Bloomsbury auction house will hold its Continental and English Literature and History, Manuscripts and Autograph Letters, Modern First Editions and War Poetry sale on 15th October.

Star lots will include a number of books from the library of the late Patrick Francis Maitland, 17th Earl of Lauderdale.

From the Earl's collection, a very good first edition of De Origine, Moribus, et Rebus Gestis Scotorum by John Leslie, Bishop of Ross and lead of the Scottish Reformation, will go under the hammer.

It includes eleven full page engraved genealogies of the kings of Scotland, and will have an estimate of £700-900.

Elsewhere, A Song for the Twenty-ninth of May 1781 by a Member of the Royal Oak Society is a collection of tracts relating to the 1745 Rebellion and its aftermath, estimated at £1,500-2,000.

The two-volume The Clans of the Scottish Highlands of 1857, by James Logan and Robert Ronald McIan, will also be for sale opening at £1,000-1,500.

Featured among the Autograph Letters is a typed and signed letter to Lady Lloyd George from Chaim Weizman, the Zionist leader and President of Israel.

"In these dark days, when we are assailed on all sides by difficulties - by enemies intent on killing our last hope - such evidences of continuing friendship and understanding are doubly precious to us", he writes in the letter, priced at £1,000-1,500.

Some familiar names will crop up among the Modern First Editions, including Agathat Christie's The Murder on the Links (£2,000-3,000).

Christie first edition (£2,000-3,000)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles is estimated at £1,000-1,500. And a complete run of signed or inscribed novels by Dick Francis is expected to bring £4,000-6,000.

Another rare lot - a must-see for secret service buffs - is a signed and inscribed copy of The Honourable Schoolboy by John Le Carre, a deaccessioned copy from the MI6 library with a cryptic inscription, estimated £400-600.

Also appearing it a first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Another first edition Gatsby with an impeccable dust jacket sold for $180,000 at Bonham's earlier this year.

This version (New York, 1925) features partly erased ink numbers on the title, some repair to the foot of the spine and is lacking a backstrip and flaps - and hence carries an estimate of £4,500-5,000.

Last, but certainly not least, fans of Oscar Wilde should take a look at the presentation copy from Alfred Douglas of the Chameleon (number 29 of 100 copies).

Douglas writes: "Neither Oscar Wilde nor myself had any responsibility for this publication..." (£1000-1,500).

First editions by Samuel Beckett and James Joyce will also appear. The sale takes place at Bloomsbury in London.