Un demi-siècle après l’invention de l’imprimerie, avant que la Renaissance ne laisse place aux Guerres de Religion, le livre est à la fois l’acteur principal et un témoin privilégié de ces bouleversements.
In September 2018, Deborah Coltham writes: As one of a series of informal talks organised at the Battersea Book Fair in May, I was asked to talk about the growing number of Women in the Book Trade.
“Amor Librorum Nos Unit” is the motto of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, ILAB, the international trade body for the rare book trade uniting booksellers across 36 countries. The motto has been quoted many times over the last few days and particularly the last few hours following an agreement with AbeBooks to reverse its decision to withdraw from a number of international markets.
By 6th November 2018, over 550 booksellers had sent their books "on vacation", pausing their listing on AbeBooks. The protest by rare booksellers worldwide resulted in an unprecedented echo in the media.
“I have decided to put my books on (permanent) vacation on ABE in solidarity with fellow booksellers in the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Korea and Russia. I hope you might like to follow suit.”
In response to AbeBooks' recent announcement to withdraw from several markets and the closure of booksellers' accounts by 30 November 2018, the Antiquarian Booksellers Association declines a sponsorship deal with the London Rare Book Fair "Firsts" in 2019.
"An autographed copy of a first edition kicks it up to something special - and hard to reproduce on a Kindle or iPhone", writes Tom Post in Forbes Magazine. "Autographed first editions are a cool way to collect rare books." However: "Forgers think so, too." Some snippets ...
"As I stood admiring the book and ruminating on its worth, that wise and shrewd bookseller, Bill Fletcher, doyen of the British trade, and a man some thirty years my senior in both age and experience, came up to me. 'What are you looking at, my son?' he inquired. I told him. 'What's so special about that then? he asked. I explained. 'Then why don't you buy it?' Bill said ... I replied to the effect that were I to buy it with a view to selling it again, I would in effect be trading gold for gold. 'Shall I tell you something, my son?' Bill responded. 'The price of gold [pause] is going up!'" (Anthony Rota, Books in the Blood). Keith Fletcher recounts the life and personality of his father, the doyen of the trade and former owner of H.M. Fletcher Rare Books: Bill Fletcher.
One of the few artists to gain true celebrity from illustrating children's books, Kate Greenaway was one of the most influential illustrators of her age. Greenaway, along with Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane, revolutionized illustration. Popular in both Europe and the United States, Greenaway has remained highly sought after, even among contemporary children's book collectors.
One of the questions I've been asked most often in recent years is "Which is better -- having a book just signed by the author or having it inscribed?" In general my answer has been that the more writing by the author in a book, the better.
I'm curious to hear from readers about how, or whether, the concept of 'rarity' entered your lives, and how it has expressed itself. Have you become, like Warren, a passionate collector of some obscure and wonderful class of object? Or, like me, become a dealer - that is, someone with all of the instincts, but none of the patience, of a collector? Or were you that guy out in the Best Buy parking lot at 3 in the morning? And how have other circumstances in your life - relative wealth or poverty; marriage and children; career, religion, race, politics, sexual orientation - how do you reckon these have informed your collecting (or non-collecting) habits?
