Bloomsbury's 31 January sale of Science & Medicine, Natural History, Travel & Topography appears to have been fairly underwhelming: a fair number of the lots failed to sell, and very few lots exceeded their high estimates. Among the scattered highlights:
- Raymond de Vieussens' Neurographia universalis (Frankfurt, 1690) made £1,400 (better than doubling its estimate).
- A first edition, first issue of Darwin's Descent of Man fetched £2,500.
- A Paulus Manutius edition of Ptolemy's projections of the globe and Commandino's treatise on calibrating sundials (Venice, 1588) sold for £2,000.
- The first edition of John Wilkins' Mathematicall Magick (1648) sold for £1,000.
- The sale's high spot was an ex-library copy of John and Josiah Boydell's Picturesque Scenery of Norway, with 80 hand-colored plates. It made £9,500, better than doubling its estimate.
