Leona Rostenberg, who died Thursday at age 96, was one of New York’s outstanding rare book dealers, and half of a remarkable team of literary sleuths who discovered the secret “blood-and-thunder” writings of Louisa May Alcott.
Max Israel, antiquarian bookseller and publisher, died on Friday October 12, 2001 at the age of 85. He was one of the last representatives of a generation of antiquarian booksellers who founded flourishing companies, mostly in Amsterdam, after the second World War; companies that were soon highly respected both at home and abroad.
We are very sorry to report the death of Anthony Rota, peacefully on Sunday 13th December. There will be a private family cremation. Details of a memorial service will be announced in the new year. Anthony Rota was President of the ABA from 1971 to 1972, a long-serving ILAB Committee Member, Treasurer and Vice-President, President of the ILAB from 1988 to 1991, and subsequently an ILAB President of Honour ...
The death of Alan Shelley from cancer at the age of 68 on November 18th at Chailey Hospice, near Lewes, is an occasion of great sadness to his family and to his many friends both within and without the rare book trade. He had resigned from the Presidency of the ABA only three weeks before on the grounds of ill health after a notably successful spell at a difficult time in the Association's affairs.
In November 2014, professional antiquarian booksellers from Denmark, Sweden, Finland, England, Austria, France, and Hungary will gather in Copenhagen for one of the biggest antiquarian book fairs ever held in Scandinavia. The Danish Antiquarian Booksellers Association, ABF, is excited to be hosting the annual fair, which alternates between Oslo, Stockholm, and Copenhagen. Apart from the many books on all subjects and in all price-ranges which will be offered for sale by the antiquarian booksellers, private book collectors will present treasures from their libraries in a number of exhibtions, featuring for example:
When I first wrote about a World Rare Book Day on the blog only last September (see the post of that title) it was an idea still in the making. The charity tie-in with UNESCO was hoped for but not confirmed. Most of the events not even thought of. I am just absolutely thrilled that it has all come together so successfully. Huge congratulations to all concerned, especially my good friends Norbert Donhofer, Sally Burdon and Barbara van Benthem – you can see the full extent of what they have achieved on the official blog at http://ilabpopupbookfairs.blogspot.co.uk/ ... What a day it is going to be. It is all turning out just as imagined, kicking off with a Shakespeare first folio on display in Sydney. An antiquarian book plaza in Tokyo. Events as far afield as Cape Town and Moscow – Zurich, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, Munich, Paris, Antwerp, Copenhagen and elsewhere – books on a barge in Amsterdam, books at Haarlem Central railway station, a pop-up of pop-ups in Sweden, a fair at the Middle Temple Library here in London, and then across the Atlantic to New York, Chicago, Washington, Delaware and Seattle – and ending up, as good booksellers everywhere always do, in the pub. This one in Portland, Oregon.
The ILAB and SLAM committees are very pleased to announce that the 2014 ILAB Congress will run in Paris from the 13th to 16th April, 2014, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of SLAM. The Paris Congress will immediately follow the International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Grand Palais scheduled from 10th to 13th of April.
'Until the 1950's, Jack London was by far the most popular American author in Soviet Russia. Over thirteen million copies of his works have been printed since the Revolution. Even today [i.e. 1962] he continues as a popular classic, and it is probable that over the Soviet period as a whole he has been read more widely than any other non-Russian author.
In July 2017, national associations were asked to nominate a young antiquarian bookseller to benefit from the ILAB Congress Scholarship. An outstanding opportunity to meet colleagues and senior experts in the book trade, network and learn about the trade. We would like to use this opportunity to present the four antiquarian booksellers with their interesting and different backgrounds.
This week two spectacular book thefts have gone through the press. The World's famous Codex Calixtinus, worth millions, is missing in Santiago de Compostela. A few days later historian and author Barry H. Landau was arrested on charges of stealing historical documents, including ones signed by Abraham Lincoln, from the Maryland Historical Society. "The arrest eventually led to Landau's locker, where police found upwards of 60 documents worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Laudau's heist and the tremendous value of the stolen documents got us thinking about the other end of the literature theft spectrum: what are the most frequently stolen books from bookstores?"
