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.
Last Saturday, the "heart of literacy" lay in Baden, next to Vienna. Dr. Paul Kainbacher launched the ILAB Pop Up Week in his antiquarian bookshop with a Bibliophile Evening dedicated to rare books on the history and exploration of Africa. The elegant rooms were crowded with books and visitors who enjoyed the lectures given by Walter Sauer and Martin Peter Pfitscher, both renowned authors and leading experts from the University of Vienna. Walter Sauer, Professor of Economic and Social History, compared Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" with the experiences of Austrian travelers to Central Africa, while Martin Peter Pfitscher, specialist in Ethnology, took the visitors on a photographic tour to Africa seen through the lense of author, adventurer and photographer Oscar Baumann.
This month marked the 100th anniversary of Syndicat Nationale de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne, better known to the rare book world as SLAM. In conjunction with this momentous occasion, SLAM not only hosted the International Antiquarian Book Fair at Paris' Grand Palais but also followed this by coordinating the 2014 ILAB Congress, April 13 to 16, whereat over 100 colleagues from around the globe gathered to celebrate not only their vocation, but also their avocation.
Both the book fair and the Congress were fantastic events where numerous bibliophilic treasures were seen by all that attended. These bookish wonders aside, the collegiality alone would have made the trip worthwhile – though the exceptional food and wine cannot be discounted! In honor of our Parisian adventure, Tavistock Books is pleased to present a list of books connected to France and French. Should you have a question about any item, please don't hesitate to contact us.
On Friday, 26th October 2012, Karl Hartung died peacefully at the age of 98. He was the oldest member of the German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (VDA), and he was the ideal and guide for generations of younger colleagues. In many ways Karl Hartung was one of the most distinguished personalities of our profession and one of the oldest active professional booksellers in the world. Until the end, he was not only mentally alert, but funny, charming and almost omniscient.
A few years ago, in the course of one of my hyper-dramatized but mostly benign financial panics, I decided to stop issuing printed catalogs. Though I loved, and was proud of, my catalogs, they cost nearly of $4 each, and seemed to serve primarily as a vehicles for frustrated customers to complain about my grossly unfair manner of distributing them, or excuses for non-ordering pedants to inform me of the many grammatical and spelling errors they contained. ... Read Greg Gibson's plea for the printed catalogue!
