The life of a journeyman major league book dealer (any one who makes his or her living in the trade as a hunter-gatherer, anyone not named Bill, Jim, Pom, Ed, or Don, or anyone not from the other side of the Atlantic whose shoes are worth more than most of your books)… this journeyman life, I say, is a simple one.
From Aldus to Zanichelli*...
...Italy has always had a flourishing book trade long before the advent of printing. Italy's history is closely linked to the history of the book, whether we look at the trade in manuscripts or the rapid development of printing presses in Renaissance Italy.
From March 9-12, 2017 book lovers will find a fascinating treasure trove at the Park Avenue Armory. Over 200 American and international dealers will exhibit at The ABAA New York Antiquarian Book Fair, bringing a vast selection of rare books, maps, manuscripts, illuminated manuscripts and ephemera. The diversity of specialties includes art, medicine, literature, photography, autographs, first editions, Americana, and much more.
Rare Books Edinburgh is a new festival taking place from 20th to 30th March 2017, which brings together ten different institutions and organisations to celebrate book culture, collecting, and the history of the book.
The programme includes talks, workshops, and exhibitions, and incorporates the Edinburgh Book Fair, jointly run by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association and the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association. The Edinburgh Book Fair is the largest antiquarian and collectable book fair in Scotland, this year featuring over forty specialist booksellers from around the UK. They will be offering for sale rare and collectable books and printed material of all kinds at a wide variety of price points. The fair will be opened by bestselling author and 'king of tartan noir' Ian Rankin OBE, creator of Inspector Rebus.
The Swedish Antiquarian Booksellers Association (SVAF) has now announced the dates for the 2017 Stockholm Antiquarian Book Fair. The fair will take place from the 4th to the 5th of March at Stockholm's beautiful Royal Academy of Arts.
Twenty-five booksellers from Sweden, Finland and England will exhibit rare books and antiquarian material. The Stockholm fair is also a showcase for some of Sweden's finest bookbinders and publishers.
The final report from the 2017 Stuttgart International Antiquarian Book Fair has just been published by the German Booksellers Association VdA (Verband der Antiquare). Ein derart tolles Angebot wie in diesem Jahr hätte es auf der Antiquariatsmesse schon länger nicht mehr gegeben, schwärmte ein Sammler, der gleich bei mehreren Ausstellern fündig geworden war. Ähnlich positiv äußerten sich viele der Besucherinnen und Besucher, die beinahe ebenso zahlreich wie in den Vorjahren durch die Gänge flanierten und die Exponate bewunderten: Autographen studierten, in Erstausgaben blätterten oder über den Erwerb von dekorativer Grafik grübelten.
This year's California Antiquarian Book Fair will include a special exhibit from The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, which has a long history of collecting the literary fiction of California.
We spoke to librarian and curator of the special exhibit, Randal S. Brandt about the library and its collections and why the special exhibit was chosen for this year's California fair.
The organisers of the 2017 Paris Salon International du Livre Rare and the French association Syndicat National de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne (SLAM) have just announced the Guest of Honour of the 2017 Salon. Unique in France, the Franco-American Museum of Blérancourt is dedicated to the transatlantic relationship and was founded by Anne Morgan, daughter of the American banker and collector Pierpont Morgan, as part of his participation of the reconstruction of the Picardie after WWI.
The 56th Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair will soon open its doors (27-29th January) and presents 72 exhibitors from Germany, Great Britain, the United States, Switzerland, Austria, France and the Netherlands showing rare and valuable medieval manuscripts, books, autographs, and modern prints. The fair is affiliated to ILAB, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers and organised by the German association, Verband der Antiquare. The fair organisers have just released some bibliophile treasures and true highlights that will be available for sale at the fair.
ILAB joins UNESCO in its activities to fight illiteracy worldwide. On UNESCO World Book and Copyright a series of ILAB Pop Up Fairs will be organized across the world - from Australia to Asia, South Africa, Europe and the United States. On all these fairs you will find amazing rare books for sale - and an opportunity to buy "symbolic books" to fill a "symbolic book case" and thereby to donate money to the UNESCO projects in South Sudan.
The average American eats eleven pounds of chocolate per year. Though its form has changed over the millennia, chocolate is one of the few foods that earned a prized place among cultures around the world. Though often overlooked, it's played a significant role in the global economy. Cacao was long an important crop in Cuba, but it was overshadowed by both sugar cane and coffee. Its role in colonial Cuba was especially important in the tumultuous 1800′s, as the colony struggled to overcome economic crisis and gain its independence from Spain.
Online: Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) - Union Catalogue of Incunabula (GKW) - Munich Incunabula Collection - INKA Catalogue of Incunabula, Tübingen - L. Hain, Repertorium bibliographicum - W. A. Copinger, Supplement to Hain's Repertorium Bibliographicum - Dietrich Reichling, Appendices ad Hainii-Copingeri - M. Pellechet, Catalogue Général des Incunables des Bibliothèques publiques de France - Alfred W. Pollard et al., Catalogue of books mostly from the presses of the first printers showing the progress of printing with movable metal types through the second half of the 15th century - Bancroft Library of Incunabula - History of the Book Title
In days of old, it is said, herds of buffalo stretched twenty-five miles across the great plains of America; flocks of carrier pigeons darkened the sky for hours as they flew past. That's the way it was, more or less, last Friday at the opening of the 39th Annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. The enormous opening-night line stretched all the way up the spacious Hynes lobby and into the rotunda adjacent to the Prudential shopping mall.
The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) was founded in 1949. In the same year Laurence Gomme, the first ABAA President, attended the 2nd ILAB Congress in London as an observer, and a year later the American Association was officially welcomed as a new member of the League during the 3rd Congress in Paris. It took only a few more years until the ILAB affiliates were invited to the United States: to New York in 1955, and again in 1959. The 12th ILAB Congress was held in New York from 20th to 25th September, 1959. And it was bigger than ever before.
