Highlights from Forum Auctions' Online Sale: Books and Works on Paper

First up in this week's featured lots is this limited edition, signed by the author, Sussex Edition of the Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Rudyard Kipling from 1937, along with its duplicates.

Second up on our featured lots this week is one for any budding Chess grandmasters or Queen's Gambit fans. This collection of chess books includes Thomas Hyde's De Ludis Orientalibus - one of the first scholarly works devoted to Chess, and other Oriental games including backgammon, draughts and dice, and includes texts in Arabic, Chinese and Hebrew. It eclipsed it's £200 - £300 estimate for a hammer price of £1,900.

Next up is this first edition copy of Richard Verstegan's A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence: In Antiquities from 1605. Amongst many other anecdotes, curious tales, and notes of world history, this work includes the first printing in English of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, dating the episode to 22nd July 1376.

Our fourth featured lot is this 1893-4 edition of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, which is just one of 1500 copies. Regarded as Beardsley's first major commision and early masterpiece, it was produced at just 20 years of age.

Our final lot this week is John Speed's The Kingdome of Persia with the cheef Citties and Habites described from 1626. This beautiful map is one of the most deseriable early maps of the Near East, drawn from the maps of Joducs Hondius but is unique for its carte á figures borders depecting Persia's chief cities and the modes of dress of its people.