I started work on this timeline in August of last year. Thanks to everyone who had input, especially sfcityduck who had done a lot of this legwork previously. The data is incomplete at this point. I don't have buyers and sellers for every book and I don't have precise dates for all the books– I'd like to get down to the month for everything. Still, the data is pretty good so far. I've got questions out to multiple, interested parties and I'm hoping to hear back at some point with more details.
Check out the interactive timeline here. It includes both nominal and inflation adjusted data. There's more information about each sale available if you mouse over or tap on the circle representing the sale.
If you're interested in how it was made, check out this blog post on my technology blog. It's related to my most recent book Mastering SVG.