First Edition

One of a great many books removed from a couple of terraced houses in Norwich for sale by Keys of Aylsham was an 1612 first English edition of the first part only of Don Quixote.

A 366-year-old book on the virtues of Charles I is to go under the hammer at Hansons Auctioneers after it was discovered in a box among 20th-century paperbacks.

With an estimate of $2-3m, a first printing of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) being offered by Christie's New York on June 16 is eagerly anticipated.

Interesting oddities that were ironed out in subsequent editions bump up demand when it comes to book collecting. A good example of this is coming up at Wolverhampton auction house Cuttlestones on May 6.

Fans of Lord Snooty and his Pals, Big Eggo, Morgyn the Mighty and dear Contrary Mary were drawn to the Comic Book Auctions sale of September 13 by the appearance of a good copy of the very first issue of the Beano.

Little did “the Reverend Dr Walter Blandford Warden of Wadham Colledge” of Oxford University realise that one day his name would have such significance in the world of newspapers.

For those with Cornish ancestors or a general interest in the area’s history, David Lay’s sale of Part I of the Pendarve archive on March 26 in Penzance may well be of interest.

Modern firsts from the library of Clive Hirschhorn produced plenty of strong and many record prices at Bloomsbury Auctions but a number of significant works did not sell. As such, this was an important sale for illustrating the vagaries of the market.

This first edition, first issue of ‘The Great Gatsby’ from 1922 is one of the star lots in a sale described by Bloomsbury Auctions as “one of the most important collections of modern first editions to come onto the market in the last ten years”.

London book dealer Peter Harrington is to offer for sale Lord Byron’s first edition presentation copy of ‘Frankenstein’ (1818), given to him and inscribed in her own hand by Mary Shelley.

“My dear Caroline, The enclosed Ring once belonged to your Aunt Jane. It was given to me by your Aunt Cassandra as soon as she knew that I was engaged to your Uncle. I bequeath it to you. God bless you.”

WHEN Aaron Dean was asked to catalogue a local collection of Modern Firsts at Gorringes' Lewes saleroom, he knew he was dealing with something special.

A COPY of A Christmas Carol has now knocked Oliver Twist off the top of the tree to become the most expensive Dickens title ever sold at auction.

THERE were notable sales in the first hour of the two fairs which opened at Olympia in West London last Thursday.

THE first book on swimming printed in England was Everard Digby’s De arte natandi of 1587.

JOHN Taylor was the Sawrey joiner and wheelwright, whose wife and stout, elderly daughter, Agnes Anne, kept the village shop immortalised by Beatrix Potter in Ginger and Pickles. But the first Taylor to appear in one of her books was his son, young John, who was the model for the terrier carpenter John Joiner in The Roly Poly Pudding.

IN contemporary brown calf and buff coloured boards, a good, unsophisticated copy of the 1781, Riga first edition of Immanuel Kant’s Critik der reinen Vernunft was sold for $8500 (£4505) in a March 28 sale held by Baltimore Book Auctions.

LAST week’s ATG included a short piece on a 1566 poem by Patrick Adamson, giving thanks for the birth of a son to Mary Queen of Scots, that made £3100 in a Dominic Winter sale of April 6.

ILLUSTRATED top right is William Hole’s engraved title page for The Iliads from a copy of George Chapman’s first English translation of The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets and The Odysses.

by Ian McKayLAST summer, when a large Biggles collection was put up for sale in Swindon, results were a little disappointing – at least for some of those titles offered individually, where some reserves proved too strong for collectors and trade alike – and around half of the 100 lots were bought in – but W.E. Johns’ famous creation certainly does not lack admirers and in a Bloomsbury Auctions sale of February, a much smaller group of Biggles books, mostly from one source, brought good prices.