Ref. 30921-92A VICTORIAN photograph album including six images taken by Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll is expected to raise up to £8,000 at auction in Swindon next week.

The photographs show Dante Gabriel Rosetti, one of the 19th century's most famous painters, his family and close circle.

The sale at Dominic Winter Book Auctions next Thursday will also include two signed Beatrix Potter first editions and what may be the biggest Biggles collection ever sold at one auction.

The items are the latest coup for the Maxwell Street auction house, which has previously sold rare lots ranging from pioneering 1840s photographs to first editions of early Harry Potter books.

Talking about the latest sale, document expert Chris Albury from the auction house, said: "The photograph album has about 80 photographs and is an incredible item to come onto the open market.

"Carroll was a friend of the Rosettis. He went to their house because, he said, he had never seen a more beautiful representation of the female form than in Rosetti's work."

Also due for auction is a private collection of some 100 books relating to Biggles, the fictional flying ace created by WE Johns, which are expected to sell for a total of as much as £50,000.

Mr Albury said the seller was an elderly private collector who had simply decided to put his books back on the market for others to collect and enjoy.