Books and Works on Paper

First Professor of Cornish Studies at Exeter University and Bard of Gorseth Kernow, Charles Thomas (1928-2016) was both a prolific writer and a bibliophile.

Finely bound sets featured in the high spots ofa third Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of modern literature from the Maurice Neville library held on April 25.

Early Dutch discoveries in Australia and those made in Tasmania and New Zealand on Abel Tasman’s first voyage are outlined in a 1659 wall-map by the Amsterdam cartographer Joan Blaeu (1596-1673).

An unexpected highlight of an April 28-29 sale held by Brussels saleroom The Romantic Agony (24% buyer’s premium), was a leaf from an illuminated manuscript.

Artwork produced for the much-loved ‘Ladybird’ books by the late John Berry (1920-2009) were offered by Tennants (18.5% buyer’s premium) on April 28.

Containing over 150pp of notes and fragmentary drafts for two of her novels and a play, an autograph notebook used by Agatha Christie while in Baghdad around 1948 – perhaps while travelling with her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan – sold for $15,000 (£11,625) in a Swann Auction Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of May 4.

The late Hubert Dingwall began a lifetime of book collecting in 1935 with the purchase of a vellum bound copy of the second part only of a 1697 Antwerp edition of Don Quixote for one shilling and sixpence.

Following the publication in 1632 of his Dialogo…, Galileo found himself hauled before the Inquisition and tried for his heretical views.

Books from the library of neurologist Dr MacDonald Critchley sold as part of an April 20-21 auction held by Charterhouse (19.5% buyer’s premium) naturally included books related to his professional interests, among them copies of his own works. But the lot that attracted most bidding interest was a novel by HG Wells.

Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald were among the financial big-hitters when a third part of the extensive Maurice F Neville collection of modern literature was sold by Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on April 24.

Sold for £6000 in a Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of March 30 was a copy of one of the earliest books on swimming.

Compiled by J Wells Kelly and published in San Francisco in 1862, a rare copy of the First Directory of Nevada Territory…, which was worn, dry and splitting but in original, leather-backed printed boards, sold for $6500 (£5080) in a PBA Galleries sale of April 20.

Best round scores in the most recent PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) golfing sale came with the appearance of a group of the papers of golfing historian and collector CB Clapcott.

“We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to take hold” are the opening words of Hunter S Thompson’s notorious and loosely autobiographical novel Fear and Loathing Las Vegas…

Reversing the usual pattern where it is an author’s first book that makes the big money, it is the last of the 38 books featuring Richmal Crompton’s most famous children’s book creation that has for many years been one of the most expensive purchases for collectors.

More than 130 original artworks by the artist, sometimes savage political cartoonist and stage designer, Gerald Scarfe, were offered by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on April 5.

From Arthur Rackham to Gerald Scarfe, there is a burgeoning market for original illustration art of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Literary anniversaries are a good story to tell to potential sellers but do they bring greater interest and greater prices?

‘As London’s newest specialist auction house, our sponsorship of this ATG supplement is a very natural fit’

The name of William Heath Robinson (1872-1944) is enshrined in the Oxford English Dictionary. Definition: “Ingeniously or ridiculously over-complicated in design or construction”.