For as long as I've been around there has existed a controversy over whether bookselling should be considered a trade or a profession. Well here is the answer and like all great truths it is succinct. Bookselling is a trade: Bookscouting is a profession.
De retour de la Foire de Stuttgart, je ne résiste pas à l'envie de vous faire partager quelques réflexions un peu malicieuses inspirées par l'observation d'un stand assez surréaliste et qui trônait près de l'entrée de la Foire.
There is far more information available today than ever before about what books are out there, what they are priced, etc. There are also far more books actually available to any given buyer than ever before, and as well there are more potential customers more readily available to dealers than has ever been the case before ...
It has always been my intention, since I began writing this column for Rare Book Review, to alternate chatty and anecdotal essays on bookish topics, with magisterial, carefully researched articles replete with detailed and incisive commentary on topics of immediate and vital interest to the rare book world. Thus after my self-indulgent and rambling article on poetry in the last issue, I was scheduled to reveal several exciting discoveries that would significantly forward the art and science of bibliography. And with that intention did I gather my copious research materials, as Heidi and I left for the weekend to our tiny cottage retreat by the shore in Cape May Point.
"The hotly anticipated Books in Hard Times conference held at the Grolier Club on September 22, 2009 drew 150 collectors, booksellers, and librarians. The usual suspects were in attendance along with a few new and young faces. One might have expected the mood to be dark and somber, but even before the opening remarks, the tenor of conversation in the audience was optimistic."
"On a cold Tuesday in Beijing, steam rose ghost-like from sewer grates in the wide, car-choked streets. The towering buildings, monuments to China's new wealth, stood a lonely watch as thickly bundled people hustled from heated lobby to taxi and back again. Street vendors' breath hung in a crystalline mist over full carts of fresh candied mandarin slices, twisted fried bread and roasted sweet potatoes ..."
During the last 15-20 years Russia has experienced a significant increase of public interest in collecting antiques, including old and rare books, and as a consequence - intensive development of the antique trade. This is confirmed by numerous facts: increase of the number of antique shops and dealers; enlargement of their stock; improvement of traditional and development of new technologies of the trade ...
It isn't easy being a bookseller these days. We are being assaulted from every side, by what seems to be progress, or at least that's what people call it. A few years ago I referred in print to the current explosion of instant world-wide communication technology as the Electronic revolution, comparing it to the Industrial revolution of the 19th century. I continued by pointing out that just as people living in the midst of that industrial explosion of mass manufacturing could hardly have foreseen the long-term effects of that major cataclysm ...
I am the owner of Barry R. Levin Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, a firm of rare book dealers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and I was discussing with her the acquisition of a manuscript written by one of her authors. When I say manuscript, I mean the physical artifact — the words on the paper. Manuscripts are the most important literary collectible and over the years my firm has handled many of the major ones, a number of them for award-winning novels. We always try to purchase all notes and drafts, so that the creative process can be traced from the original idea to the final setting-copy. To that end I asked Perkins to make sure that her client included in the final manuscript package the final draft, the setting-copy (this is the manuscript copy sent to publisher from which the publisher's printer sets the type). She told me that the author had submitted his copy on a disk - that no setting-copy was sent to the publisher at all. From the standpoint of collectors, archivists and literary scholars, this has to be the last straw.
The Art Newspaper reports: "The foundations of a Roman building that is probably the oldest library in Germany have been uncovered in central Cologne in archaeological excavations..."
Eric Gill was born February 22, 1882. A talented sculptor, typographer, and illustrator, Gill's life was a study in contrasts. A deeply religious Roman Catholic who believed that sexuality was an expression of the divine, and an artist who defiantly characterized himself as a workman in the medieval tradition while his statues, illustrations, and typefaces adorned the modern buildings and pages of his era, Gill unified seemingly opposing ideas in his life and work.
For the first time ever the Hungarian rare book dealers invite colleagues and collectors from across the world to Budapest. The 42nd ILAB Congress and 26th ILAB International Antiquarian Book Fair from 21 to 25 September 2016 will present Budapest as one of the most beautiful cities and one of the most fascinating book capitals in Europe. Before the first International ILAB Congress and Fair in Budapest in September, we would like you to have a glimpse into its programme. First of all, we have prepared a brief series on the most prestigious libraries of Budapest.
Neither of my kids, doubtless traumatized by having a bookseller for a father, is much of a reader, but both are splendidly visually literate. He's a photographer and she's a florist. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and all that other stuff I don't know how to work, is about images, not words. That's how we communicate with one another these days. Even our book descriptions depend on images now. Rare is the catalog that is not lavishly illustrated, and if our online listings hope to have any chance of selling, they'd better feature plenty of images. We're in the cradle period of images and imaging. Some day soon images will be text, and text will be arcane. We will be practitioners of black arts.
John Turner's new bibliography is an essential guide for any devotee of Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit and of illustrators of children's books during this period. Illustrated with eight pages of color photographs, it contains over 300 entries published between 1904 and 1980.
