Sold for a record $2750 (£2220) at PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) in California on October 10 was an inscribed copy of The World Set Free, a prophetic novel by HG Wells.

Extracted from Antiques Trade Gazette | Ian McKay

This copy of a work in which uncontrollable, atomic-type weapons are presaged was an example of Macmillan’s first UK issue of 1914 in original green cloth. It is very briefly – even bluntly – inscribed “G.B.S from H.G.”

This, the cataloguer, observed, was notable in light of the opposing views of Wells and George Bernard Shaw within the Fabian Society and the changing nature of their relationship at the time.

Bald but bearded

A signed and inscribed copy of Wells’ The War of the Worlds, one that bears a little self-caricature sketch of a bald but full-bearded little man in dark glasses, sold this summer in the UK.

A second-issue copy of the 1898 first edition, it had made £8500 at Bonhams in 2015 but resurfaced in a Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) sale of June 19 to sell for £10,500 – though it has been offered in a dealer’s catalogue for considerably more since then.