Auction Report: Results from Bloomsbury; Christie's Preview

Results for Bloomsbury London's sale of The Cetus Library: Food & Drink, Agriculture, Gardening and Social History, 1543 - 1829 on 22 September are here. The top seller, at £20,000, was a lovely copy of Reginald Scot's 1584 work The Discoverie of Witchcraft. A copy of the first edition of Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery (London, 1747) sold for £13,000, and the first English edition of Rembert Dodoens' A Nievve Herbal (London, 1578), fetched £10,000.

Philip Miller's Figures of the most beautiful, useful, and uncommon plants described in the Gardener's Dictionary (London, 1755-1760) sold for £11,000, and a copy of the very rare The Court & Kitchin of Elizabeth, Commonly Called Joan Cromwell (London, 1664), containing recipes supposedly from the table of Oliver Cromwell's court, sold for £7,500 (over estimates of just £1,000-1,500).

Christie's London will sell Travel, Science and Natural History items on 27 September, in 407 lots. Lots of artifacts and artwork: the top-estimated lot is a pair of 1750 Valk table globes (est. £50,000-70,000). There's also an Enigma Machine (est. £30,000-50,000). Among the books, de la Sagra's Historica fisica, politica y natural de la Isla de Cuba (Paris, 1839-1861) is estimated at £15,000-25,000, and there are some other great 19th-century travel and natural history books on offer.