On November 11, 2017, the Archipelagus Orientalis (Eastern Archipelago), created by master cartographer Joan Blaeu in 1663, was officially revealed at the National Library of Australia, after extensive restoration.
ILAB bookseller Kay Craddock was recently awarded the Lord Mayor's Commendation, an initiative by the City of Melbourne that recognizes small businesses that have operated continuously for at least 50 years. An idea that could be replicated in other cities.
Thirty of the world's leading specialist dealers in rare books, manuscripts, maps and photography will gather in Hong Kong, 17-19th November, to showcase some of the most precious and notable collector's items.
Now in its third consecutive year, sixteen leading antiquarian booksellers will take part in BUCH WIEN, Austria's literary festival also known as Vienna International Book Fair. For the first time, one of the oldest and most reputable antiquarian bookshops of Vienna, Christian Nebehay, will be amongst the exhibitors.
Rare book blog Booktryst has just announced the publication of its newest book and first fine press edition, The Remarkable Martin Stone: Remembering the Celebrated Rare Book Dealer and Blues Guitarist.
The book honours and remembers the life of Martin Stone with contributions from colleagues in the book trade, writers, actors, friends and book collectors.
A Commonplace Reformation: Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Add. A. 92 - Martin Luther's Autograph Collection of Proverbs. This manuscript is one of two in the Bodleian's possession which are written in Martin Luther's own hand, and, running to 40 pages, is by far the more substantial - though, about the size of a postcard, it remains small. It is a collection of proverbs (Sprichwörter), mostly in German, and dating from some point in the later 1530s or early 1540s. It was acquired by the Bodleian for £45 in 1865 - the "carelessness and poverty" of German libraries and museums for allowing this to happen was later lamented.
The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of Italy (ALAI) has just announced, it will change its fair concept for 2018 without compromising ILAB standards. ILAB booksellers worldwide adhere, without compromise, to highest standards, regulated and bound to a Code of Usages and Customs.
The annual fall gathering for booklovers, the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston's beautiful Back Bay for its 41st year, November 10-12, 2017. More than 120 dealers from the United States, Argentina, Australia, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, and Russia will exhibit and sell a vast selection of rare, collectible and antiquarian books, illuminated manuscripts, autographs, maps, atlases, modern first editions, photographs, and fine and decorative prints.
Travel lies are as old as literature itself, or perhaps even older. Sailors, the quintessential travellers, are well known for their sailor's yarns. And how better to impress the stay-at-homes than with stories of sea serpents, dwarfs, giants, headless or dog-faced people in faraway places? This was much more satisfying than telling of hard work, bad food and low pay.
Although perhaps largely forgotten now, Giambattista Casti (1724–1803), Salieri's favoured librettist in Vienna in the 1780s, was notorious in his day, with a reputation for syphilis - Pushkin later wrote of the 'noseless Casti' in his lyric 'K vel'mozhe' ('To a Grandee', 1830) - and 'for writing witty, salacious satires, as a sort of obscene, Italian Voltaire.
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol has become a beloved part of the literary canon – and for many an indispensable part of the holiday season. The story embodies the goodwill associated with the Christmas season – and it has the Victorians' favorite elements of a good Christmas story: ghosts. Dickens wrote other Christmas tales that also incorporated phantoms and ghosts, as did his Victorian cohorts. But why this obsession with ghosts at Christmas time?
The first major antiquarian book fair of the year in America, the California International Antiquarian Book Fair will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2017!
From the 25th of October until the 11th of November, I visited the antiquarian booksellers in the capitals of the Southern South American countries of Chile, Uruguay and Argentina. The first book published in the Americas was published in Mexico in the 16th century and thus Latin America has had a rich and long history of printing and publishing and therefore is an important part of the global history and culture of the book.
