An educational and informational site about rare, old and antiquarian books.
In 1906, an American humorist by the name of Gelett Burgess authored the book “Are You a Bromide?” On the back of its dust jacket the book featured a picture of a young, fictional woman Miss Belinda Blurb, in the act of blurbing – “YES, this is a ‘BLURB’!” And so the term “blurb” was coined. […]
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Ever since the Codex Seraphinianus was first published in 1981, the book has been recognized as one of the weirdest and most enigmatic art books ever created. Luigi Serafini , the book’s author and illustrator has also taken on projects as an architect, ceramist, glazier, painter, sculptor, designer, opera director, set designer, and critic. As […]
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Controversy and censorship usually rally positive media support that results in more interest and favorable contribution towards a book’s demand. Publicity from censorship is quite easy to generate in a world where ideological agendas are backed by media organizations and special interests groups. Book censorship has been with us for quite some time and it […]
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In 1975 in a book he called From A to B & Back Again, Andy Warhol wrote “up until a year ago I was a real nobody in Italy. I was somebody-maybe-in Germany and England-which is why I no longer go to those countries-but in Italy they couldn’t even spell my name.” Warhol must have […]
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Luigi Serafini’s tribute celebration to Jules Renard’s Histoires Naturelles or The Natural Stories of the eternal vitality of natural history is a whimsical book of botanical constructions, with leaves forming a forest of enchanted trees and animated and mutant plants. This herbarium of imaginary plants comes to life in a botanical fantasy painted by the […]
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Let’s assume for a moment that we are in the market for a first edition copy of Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald from 1934. We may be an American literature collector of modern first editions or a fan of Fitzgerald or even a beautiful art dust jacket collector. We want to purchase […]
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On September 1, 1939 4:45am Central European Time, the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein leaves Danzig harbor to cross the channel to the Polish army fortress Westerplatte while German Wehrmacht begin crossing the border into Poland. It is the beginning of World War II. At the same time across the Atlantic in the United States, two partners […]
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Here is a piece of advice to all the collectors out there – next time you come across an opportunity, grab it. I am, of course, referring to the opportunity to make a purchase of a desirable rare book if and when that unexpected chance arrives. Last November at the Fine Books & Manuscripts Skinner […]
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I picked up a book at a library sale the other day that seemed to be quite interesting. It contained a set of Chinese paper-cuts on each page, tipped in along with Chinese postage stamps. I could not identify any of the contributors to the work, but it did have the pages printed in both […]
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With thousands of rare book websites available, finding information on rare books can seem less time-consuming than ever before. There is now no need to run to the library to peruse the reference section for pricing catalogues that are current and detailed enough to indicate an accurate valuation. It no longer seems, however, that the […]
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