Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photography

Lawrences Auctioneers present their September 2025 Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photography sale. This comprehensive auction offers everything from early printed books to royal autographs.

The early printed books on offer include a 1523 edition of Erasmus Desiderius's Parabolae Sive Similia, Charles Estienne's De Re Hortensi Libellus from 1539, Robert Boyle's Some Considerations (1663) and Eleazar Albin's A Natural History of English Insects (1749).

A number of first editions and signed books are included. A first edition of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire signed by the author is one of the highlights, along with first editions of Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana and Thomas Hauser's Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, signed by the author.

The maps and manuscripts category features a manuscript plan of the Battle of Trafalgar, a 1706 Hermann Moll map of Europe, a number of maps by John Speed and an 1825 edition of Sidney Hall's Urania's Mirror.

The sale also includes art and photography. You'll find a signed photographic portrait of King Edward VII, a page of Victorian prisoner photographs from Exeter Gaol and a signed edition of E. A. Seguy's Suggestions pour Étoffes et Tapis.

As usual, exploration, travel and topography feature heavily, and a first edition of John Ross's Narrative of a Second Voyage in search of a North-West Passage and a two-volume first edition of Henry Walter Bates's The Naturalist on the River Amazon are two of the highlights from this subject.

Finally, the sale features a collection of autographs, including a letter signed by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and signed correspondence from Queen Elizabeth II, King George VI and Prince Philip.

Welcome to the sale!