Reiner Speck

Professor Dr. Reiner Speck

The German Antiquarian Booksellers' Association (VDA) is delighted to announce that Professor Dr. Reiner Speck has been awarded the ILAB Patron of Honour for his outstanding contributions to the world of books and the antiquarian book trade.

Professor Dr. Reiner Speck is not only an internationally renowned scientist and author of numerous books, articles, lectures, essays and reviews on medicine, art and literature. He owns the world’s famous collections of Petrarca and Marcel Proust. And even more important: Reiner Speck, founder of the German Marcel Proust Society and the Dr. Speck Literary Foundation, does not keep his treasures in secret. His Bibliotheca Proustiana and his Bibliotheca Petrarchesca are presented to the public in a magnificent library building created by one of Germany’s foremost modern architects, Oswald Mathias Ungers. This „casa senza qualità” is more than a library and a museum: It is a centre of research and the very heart of book collecting and bibliophily in Germany.

ILAB Patrons of Honour have not only achieved world renown in their own fields, they are scholars, scientists, authors, artists, editors, librarians - and book collectors. Through their avid devotion to the world of books and manuscripts they have become our customers, partners and inspiration. Without them our book culture, the antiquarian book trade and bibliophily would be poorer, or non-existent. Their collections, libraries and foundations, the books and bibliographies they write and publish, enrich our cultural life, and even more: They lay the cornerstone for a lively book culture of our future generations. For this, the ILAB Patrons of Honour deserve our sincere gratitude.

(Official press release of the German Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association VDA).