Books and Works on Paper

A rare complete copy of a famous Arabic medical text sold for £30,000 in a sale of manuscripts and other works on paper from the Islamic and Near Eastern worlds.

Quaintly titled book about Great Yarmouth was one of the varied attractions in Cambridge auction.

Sixteenth century book-maker’s creativity makes maths and astronomy more accessible

Four lots between them raised $1.5m including premiums to rack up more than half the total at an online sale in New York.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Letter informs George Washington of his election to the presidency.

Our regular listing of British and Irish book auctions.

Bid to a double-estimate and record $24,000 (£18,460) at Freeman’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of Philadelphia on October 14 was a complete and well-preserved example of publisher John Bell’s great Poets of Great Britain… collection.

Bid online to a record £3200 in a Norfolk auction was one of 375 copies of a 1924 Nonesuch Press work comprising the first chapter of Genesis…, as illustrated with a dozen woodcuts by Paul Nash.

English edition of the most famous scientific book of all finally ends up in German hands.

Unpublished work by mathematician John Wallis who was also a major influence in code breaking sells at Dominic Winter

A single leaf from a Gutenberg Bible that sold for a higher than expected $65,000 (£50,980) in a Philadelphia sale this autumn.

Several decades on from the last of the five major auctions Sotheby’s held to disperse items from the remarkable collections of American historical documents and letters formed by Philip (1902-75) and Elsie Sang (1906-97), a further selection appeared at Sotheby’s New York (26/20/13.9%).

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Edinburgh auction offered 1592 book from first European press dedicated to such a typeface.

Estimated at just $5000 or so but sold at $110,000 (£85,270) in an October 2-3 sale at Brunk Auctions (23% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina, was an extensive archive of documents and letters relating to the career of Captain James N Sever.

Our regular listing of UK and Irish book auctions.

Two very different manuscript lots provided the high spots of a sale in Westport, Connecticut

Top lot in a golfing sale at PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) was a 1927 first of Down the Fairway: The Golf Life and Play of Robert T Jones, Jr.

Three of the lots noted here from a Chicago sale of books, manuscripts, pictures and prints sold at record sums – and the fourth brought a price that has only once been bettered.