Indeed, “Books don’t just furnish a room,” Michael Dirda writes in Browsings. “. . . Digital texts are all well and good, but books on shelves are a presence in your life. As such, they become a part of your day-to-day existence, reminding you, chastising you, calling to you. Plus, book collecting is, hands down, the greatest pastime in the world.”
The Paris Review, 7th September 2018: In 2017, Honey & Wax Booksellers established an annual prize for American women book collectors, aged 30 years and younger. The idea took shape when Heather O’Donnell and Rebecca Romney, the bookstore’s owners, observed that “the women who regularly buy books from us are less likely to call themselves 'collectors' than the men, even when those women have spent years passionately collecting books."
The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), member association of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, ILAB has just announced a new book collecting prize for young collectors, recognizing the next generation of bibliophiles! Deadline: 1 December 2018!
“I belong to that class of unfortunate beings who are addicted to a habit which it is not easy to break off. This sounds alarming, but let me assure you that neither drug nor dram is the cause of my undoing, and that I have no intention of following in the foot-steps of the English Opium-Eater. The truth is that I am a bibliophile, and I suffer a complaint common to the tribe, namely a feverish appetite which can only be assuaged by choice tit-bits in the form of ancient quartos and duodecimos”.
The 2017-18 Colin Franklin Prize for book-collecting has been awarded to Ekaterina Shatalova (Keble College), for her collection of works by and about Edward Lear (1812-1888), the poet and illustrator famous for limericks in "A Book of Nonsense", and for poems recounting the nautical adventures of "The Owl and the Pussycat" and the "Jumblies" ('who went to sea in a sieve').
Arthur der Weduwen, PHD candidate at the University of St. Andrews in the UK, has just received the James D. Forbes Collecting Prize which has been awarded annually since its inauguration in 2015. The prize is named after the university's famous graduate and later professor (1833) and principal (1859), James David Forbes (1809 - 1868). Arthur der Weduwen has permitted ILAB to publish his report here.
In his 1930 work on book collecting, Anatomy of Bibliomania, Holbrook Jackson claimed that "book love is as masculine (although not as common) as growing a beard." Times have changed; the recent inauguration of a new book collecting prize by New York bookseller Honey & Wax, "an annual prize of $1000 to be awarded to an outstanding book collection conceived and built by a young woman", is possibly the final nail in the coffin of the idea that bibliophilia is a man's pursuit.
Ten famous book "hoarders" were selected for this article by Emily Temple for Lithub.com, published on 22 June 2017. Book collecting is a passion and lifelong occupation. Some celebrity collectors are named in the article; fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld, TV chef and author Nigella Lawson, filmmaker and producer George Lucas and more. While we might disagree with the term "hoarder", this is an interesting insight into the world of book collecting. To build a valuable and curated collection, it is advisable to contact or work with a bookseller affiliated to the International League of Antiquarian Books (ILAB).
Depuis quelques années notre profession connaît de profondes mutations. On nous parle de plus en plus du livre électronique, et il n'est pas difficile de comprendre que dans quelques années le livre papier ne sera plus la référence en matière de support de la culture. J'avais déjà anticipé cela en 2002 dans un autre article intitulé "Quel avenir pour le livre ancien" dans lequel je disais que le livre ancien échappera sans doute à l'effondrement général du marché du livre neuf, car le livre ancien restera une valeur de collection. Comme je le disais alors " plus le décalage entre le livre de consommation courante et le livre ancien sera grand, plus ce dernier sera valorisé en tant qu'objet de convoitise et donc de collection ». Il y aura donc en effet toujours des amateurs exigeants pour de belles reliures en cuir, de beaux livres illustrés sur beau papier, des manuscrits originaux, etc... Peut-on en effet réellement comparer ces beaux objets du passé à un livre électronique ? le livre ancien a donc un futur !
We celebrate literary giant John Milton, author of Paradise Lost. His poetry profoundly influenced English literature and in particular the works of William Wordsworth, William Blake, Alexander Pope, and John Keats. Now, over three centuries since his death, Milton remains one of the greatest of all English poets.
The final report from the 2017 Stuttgart International Antiquarian Book Fair has just been published by the German Booksellers Association VdA (Verband der Antiquare). Ein derart tolles Angebot wie in diesem Jahr hätte es auf der Antiquariatsmesse schon länger nicht mehr gegeben, schwärmte ein Sammler, der gleich bei mehreren Ausstellern fündig geworden war. Ähnlich positiv äußerten sich viele der Besucherinnen und Besucher, die beinahe ebenso zahlreich wie in den Vorjahren durch die Gänge flanierten und die Exponate bewunderten: Autographen studierten, in Erstausgaben blätterten oder über den Erwerb von dekorativer Grafik grübelten.
When I was 8 years old, my mother took me to the public library in Van Buren, Arkansas to get me my first library card. I will never forget how the card had a little silver plate embedded in the paper. It was probably the first thing I had ever been given, other than birthday cakes, that had my name printed on it. Mom had checked books out for me in the past, but this time I got to pick out my own. She instructed me on the basics: pick out just one I really thought I would like, then I could read it, return it, and get another one. I had read some juvenile science fiction, but felt I was now ready for some grown-up stuff. The book I checked out was Ray Bradbury's S is for Space. Definitely my first memory of a dust jacket that utterly reeled me in, and what an author photo! He looked every bit as eerie and unfathomable as the stuff of his stories.
Sophie Schneideman has been an international rare book and print dealer for over 28 years, serving a long apprenticeship at Maggs Bros, an eminent book firm in Mayfair, and dealing as Sophie Schneideman Rare Books since 2007.
