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.
During the 1930s the Munich bibliophiles were in their prime with collectors like Karl Wolfskehl, Carl Georg von Maassen and Rolf von Hoerschelmann. Societies like the „Gesellschaft der Münchner Bibliophilen (1907-1913), the „Gesellschaft der Münchner Bücherfreunde" (1923-1931) and „Die Mappe" (since 1926) were centres of book culture.
We are gathered here tonight surrounded by books — raise your eyes and you will see five storeys of books and there are many more thousands (millions, I guess), hidden in rooms below us. Where did they all come from? Many of you could be forgiven for suspecting that they all came from unwary collectors like yourselves, who made the mistake of having dinner with Richard Landon and ended up changing your wills, or simply finding the next day that your books were now owned by the University of Toronto. But even Richard Landon couldn't come up with this many books so if we are to have some understanding of how an institution like this gets all these books, we must look elsewhere. Let me solve the mystery for you; they come from people like me — booksellers ...
The annual fall gathering for booklovers, the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, will return to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston's beautiful Back Bay, November 16-18, 2012. The offerings are wide and diverse from over 120 dealers located in the United States, England, Canada, France, Hungary, The Netherlands, and Argentina who will exhibit and sell rare, collectible and antiquarian books, illuminated manuscripts, autographs, maps, atlases, photographs, modern first editions, and a plethora of other literary ephemera. Fine and decorative prints will also be featured.
The challenge for virtually all collectors of John Steinbeck, whether novice or grizzled veteran, is the same -- money! If you still need a pretty copy of Tortilla Flat, a first in jacket, can you spare that extra $10,000 it's going to take to acquire the book?
The Boston Book International Antiquarian Book Fair will take place October 28-30, 2016.
More than 120 dealers from around the world rendezvous every fall at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston's Back Bay to display their latest acquisitions to collectors. 2016 will see the 40th annual book fair in Boston, over the weekend of October 28-30.
