The ABA and ILAB look back at a long history. The ABA is relaunching its flagship fair in London this year, the oldest antiquarian book fair in the world, under the auspices of ILAB.
This text by the late Anthony Rota, ABA bookseller and ILAB President of Honour, was published in 2008 in the ABA Directory.
The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers is celebrating its 70th anniversary in 2018. Oak Knoll Press has just published the League's "Historical Index", compiled by ILAB bookseller Nevine Marchiset.
Today the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers unites 22 national associations under one roof. Some of them had already been established when the League was founded in 1947/1948. Five of them were the driving forces: the antiquarian booksellers of Great Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden and The Netherlands.
In 1947 representatives from Great Britain, France, Denmark, Sweden and The Netherlands met in Amsterdam for a Preliminary Conference. They discussed Hertzberger’s idea of forming an organization that counteracted the animosity and suspicion engendered by the Second World War. The new International League of Antiquarian Booksellers should foster friendship and understanding between the nations as the mutual basis for a fair and professional trade in the future.
The ILAB was formally incorporated in Copenhagen in September 1948, with ten participating countries. Representatives from Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, and Italy joined their colleagues from Great Britain, France, Sweden, Denmark and The Netherlands at the conference table. Denmark was holding a proxy for Norway
“Considering the dubiety with which our activities were treated it is pleasant to record that the Congresses in London in 1949 and in Paris in 1950 were very successful both socially and professionally, while the standard of hospitality in both cities was impeccable." (Muir)
The admission of Japan, the ILAB Bibliography Prize (now ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography) and the first ILAB International Antiquarian Book Fair were the milestones of the 60s.
"For many people in the west mention of Japanese woodblock prints brings to mind the beautiful single sheet colour examples by artists such as Hokusai, Hiroshige and the many other artists of extraordinary skill working during the 18th and 19th centuries. Immense pleasure can also be gained from looking a little further and discovering the plethora of games, decorative papers, books, calendars, lists, news-sheets, maps, advertising, and ephemeral material of every kind that was published using woodblock printing methods during the Edo and Meiji periods." Sally Burdon's collecting tip is one of the highlights of BookFare 2, the recently published newsletter of the Australian & New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB). Read the article and subscribe to further issues!
In Luzern, Lucerne, Lucerna – call it what you will – for the first time in some forty years. Distant memories of the picturesque old wooden Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge), although I somehow now prefer the shorter Spreuerbrücke (Mill Bridge)with its jaunty Dance of Death skeletons. I also seem vaguely to recall a bit of a fracas with a hotelier who thought that 10pm in the evening was an unacceptably late hour to rouse him from his slumbers to regain admittance to his shuttered-up establishment – we were in complete disgrace and pointedly refused breakfast the next morning. Of course nothing so unseemly this time round, as the presidents of the far-flung world of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) gathered for their annual meeting, to be followed by the fortieth ILAB Congress.
My internship took place from April 25 to May 28 2011. I travelled to Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary. I visited several bookstores such as Antiquariat Norbert Donhofer (Vienna), A. Gerits & Son (Amsterdam), Antiquariaat A. Kok & Zn. B.V. (Amsterdam), Musikantiquariat Ádám Bősze (Budapest), Földvári Antikvarium (Budapest), Központi Antikvárium (Budapest), etc., and also an auction house: Bubb Kuyper (Haarlem, The Netherlands). I managed to interview the current President of ILAB Arnoud Gerits, the President of The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of Austria, Norbert Donhofer, the President of the Hungarian Association of the Antiquarian Booksellers, Ádám Bősze, the President of The Dutch Association of Antiquarian Booksellers, Ton Kok, and two Presidents of Honour: Anton Gerits and Michael Steinbach. I worked as a bibliographer and appraiser, took part in the preparations for the London International Antiquarian Book Fair at Olympia, and visited an auction. It was a learning process.
The Breslauer Prize for Bibliography, awarded every four years by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers is one of the most prestigious awards in this field. Writers, publishers, librarians, journalists, scholars, antiquarian booksellers, book collectors and all who are interested in bibliography and the history of the book were invited to submit books to the 17th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography by the end of April this year. Bibliographies are an indispensable tool for booksellers but this collection of publications is more than that. It portrays the variety and depth of our profession; academic excellence combined with the love and passion for the subject. A truly international Prize, representing authors, editors and publishers from all corners of the world.
On Thursday night the The Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) launched the inaugural Melbourne Rare Book Week, which culminates in the 39th ANZAAB Australian Antiquarian Book Fair from 27th to 29th September 2012, when 35 leading Australian, English and American dealers will be exhibiting rare and valuable books, manuscripts, autographs, maps, prints and photographies of all ages and for all prices at the ANZAAB Rare Book Fair at Wilson Hall, The University of Melbourne.
While browsing through Ralph Sipper's booth at this past weekend's Los Angeles Antiquarian Book Fair, I came upon an interesting copy of book that at first seemed a little out of place at the fair: John Sanford's Every Island Fled Away. It's a 1964 novel that, these days, is typically a $30 – $40 book in collectible condition, and not that much more when signed or inscribed. Usually the booths at the three fairs sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (there's also a New York show in April and a Boston show in November) are full of the best antiquarian books for sale in the country and the world (read highest quality, and consequently highest priced). Dealers usually trot out their top material, and Ralph's booth was full of many stunning copies of notable literary first editions. Some of them, like his beautiful copy of William Faulkner's first novel, Soldiers' Pay, are genuinely rare in such condition. By comparison, the John Sanford book seemed to be a grade schooler lost at the senior prom.
