For the first time in its 43 year history, the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) have united to publish a joint catalogue containing nearly $1,000,000 of rare books, manuscripts and artworks for sale.
Access to reliable and relevant information is vital in a time of crisis. Many of our colleagues are concerned about the following weeks and months, have spend weeks re-organizing the business, were forced to lock up shops, send staff on leave or furlough or are simply in lockdown at home.
Events and fairs in the rare book world were cancelled or postponed all over the world. Now is the time to stand together as a worldwide trade.
AMOR LIBRORUM NOS UNIT - THE LOVE OF BOOKS UNITES US.
Fitzgerald, all but forgotten at the time of his death in 1940, is now one of the most eagerly collected American authors. His first two books This Side of Paradise and Flappers and Philosophers (both 1920) are very uncommon ...
Though often referred to as the Second City, Chicago is second to none in terms of its rich cultural heritage, iconic architecture, sports fandom, and inventive takes on comfort food staples like the pizza hotdog and the red hot. But The Windy City is also home to a literary tradition rivaled by very few cities across the country, with some of America's most renowned writers calling Chicago their home ...
A bookplate (or ex libris) is a label placed inside a book to mark ownership. The rise of bookplates occurred concurrently with the advent of printing from moveable type, whilst the collecting of bookplates arose in Britain in the early nineteenth-century as an offshoot of the genteel pastime of collecting coats of arms into albums. The Ex Libris Society was formed in London in 1891 and lasted into the early years of the twentieth-century. In Australia, bookplate collecting and owning a bookplate became the height of fashion among the cultured between the World Wars. In recent years, there has again been increasing interest in bookplates among book lovers and artists, and societies have been formed in Melbourne and Sydney.
Blues seemed to be the most qualified subject: In the last decade or so, this musical form has started to enter the mainstream and more people are aware of it than ever before (by one count, blues has appeared in 60 different television commercials). Yet few realize that a decent size literature has accrued over the last century and that many of the books are quite collectible and intensely sought after ...
"Collecting books is about passion, not words. "There is nothing at all like the frisson one gets opening a book catalog and paging through, looking for treasures," says Annette Campbell-White, a prominent book collector and venture capitalist from New Zealand." Snippets from an excellent article by Goran Mijuk in The Wall Street Journal, mentioning the ILAB site as one of the best places for book collecting in modern times.
William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Bette Davis, John Keats, Sylvia Plath and, of course, Oscar Wilde whose grave in Paris is always covered with red lipstick kisses. The memorial - a naked birdman - was unveiled in 1914, but it had to be covered up because of complaints about the figure's exposed genitals. Oscar Wilde's grave on the Père Lachaise is a tourist attraction, as well as Jim Morrison's grave nearby.
