Bethunes Rare Books have a major auction coming up on Thursday 20 November, at Webbs in Newmarket, Auckland. The full catalogue is online here: there are over a thousand lots on offer, with three lots valued at $6,000. These are a rare 1674 two-volume set of Petri Matthioli's Opera medical text, a 14-volume set of Charles Linnaeus' Genuine and Universal System of Natural History (c.1800) and a second edition of Walter Buller's History of the Birds of New Zealand. It'll be interesting to see how the Buller compares to the same title at going under the hammer at Plumbly's a week earlier. Bethunes also have a rare copy of Thomas Nightingale's Oceanic Sketches, signatures of the Queen and Tenzing Norgay, and "a significant selection of early Science Fiction first editions". Online bidding is permitted.