List of most expensive books

This is a list of the highest known prices paid for books, comic books, manuscripts, and documents. The earliest sale on the list is of the Gospels of Henry the Lion, in 1983. Most of the books were originally published between 1600 and 1850. The most common book on the list is John J. Audubon's The Birds of America. J. K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which was auctioned off for charity in 2007, is the most expensive book sold from the present century.

Table of book sales

Adjusted price (in millions)	Original price (in millions)	Title	Author	Year	Date of sale	Image	Refs
$49.3	$30.8	Codex Leicester Original and only copy of the notebook	da Vinci, LeonardoLeonardo da Vinci	1500s	November 1994		[1]
$24.3	$21.3	Magna Carta Original exemplar	–	1297[2]	December 2007		[3]
$14.8	$14.3	St Cuthbert Gospel	Unknown	7th century	April 2012		[4]
$14.4	$14.2	Bay Psalm Book First book printed in what is now the United States.	–	1640	November 2013		[5]
$19.1	$13.4	Rothschild Prayerbook (a.k.a. Rothschild Hours)	-	c. 1500-20	July 1999		[6]
$27.8	$11.7	Gospels of Henry the Lion Original and only copy	Order of Saint Benedict	1175	December 1983		[7]
$12.5	$11.5	The Birds of America One of 119 complete copies known to exist	Audubon, John JamesJohn James Audubon	1827–1838	December 2010		[8]
$12.1	$8.8	The Birds of America One of 119 complete copies known to exist	Audubon, John JamesJohn James Audubon	1827–1838	2000		[9]
$8.2	$7.9	The Birds of America One of 119 complete copies known to exist	Audubon, John JamesJohn James Audubon	1827–1838	January 2012		[9]
$10.9	$7.5	The Canterbury Tales First printed edition	Chaucer, GeoffreyGeoffrey Chaucer	1478	1998		[10]
$8.2	$6.1	Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies (a.k.a. First Folio)	Shakespeare, WilliamWilliam Shakespeare	1623	2001
$11.0	$5.0	Les Liliacées	Redouté, Pierre-JosephPierre-Joseph Redouté	1802	1985		[11]
$10.2	$4.9	Gutenberg Bible	–	1450–1455	1987		[10]
$5.3	$4.5	Traité des Arbres Fruitiers	Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau	1768	2006		[12]
$4.7	$4.3	Rules of basketball Original document written by James Naismith	James Naismith	1892	December 2010		[13]
$4.5	$3.9	The Tales of Beedle the Bard	J. K. Rowling	unknown[14]	December 2007		[15]
$4.1	$3.5	Geographia Cosmographia	Ptolemy, ClaudiusClaudius Ptolemy	1477	October 2006		[16]
$3.2	$3.2	Action Comics 1	Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster	1938	August 2014		[17]
$3.6	$2.5	The First Book of Urizen	William Blake	1794	April 1999		[18]
$2.7	$2.46	Complete set of folio bird books (40 volumes)	Gould, JohnJohn Gould	1800s	April 2008		[19]
$5.0	$2.42[20]	Biblia pauperum (The Gotha-Doheny Copy)	–	1460–1470	22 October 1987		[21]
$2.9	$2.4	Doria Atlas	–	1570-1620[22]	2005		[23]
$3.8	$2.2	United States Declaration of Independence Original signed manuscript	–	1776	1991
$2.8	$1.9	De revolutionibus orbium coelestium	Copernicus, NicolausNicolaus Copernicus	1543	1998
$2.9	$1.5	Don Quixote	Cervantes, Miguel deMiguel de Cervantes	1605–1615	1989
$2.2	$1.5	De humani corporis fabrica	Vesalius, AndreasAndreas Vesalius	1543	1998
$2.0	$1.4	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland	Carroll, LewisLewis Carroll	1865	1998
$2.4	$1.3	The Federalist	Hamilton, AlexanderAlexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison	1788	1990

Footnotes

1. Kiss, Jemima. Bill Gates on giving away his fortune - and Mark Zuckerberg's engagement?. The Guardian. 13 June 2011. Retrieved 23 October 2011.
2. Believed to be a copy of a copy of the first Magna Carta.
3. Gleick, James. Keeping It Real. The New York Times. 6 January 2008. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
4. The British Library pays $14m for oldest European book. BBC News. 17 April 2012. Retrieved 18 April 2012.
5. BBC. Bay Psalm Book is most expensive printed work at $14.2m. BBC News. 27 November 2013. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
6. The Economist. 8142. 353. Economist Newspaper Limited. 1999. pp. 99/.
7. Garcia, Guy. People: Dec. 19, 1983. BBC News. 19 December 1983. Retrieved 24 October 2011.
8. Rohrer, Finlo. Audubon's Birds of America: The world's most expensive book. BBC News. 8 December 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2011.
9. Temple, Emily. The 10 Most Expensive Books in the World. The Atlantic. 23 January 2012. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
10. Canterbury Tales fetches record £4.6m. BBC News. 9 July 1998. Retrieved 23 October 2011.
11. "REDOUTE WATERCOLORS AUCTIONED TO SYNDICATE". 21 November 1985. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
12. The Most Expensive Books Ever Sold. Know Your Money Blog. 19 February 2009. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
13. Roth, Richard. Basketball 'bible' auction sets sports memorabilia record. CNN. 11 December 2010. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
14. Rowling began writing the stories soon after finishing work on the seventh Harry Potter novel. Initially, she created six manuscripts, each with a distinctive stone set into the binding, for presentation to individuals instrumental in helping her create the Potter series. The seventh manuscript, known as "The Moonstone" edition, is the copy referred to here which was sold at auction to benefit charity.
15. Rare JK Rowling book fetches £2m. BBC News. 13 December 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
16. Old atlas breaks auction record. BBC News. 10 October 2006. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
17. Superman's Action Comics No. 1 sells for record $3.2 million on eBay. CNET. 25 August 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
18. Kotter, Holland. Rare Blake Book Sells for $2.5 Million at Sotheby's. The New York Times. 24 April 1999. Retrieved 7 March 2013.
19. Christie?s. "GOULD, John (1804-1881). A complete set of the celebrated folio bird books formed by Gould's close acquaintance, George Savile Foljambe (1800-1869).". Retrieved 3 April 2016.
20. "Gutenberg Bible Is Sold for Record $4.9 Million". latimes. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
21. Bodleian Library; Alan Edward Coates (2005). A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century Now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: Blockbooks ; woodcut and metalcut single sheets ; A. Oxford University Press. pp. 16–. ISBN 978-0-19-951905-7.
22. "doria atlas. </s - books & manuscripts - sotheby's l05415lot38tc2en". Retrieved 3 April 2016.
23. Simon Garfield (4 October 2012). On The Map: Why the world looks the way it does. Profile Books. pp. 97–. ISBN 1-84765-855-5.

Interactive graph

Sale of the Most Expensive Books

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See also

• List of most expensive paintings