First Edition

Top lot in a sale held by Mallams (25% buyer’s premium) of Oxford was a 1719-20, first edition set of 'The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe…', 'The Farther Adventures…' and 'The Serious Reflections…' in later but very smart bindings of red morocco gilt by Francis Bedford of London.

I wonder if it could be explained to me why, in the currently fashionable world of ‘modern first editions’, there is a trend to link the words ‘first edition’ and ‘impression’ in the same sentence.

Remarkably well-preserved 1818 Frankenstein and 1897 Dracula firsts impress in New York

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

This first edition of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale will be offered for sale by Scammell Auctions in Adelaide on October 11.

Author’s works were well represented in London auction that included a £24,000 surprise

George Eliot’s much-admired novel 'Middlemarch…' made its first appearance in a parts issue in 1871.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Signed by the author and all members of the cast, the stage manager and the props manager, a 1943, Heinemann first of 'Present Laughter' was one of two Noel Coward plays that made up a lot sold for £1600 via thesaleroom.com in a Toovey’s (24.5% buyer’s premium) auction.

There were, inevitably, a few copies of Charles Dickens’ much-loved tale, 'A Christmas Carol', on offer at auction as the big day approached.

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

Peter Harrington’s Christmas 2020 catalogue features a selection of first and special editions such as this copy of 'Just So Stories' by Rudyard Kipling.

The artist, cleric, schoolmaster and author William Gilpin (1724-1804) is best known as a champion of the Romantic idea of the picturesque.

An 1859 first of Darwin’s seminal work shrugs off condition issues to be a best-seller

A 1776 first of Adam Smith’s '…Wealth of Nations' sold in a New York summer sale bore an understandably irritated inscription by the man to whom it had been gifted by its author.

An October 27-30 sale of more than 2800 lots at Reiss & Sohn of Königstein-im-Taunus includes a 1583 first of Georg Bartisch’s Opthalmodouleia…, a famous work on eye surgery that is also the first extensively illustrated account of any surgical speciality.

Inscribed copies of the works of Dodie Smith were among the attractions of a summer sale held by Stride & Son (18% buyer’s premium) of Chichester.

Always likely to produce one of the sale’s best results, a 1798 first of Thomas Malthus’ 'Essay on the Principle of Population' duly led the bidding in a recent German sale.

On September 12 Brunk Auctions of Asheville, North Carolina, is holding a single-owner sale comprising the estate of William N Banks Junior from his Georgia property, Bankshaven.