The list of plague deaths recorded in a 17th century manuscript medical and cookery recipe book sold by Forum at £15,000.
This elaborate engraved title-page for Richard Brathwait’s The English Gentleman… was the work of Robert Vaughan. The equally busy title page to The English Gentlewoman… was produced by William Marshall. The pair sold at £7500.
Early manuscript compilations for medical and culinary recipes feature quite regularly and successfully at auction, but an example in a recent London sale was one with a morbid statistical addition that achieved a treble estimate £15,000.