books and manuscripts sale on November 15 was a collection of 14 letters written by the Anglo-Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) between 1818-31.