World's most expensive book to be auctioned

An edition of John James Audubon's Birds of America, which fetched a world record $8.8 million (£5.7m) a decade ago, is to go up for auction alongside Shakespeare's First Folio and private letters written by Queen Elizabeth I.

The rare and valuable lots are among a collection of books, manuscripts and letters to be sold from the collection of Lord Hesketh, a collector who died 55 years ago, Sotheby's will announce today.

A well-preserved copy of Audubon's book, which is bound in a huge folio accommodating life-size paintings of American bird life, is valued at between £4 million and £6 million.