The annual fall gathering for booklovers, the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston’s beautiful Back Bay for its 42nd year, November 16-18, 2018.
Are you new to antiquarian bookselling? ILAB bookseller Susan Ravdin has put together a very useful set of articles on how to prepare for a book fair sharing her experience: "...I've been exhibiting at book fairs for over 25 years, and I figure I've set-up over 500 booths in that time..."
Budapest is one of Europe’s leading cultural destinations and is not only famous for its spas, café houses and architecture.
Hungary’s tradition in book culture goes as far back as the 10th century when traveling monks introduced the first codices, not long after the Magyar had conquered and settled in the Carpathian Basin. ...
On Saturday 17th March, the 2018 edition of the annual Stockholm Antiquarian Book Fair will open its doors! We spoke to Mats Peterson, owner of Stockholm's Centralantikvariatet in Stockholm and President of the Swedish association SVAF.
The New York International Antiquarian Book Fair (NYIABF) produced by Sanford L. Smith + Associates returns to the Park Avenue Armory for its 58th edition March 8-11, 2018.
Lovers of rare and collectable books in Sydney are in for a treat this year. The heritage Customs House at Circular Quay, only five minutes from the Sydney Opera House, will host the Sydney Rare Book Fair from Thursday November 5th to Saturday November 7th. Books, manuscripts, maps, prints, photographs and ephemera will be offered for sale by leading dealers from all over Australia.
Glancing at an old account book, ranging from 1835 to 1850, with a few entries in 1851, which in some way had come into the possession of my predecessors, I was struck by the occurrence of the names of book-collectors such as Ashburnham, Beaufoy, Beckford, Drury, Phillipps, Spencer, Vernon and numerous others - libraries which have been dispersed in my lifetime. It is concerned only with payments received, and though the sales of single books for cash are recorded they do not often amount to any considerable sum in total. Amongst these items Greek and Latin classics are often prominent with sundry entries which make us envy the unknown purchasers, viz: - Euclidis Elementa Latine. H. Walpole's copy. 4/- Biblia Latina, folio. Jenson, 1479. £3.10.0 Boccace des Nobles Maleureux, Folio. Red. Mor. A. Verard, 1494. £3.13.6.
The Erya (or Erh Ya) - the name means "approaching what is correct, proper, refined," though it's sometimes translated as The Ready Guide - is the oldest dictionary of the Chinese language. The author is a mystery, and the traditional attribution to the Duke of Chou isn't taken seriously. The date, too, is a puzzler, though "scholars generally agree that it was written by Confucian scholars sometime between the Spring and Autumn period and early Han Dynasty (8th through 2nd centuries B.C.)" (Xue, p. 152). The third century BCE is a pretty good guess.
How to identify a rare book? "I got stumped last week, trying to catalog a book I'd recently purchased. It was the first full length biography of the American naval hero James Lawrence, and it was supposed to be 244 pages long. However, my copy seemed complete at page 240, which ended with the word "finis." I must've spent an hour pouring through my reference books trying to reconcile the discrepancy. I had a dim recollection of the pagination issue being explained to me by the gentleman from whom I'd purchased the book. But I couldn't remember the details, and I couldn't piece it together from the bibliographies ..."
Most bibliographers and librarians attribute the book "L'Histoire de la Jamaïque", published by Nourse 1751, to the British author Sir Hans Sloane. Wrong! This "L'Histoire' is a translation of a work published in Edinburgh in 1739. The author is Charles Leslie, and the book is called "A New and Exact Account of Jamaica". The French / English journalist Thibault Ehrengardt re-writes the history of a bibliographical confusion.
People always assume I got into law books because my husband was a lawyer. Actually I studied economics, took a diploma in social sciences and trained as a juvenile probation officer. In those days you had to be twenty-six before you could do that job. As I was too young at the time, I decided to start a research agency. I was already married with children and it was just about possible to combine the work with running a home.
