Books and Works on Paper

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

Inscriptions and annotations can make a massive difference to value

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

With crossover interest to several collecting disciplines, early manuscript recipe and remedy books continue to thrive at auction.

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

A watercolour of a dandelion attributed to Beatrix Potter estimated at £200-300 ended up selling at a hammer price of £2600.

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

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.