This is a busy time of year in the cataloguing business. Twenty new bookseller's catalogues arrived in the past month. A couple of them celebrate anniversaries. From legal specialist The Lawbook Exchange there are 30 important items related to the law for their 30th anniversary. Meanwhile, The Pages of Yesteryear celebrates 49 years in the business with 49 unusual items.
Travel and exploration has always fascinated us. Hordern House offers a collection of discovery and exploration. Patrick McGahern Books has a remarkable collection of material pertaining to the search for a Northwest Passage and to find the missing Franklin Expedition. Aquila Books is also focused on the coldest areas on earth with books on exploration of the polar regions. Plaza Books takes us to the milder climes of Mexico and Central America. Obviously, you will need guides to take you to these far off places and Martayan Lan offers a selection of old maps, globes and atlases.
Books can also be works of art, and several catalogues feature items from the book arts. The Veatchs Arts of the Book has artistic works both monumental and small. Sophie Schneideman Rare Books and The Kelmscott Bookshop both feature artistic works, private press printings, beautiful bookbindings and more. Phillip J. Pirages offers vellum illuminated manuscripts along with books dating as far back as five centuries.
Some catalogues are mostly European in focus. Justin Croft and Simon Beattie have teamed up for the final of three catalogues devoted to a collection of English verse from 1751-1800. Antiquates Fine & Rare Books offers five centuries of English and continental European works. Samuel Gedge Ltd. Rare Books has English and European documents, broadsides, letters, and other ephemeral items from centuries ago. Sotheran's is offering sections from Diderot's Encyclopédie, taken from an incomplete copy, suitable for framing or display.
Schulson Autographs offers a selection of signed manuscripts and documents. And then, several booksellers have collections that cover a wide variety of fields. The William Reese Company usually focuses on Americana or literature, but this catalogue covers everything else, including books, manuscripts, and visual art. James Cummins Bookseller offers rare and important books and manuscripts. Peter Harrington has a mix of material and Raptis Rare Books has something for everyone.
To see all of the reviews of these new catalogues, click here now.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Book of Hours.- Heures de nostre dame a l'usaige de Romme, Paris, Antoine Chappiel pour Germain Hardouin, [1504]. £6,000-8,000
Forum, May 28: Colonna (Francesco). La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, second edition, Venice, Sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545. £15,000-20,000
Forum, May 28:The Christ Child holding a crystal orb and surrounded by banderoles with devotional exhortations, on a leaf most probably from a Book of Hours, [Southern Netherlands, last decades of the fifteenth century]. £2,000-3,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Jackson (Shirley). The Haunting of Hill House, first English edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to Claude Fredericks, 1960. £2,000-3,000
Forum, May 28: Lennon (John). In His Own Write, first edition, first impression, signed by the author, 1964. £3,000-4,000
Forum, May 28: Doves Press.- Keats (John). [Poems], one of 200 copies on paper, Doves Press, 1914. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Rodrigues (João Barbosa). Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium, 2 vol., first and only edition, Brussels, 1903. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Newton (Sir Isaac). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica…editio ultima, auctior et emendatior, Amsterdam, Sumptibus Societatis, 1714. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Kepler (Johannes). Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, wuibus astronomiae pars optica traditur, first edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1604. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Tagliacozzi (Gaspare). De Curtorum Chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo, first edition, Venice, Gasparo Bindoni, 1597. £7,000-10,000
Forum, May 28: Lootsman (Jacobsz). The Lightning Colomne, or Sea-Mirrour, containing the Sea-Coasts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Navigation..., 1670. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Ribelles y Helip (José), Attributed to. An album comprising 33 finely executed watercolours of Spanish costume, bull-fighting scenes, and other genre subjects, [circa 1830]. £10,000-15,000
