Lots of action in the auction rooms this week, with a number of sales focused on photographs:

Yesterday Doyle New York held an online sale of Americana & Hunting Books from the Library of Arnold "Jake" Johnson, in 285 lots. Taking top honors at $1,062 was a manuscript note by F. Gray Griswold to Judge Ernest Windle in which Griswold offers his definition of a sportsman. At $1,000 were John J. Brown's An American Angler (1845) and a presentation copy of John C. Phillips' Frank W. Killam (1935).

Today at Dominic Winter Auctioneers, Printed Books, Maps & Autographs, in 430 lots. A 1599 edition of Linschoten's Navigatio ac itinerarium in orientalem sive Lusitanorum Indiam and a copy of the 1757 reissue of Eilhard Lubben's map of Pomerania are each estimated at £10,000–15,000. Pierre de Tirregaille's 1762 plan of Warsaw and Conway Shipley's 1851 book Sketches in the Pacific could each fetch £7,000–10,000.

At Bonhams New York today, Photographs, in 154 lots. Aguttes in Paris will sell 285 lots of Livres et Manuscrits, including quite a few interesting manuscripts by artists and some nice designer bindings.

Christie's New York holds a Photographs sale today: the 299 lots include a complete set of Edward Sheriff Curtis' The North American Indian, estimated at $600,000–900,000. Last but not least among today's sales, University Archives holds an auction of Autographed Documents, Manuscripts, Books & Photos, in 240 lots. A 1781 George Washington letter rates the top estimate, at $50,000–60,000.

Tomorrow, October 3 at Dominic Winter, Photography: From West to East. The 320 lots include John Thomson's Illustrations of China and its People (1873–74), estimated at £20,000–30,000; Thomson's 1870 collection Views on the North River could sell for £15,000–20,000, and an album of Thomson's photographs of Hong Kong is estimated at £10,000–15,000. An 1869 print of Julia Margaret Cameron's photograph "The Dream" is also estimated at £15,000–20,000.

Sotheby's New York sells Classic Photographs tomorrow, in 138 lots, and Forum Auctions will hold another of their online sales of Books and Works on Paper, in 216 lots. A 1777 edition of the Encyclopédie and a 1680 volume documenting the Corpus Christi festival held at Venice are each estimated at £1,500–2,000.

On Friday, October 4, Heritage Auctions will hold a 311-lot Photographs Signature Auction. Peter Beard's 1984 "Garden of Eden," showing elephants and baboons, is expected to lead the way at $50,000–70,000.

A special program of Renaissance Book Discovery Days will encourage the public to handle and find out more about rare books during October and November this year.

The Unlocking the Archive project was set up in 2015 by the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in England. Led by Dr. Tom Roebuck and Dr. Sophie Butler, its goal is to raise awareness of the county’s collections of Renaissance books in the east of England. At the hands-on events run in partnership with the Blickling Estate, a National Trust property, visitors will have the chance to handle the books and question experts.

At Blickling Estate (usual admission fees apply) on October 5, five examples from Blickling's important library of 12,500 books, largely collected by Sir Richard Ellys (1682-1742), will be presented including:

* an early edition of Josephus's Jewish War in Latin, printed at Verona in 1480 by Petrus Maufer
* the Alcala Polyglot Bible, published 1522, with the text printed in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and margins annotated by a Protestant reader
* Eleazar Albin's hand-illustrated Natural History of Birds (1731)
* the English translation complete with woodcuts of Johannes Scheffer's History of Lapland (1674)
* the revised 1721 edition of William Camden's Britannia, featuring Robert Morden's maps of Britain

On October 12 at the Norfolk Heritage Centre (part of the Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library), the stage is given over to hand-press books and visitors will be able to inspect an early copy of Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives (1579) owned by a Renaissance noblewoman. A third event will be held at Kings Lynn Library on November 30. For more details about all these events, follow @archiveunlocked on Twitter and visit http://unlockingthearchive.co.uk/.