Archives
Archive for June, 2008
Opening 27 August, ‘The Golden Generation’ exhibition at the British Library will explore the outpour of vibrant British theatre that flourished following the Second World War, with a display of the Library’s unparalleled collection of theatrical manuscripts, letters, photographs, and unique oral history recordings. A time rich with social transformation, the period between 1945 and [...]
Classics illustrated, the famous adaptations of Classic Children’s literature, will appear on the W.H Smith bookshelves from 25 September, after a 40-year rest, with digitally enhanced illustrations. First published in 1941, the comic book series covered such literary classics as Moby Dick, Robin Hood, The man in the Iron Mask, Hamlet, and A Journey to [...]
Sebastian Faulks CBE steps in to host the launch of Book Aid International’s new fundraising campaign; the aim is to raise £5 million over the next three years, sending 750,000 books a year to sub-Sahara Africa by 2010. The launch takes place on International Literacy Day, 8th September at the London Review Bookshop with special [...]
Online giants Amazon.com just got bigger as they have agreed, subject to closing conditions, that they will acquire AbeBooks – a colossal online market place for books in its own right, selling over 110 million primarily used, rare and out of print books. Hannes Blum, CEO of AbeBooks claims ‘this deal brings together book sellers [...]
An incredibly rare and chilling book about the management of slave plantations in the eighteenth century has finally been made available to all, thanks to academics in Barbados who have been keen to make the valuable piece of history digitally accessible. Until now, the only two existing copies of the book, Instructions for the Management [...]
An international event is taking place this summer where dealers and rare book enthusiasts alike will gather by the thousands from around the world to attend. The Baltimore Summer Antiques Show will be pulling out all the stops, including a 60-dealer antiquarian book fair offering rare books, first editions, fine manuscripts, autographs and unusual bibliographical [...]
The former leader of the Labour Party, Michel Foot, who will be 95 this month, has recently sold his entire collection of books by and about Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). The books by Anglo-Irish author of the infamous Gulliver’s Travels were snapped up before the catalogue produced by Jarndyce Booksellers was even sent out. It was [...]
A new record was set at Sotheby’s last week for a staggering £289,250 – the highest sum for a book illustration ever to be sold at auction. The illustration was an original Beatrix Potter watercolour depicting the final scene from “The Rabbit’s Christmas Party” sequence. The illustration soared above its top end estimate of £60,000, […]
With the 250th
anniversary of Robert Burns approaching in 2009, the publication of a
new bibliography presenting the most complete collection of Burnsiana
in the USA is a timely addition. It’s the second largest
compilation of Burns materials in the world, compiled over a lifetime
by William Robertson Smith and is held by the Library of the Supreme
Council of the [...]
William Shakespeare’s First Folio, stolen from Durham University Library in December of 1998, was finally recovered after almost ten years.
The Folio, described by Scholars as “a unique and irreplaceable part of the region's heritage which will be virtually impossible to sell to legitimate buyers” contains 36 of Shakespeare’s works 18 of [...]
With recent news of a rare first edition of ‘Emma’ selling for a record £180,000 in auction at Bonhams, it is clear that Austen is proving extremely popular at the moment.
Austen is under new management at Chawton House (the manor house that once belonged to Austen’s brother) with Mr Steve [...]
As another year passes the annual dealers vs. auctioneers charity football match creeps up on us. This year the match will be held at the Bank of England Sports ground on Friday 29th August, and is destined to be another raving success.
Over the past five years the ATG has raised [...]
The complete set of Deluxe 1st Edition Harry Potter books will be going under the hammer tomorrow at Cameo Auctioneers near Reading.
Each of the original hardbacks are signed by the author, J K Rowling, and are estimated to reach between £15 000 to £20 000 each. The collection consists of [...]
A rare first edition of ‘Emma’ sold for a record £180 000 in auction at Bonhams this week. The three-volume edition was estimated at around £70 000 but turned out to be the most profitable Jane Austen novel to be sold at auction yet.
The book was one of 12 copies [...]
The Times newspaper has recently published its entire archive of historical Law Reports which date back over 200 years. The documents have been made available to the public through the website Times Online, which covers the full text of every case reported in the newspaper since 1785, including those such as Oscar Wilde, [...]
