Booksellers affiliated to ILAB are based in 37 countries worldwide, organised in 22 national associations. The Czech antiquarian bookseller’s association, Svaz Antikváru ČR, one of ILAB's smaller member associations, currently counts 14 members across the country.
ILAB congratulates Australian bookseller Douglas Stewart on his appointment as new President of the Australian and New Zealand booksellers association.
ILAB spoke to one of the newer members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association, Anke Timmermann who jointly owns and runs the business Type & Forme with her partner Mark James: "...the printed book and manuscripts have lost none of their allure in the new millennium, and antiquarian books are arguably even better appreciated in recent years ... Social media, especially Instagram, have brought forth a new generation of bibliophiles..."
Treglown, who operates from an office in Macclesfield, believes he is the first president of the venerable ABA – the world’s oldest art trade association – to come from “north of the Watford Gap”.
Before the opening of the 56th Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair, we spoke to Götz Kocher-Benzing of Stuttgarter Antiquariat and asked why Stuttgart is still such an attractive place to buy and browse and trade in antiquarian books.
By the book: Bringing antiquarian bookselling into the 21st century
Pom Harrington on the thrill of selling first editions of Shakespeare, Shackleton and Churchill
Does anyone know of any antiquarian booksellers in Iran? Follow Hugh Myers, cataloguer and researcher at Hordern House (Sydney, Australia), on his amazing trip through the country.
Away to Scotland for a rather special rare book trade occasion last week. A retirement party for our old friend Elizabeth Strong (McNaughtan's Bookshop) – not just a retirement party but also a welcome party for Derek and Anna Walker, who are taking over this much-loved bookshop on Haddington Place from Elizabeth. A big day for her, but perhaps an ever bigger one for them. The closing of one era, the opening of another – a passing on of the baton from one generation to the next. A time for celebration. A time for reflection. A goodish crowd of bookish folk. Edinburgh stalwart Ian Watson (John Updike Rare Books) was there. Cooper Hay had come over from Glasgow. Andrew Hunter (Blackwell's Rare Books) was up from Oxford. Family, friends, customers. A few choice words from our president, Oscar Graves-Johnston. A few words of farewell, welcome and introduction from Elizabeth. A few words of appreciation and anticipation from the Walkers.
The ultimate guide to the identification of British antique maps and their makers: An illustrated dictionary of over 1,500 members of the map trade in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, of British-born engravers working overseas and foreign engravers working in the British Isles, from the beginnings until the mid 19th century. Included are all the known engravers and lithographers, globemakers and retailers, the principal map sellers and publishers, key cartographers, makers of map-based games and puzzles, but also the remarkable lives of many artists, dealers and publishers, whose fates have been unknown so far.
The most expensive book at the fair is to be found at Heribert Tenschert's stand. It is a chivalric epos for € 2 400 000: Wirnt von Grafenberg, »Wigolois mit dem Rade«. This is one of the last manuscripts of a Middle High German chivalric epos in private hands. It is also one of only two illustrated manuscripts of this important text, and by far the more complete one. It stems from the Fürstenberg Collection of Donaueschingen and is an illuminated manuscript on paper with 31 large or full-page miniatures from the scriptorium of Diebold Lauber, and can be dated before 1418.
Herman Henrik Julius Lynge (November 13, 1822 - May 12, 1897) was a Danish antiquarian bookseller. He continued and owned the first antiquarian bookshop in Scandinavia, now "Herman H. J. Lynge & Søn A/S". Lynge was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, as the son of a bookbinder. At a very young age, before he was even confirmed, he began his apprenticeship as a bookseller, and the shop in which he took his education was carefully chosen by his father, Henrik Berndt Lynge. His master was Christian Tønder Sæbye (1789-1844), who had started his bookshop, initially a second-hand shop focusing on books, in 1821 on Gothersgade 26. After his apprenticeship, Lynge continued to work in the company, and when Sæbye died in 1844, the young man, only aged twenty-two, took over as manager of the bookshop, which was still owned by the Sæbye family. In 1853 Lynge was able to buy the shop from the family at the price of 1,000 rix-dollars, and at the same time he took out a trade licence as a bookseller. In the first years the cholera was harrying Copenhagen, and Lynge is said to have done great business at the time due to the large number of private libraries offered for sale; he was the only proper "antiquarian bookseller" in Denmark, and he often spited the danger of infection and personally collected the large number of books in the homes of the ill.
Paper plays a subsidiary role in book production. It is the basic substance of which books are made, yet almost never impinges upon their communicative function. It serves as a mute vehicle of text, rarely noticed except when it fails of its purpose, when defects inherent in its manufacture impede the transmission and preservation of printed information.
