Books and Works on Paper

British and Irish book auctions: April 16-27, 2019

First published in 1936, The Negro Travellers’ Green Book was a once indispensable guide for African-Americans in the age of segregation.

Given that the sale ran to a huge 1139 lots, the April 2-4 dispersal in Harrogate of the first part of the library of Robert James Hayhurst may be considered to have done well in achieving a selling rate of 85% at that gathering of Elzevir and other early printed works.

A bound volume of early works on a famous automaton chess player, featured in ATG No 2387, was not the only lot in a recent Cumbrian sale to produce a handsome return.

Running to 50 volumes in all, the official report on 'The Scientific Results of the Voyage of HMS Challenger during the years 1873-76 in Atlantic, Pacific and Antarctic seas' took some 23 years to complete.

Devoted wholly to modern firsts, a recent online sale presented the first selection of a single-owner collection – the second portion of which will be sold later in the year.

An incomplete set of that remarkable ornithological work, William Lewin’s 'Birds of Great Britain', was the most expensive lot in a recent Yorkshire sale.

The early weeks of March proved a particularly busy time for one saleroom in the US. As well as sales featuring the medical and scientific collections of W Bruce Fye, reported in ATG No 2386, Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9%) also sold the seventh instalment of Eric Caren’s How History Unfolds on Paper collection online, and in itsMadison Avenue rooms offered Extraordinary Books & Manuscripts.

Two first-edition versions of George Orwell’s 'The Road to Wigan Pier', the first part of which is an investigation into the working-class living conditions in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the industrial north, were published in 1937.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from April 16-27, 2019.

A most unusual book binding brought a bid of £5500 in a recent Bonhams sale.

Collection from family of Nobel Prize winner generates many surprising auction results.

ATG’s calendar of book auctions taking place in the UK and Ireland from April 9-18, 2019.

A ‘turn-up’ religious text was one of the earlier, rarer and more expensive items in a Somerset sale.

Signed to the front cover by all four members of the group, a 1963 ‘Star Special’ (No 12) issue of the fan magazine Meet the Beatles sold for £4200 at Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) on March 6. It also bore the name of a former owner, one RC Zebedee of Bournemouth.

Bernard Middleton, MBE (1986), was a self-employed book restorer and designer bookbinder from 1953-2016.

Medical and scientific library includes landmark Vesalius study on human anatomy.

Our listing of British and Irish book auctions taking place from March 26-April 6, 2019.

A table game published by John Wallis called The Mirror of Truth was one of two notable juvenilia lots in the opening children’s and illustrated books section of a March 6 Devon sale.

The first of four sales scheduled by Morphets of Harrogate for the dispersal of a single private library will take place on April 3-4.