Features

Sold online for a record $20,000 (£16,340) at the former Butterfields, now Bonhams Los Angeles (27.5/26/20/14.5% buyer’s premium) salerooms as part of the David Lloyd collection of modern literature was a 1909 first edition of Frank L Baum’s 'The Road to Oz'.

'Laugh now but one day we’ll be in charge' is a Christie’s auction from September 7-21 celebrating editions created in the 21st century by ‘leading artists and sought after new talents’.

Newcastle auction house Anderson & Garland is holding The Comics Auction on September 28-29.

Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian Achaemenid empire delivered into his hands a vast wealth.

The Premier Sale held by St James’s Auctions on September 22 includes this gold half guinea token with a ‘phoenix from the flames’ motif made for Wilson and Younge of Sheffield in 1812.

Although an auction house since 1918, stamps specialist Harmers is a relative newcomer to the London numismatic sales.

The October 13 sale of Early Printed Books at Swann Auction Galleries in New York will feature part two of the library of Ken Rapoport: English literature, tales of chivalry from the Renaissance, and more Shakespeare, Chaucer, Cervantes, Donne, and others.

This copy of 'Hansel and Gretel', 1925, with 12 tipped-in colour plates by the Danish artist Kay Nielsen (1886-1957), is one of 600 numbered copies (numbered 16) signed by the artist, in the original publisher’s pictorial cloth.

Freeman’s September 21 Books and Manuscripts auction, in Pennsylvania is led by an ‘extremely rare’ first edition of 'New Englands First Fruits' (estimate $20,000-30,000), a 1643 account of Puritan evangelisation in New England.

On October 12 Gloucestershire saleroom Dominic Winter is offering a first English edition of Picasso: Toreros by Jaime Sabartés, London & Monte Carlo: Anton Zwemmer & André Sauret, 1961, estimated at £1000-1500.

Books related to Polar explorers are among the highlights of Bonhams’ Travel & Exploration sale on September 20.

A copy of 'Howl' signed by leading lights of the Beat literature scene in New York is on offer at 'Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair', where this year the theme is banned books.

The PBFA swapped its London fair dates from the usual early summer slot to autumn, meaning it coincides as usual with the ABA’s flagship fair.

An early 19th century child’s mosaic alphabet, c.1820, is estimated at £100- 200 at Catherine Southon’s auction at Farleigh Court on November 16.

Gorringe’s book sale on October 11 in Lewes includes part 1 of the ‘vast selection’ of British topographical works from the library of Dr Brian Austen.

Bellmans is holding a special book and manuscript auction as part of the October sales series, on October 11, with the majority of books coming from one collection.

The Books & Autographs auction at Koller in Zurich on September 21 features the greatest work by artist and naturalist Maria Sybilla Merian on the insects and fauna of Surinam, estimated at SwFr120,000-160,000.

Among the works on offer at Chiswick Auctions’ Modern & Contemporary Prints and Multiples sale on October 5 is a Bridget Riley (b.1931) screenprint in colours on wove sheet.

On offer at the Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs sale held by Lyon & Turnbull in Edinburgh on September 28 is an anti-slavery broadside: 'The Sorrows of Yamba, or, the Negro Woman’s Lamentation. To the Tune of Hosier’s Ghost'.

The 264 English gold coins in the so-called Ellerby Hoard, uncovered by a Yorkshire family while re-laying a floor in an 18th century home, range from the reign of James I to George I.