That so important Date of Publication is not specified

August 20, 2013
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Ah, wouldn’t it be nice if every book you came across contained a set of standard information no matter who the publisher is? It would be nice if antiquarian books contained a page similar to the one contained in modern editions on the copyright page, with the edition, printing, state, copyright date, date of publication, […]

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Mutilated, Altered, Grangerized, Razored, and Bowdlerized Books

August 13, 2013
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Unfortunately, sometimes book collectors get a taste of what is considered a bad purchasing experience. Often times they realize that the book that raised their pulse rate did not turn out as expected. Sometimes a book bought online may just not have been adequately described or the smell from fungi present in a book turned […]

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Beautifully illustrated Knave of Hearts

August 6, 2013
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To the truly dedicated lover of art, the works of Maxfield Parrish rank at a culminating pinnacle. Indeed, to fix one’s gaze on Parrish’s wondrous illustrations is to escape into a magical world of whimsy, charm, and, as is characteristic of Parrish’s works, a delightful dash of humor. It should come as no surprise then, that […]

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Jack Kerouac’s Material America

July 30, 2013
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In the introduction of Robert Frank’s landmark photography collection The Americans, Jack Kerouac described Frank’s plaintive black and white images as: “That crazy feeling in America, when the sun is hot on the streets and the music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral.” It was originally published by Robert Delpire in […]

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The Andy Warhol Book Covers that the Art World Overlooked

July 23, 2013
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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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Book Collectors’ Appetite for The Very Hungry Caterpillar

July 16, 2013
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While the renowned author and illustrator Eric Carle may be best known for his phenomenal work of children’s literature, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, it may come as a surprise that he additionally illustrated seventy more books, most of which were of his own creation. In today’s book market there are an unabashed 100 million copies […]

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Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 2nd Quarter 2013

July 9, 2013
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During the last quarter, current political events had an impact on book sales of certain genre relative to a particular topic. A number of rare book journals and organizations reported that sales for George Orwell’s classic 1984, for instance, have skyrocketed in the wake of the National Security Agency scandal.  1984 makes a good summer […]

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Mapping America

July 2, 2013
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Beyond The Golden Age of Dutch cartography which produced some of the most spectacular Dutch sea charts, or “Pascaartes,” with cartographers Johannes Blaeu and Abraham Ortelius, and Dutch atlas publishers Gerard Mercator and Hondius & Janssonius , the 16th century brought the earliest map to depict America as separate from Asia. The northeast coast of […]

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Letter from Greece

June 25, 2013
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For quite a while now, I have wanted to put down to paper some thoughts about the situation here in Greece regarding the book binding profession and the broader bibliophile interests in general. I could not say that people in Europe have lost their interest in books as a direct result of the financial crisis. […]

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Books – read them, collect them, love them

June 13, 2013
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     With the starry explosion of books in electronic form on the market, many theories have been made as to what position books in their natural form will now be ranked. While there are some who argue that printed books will cease to exist in a mere matter of time, others more optimistically believe that […]

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