Books and Works on Paper

Fragment found in an attic with receipt for £25 now sells for £39,000 hammer price

A letter from Robert Falcon Scott – aka Scott of the Antarctic – came up for sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) on April 11-14.

This rare playbill on silk printed in the Arctic in 1852 sold for £4400 at a recent sale at Keys (25% buyer’s premium) in Aylsham.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book sales

Oxfam discoveries from a pile of donations include Chinese religious rarity, Communist manifesto and Dickens

Paul Nash, looking back at the 1924-25 period when he taught design at the Royal College of Art, said: “I was fortunate in being there during an outbreak of talent and can remember at least eight men and women who have made names for themselves since then in a variety of different directions.”

Book was published by champion of Swiss Calvinism four years before he became a Protestant martyr

Two unusual books took top honours at a Neumeister (30/27/25% buyer’s premium) auction in Munich, both achieving multiples of the estimates.

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

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

One lucky bidder landed a top-of-the-line big game fishing rod made expressly for Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961).

Archive on offer in Missouri saleroom includes items relating to a landmark 1913 procession for women

The debut novel by F Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), This Side of Paradise, was a sensation on its release in March 1920.

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

Letter to Queen Elizabeth I written after Robert Dudley’s marriage lacks the earlier flirtatious tone

Before his death on St Helena, Napoleon Bonaparte said: “What nothing will erase, what will live forever, is my Civil Code.”

A copy of what is regarded as probably the rarest edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack came up at Knights Sporting Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) on March 21-23.

Underlining once again the desirability of football match programmes for games that were actually postponed or cancelled, an Arsenal example offered on March 3 hammered at £7500 via thesaleroom.com.

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

The second tranche of material from a German autograph collector, the late Franz-Peter Bach, was offered by Anderson & Garland (30% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Newcastle upon Tyne on March 5.