There have been many authors over the past century that have been considered forerunners in the art of the Modern Novel. As a matter of fact, we have written about quite a few of them in the past. Some tell-tale signs of modernist literature are a few literary techniques like a stream-of-consciousness voice or interior monologue, and even numerous points-of-view within one work. These techniques are used by a great deal of modernist authors, but perhaps none so pointedly as the creator of the complex Mrs. Dalloway, feminist thinker and free spirit Virginia Woolf. Virginia was born Adeline Virginia Stephen on January 25th, 1882 in Kensington, London. She was born into a mixed family – both of her parents having been married previously with sets of children on both sides. The family was extremely literate – both parents being well connected in the artistic and literary worlds. In 1895 when Virginia was only 13 years old her mother died, followed closely by her half-sister, Stella and brother Thoby. At this point Virginia began to suffer from the nervousness and had the first breakdown of many she would suffer from throughout her life. Despite her nervous nature and brief periods of institutionalization, Virginia began to spend a significant amount of time with a group of writers and artists that was known as the Bloomsbury Group. By 1910 they were thick as thieves, and Virginia and her sister Vanessa along with writers, editors, and artists Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachey, C... [more An Introduction to Virginia Woolf]

ABAA-member Books of Wonder, which specializes in new, classic and collectible children's books, have announced they plan to open a second storefront later this summer in the Upper West Side. Owner Peter Glassman, told the New York Times that he'd been searching for a suitable space for years, but economic conditions had not been optimal for the project. "Now that the city is thriving again the time seemed right to finally expand to the Upper West Side.” The new store will be located on West 84th Street. Books of Wonder owner Peter Glassman at a recent event in the store. Books of Wonder first opened its doors in 1980. It has since outgrown the original "tiny, hole-in-the-wall" storefront in Greenwich Village -- through several bigger and better spaces -- to its current location on 18 West 18th Street. Longtime customer Nora Ephron used Books of Wonder as the inspiration for Meg Ryan's bookstore in the film You've Got Mail -- even to the point of having set designers measure the real store's fixtures and fittings to ensure accurate recreation on set. Unlike Meg Ryan's fictional store, Books of Wonder weathered the superstore explosion and arrival of the internet, and this year celebrates 37 years in business! Designer's mock-up of the new Books of Wonder storefront on West 84th Street. [more Books of Wonder to Open New Store]

The following item has been reported stolen: Title : The Confidence-Man: his masquerade. Authors : Herman Melville Date of publication : 1857. Publisher : Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts., London. Description : First English Edition. 354pp., original dark yellow ochre net grain cloth. Spine a little sunned and gilt lettering dull, otherwise flawless: an exceptional copy. If you have any information on this item, please Charles Cox at charlie@coxnbox.co.uk. [more Stolen: The Confidence Man, his masquerade]

Update: This item has been recovered! The following item has been reported missing: MERRILL, Dana B. (Photographer)w. . (ca 1909-1912). Small oblong 8vo. album. Black textured board, 5.5” x 8” approx. “Brazil” in white album pen to front cover. Photographic map mounted to front pastedown. With 61 vintage photographs glue-mounted recto and verso, plus one remarkable 5-panel, 2.5' fold-out panorama of Porto Velho. Most images 5.75” x 6.75”, some smaller. Eleven hand-colored. Most numbered in the negative. All clearly captioned in English. Rubbed at joints; some bumping, wear. Binding cocked. A few leaves tender at gutter. Apparently complete. Very good. If you have any information on this item, please contact Brian Cassidy at (301) 589-0789 or books@briancassidy.net. [more Missing: Original Photo Album of Madeira-Mamore Railroad Construction]

The 40th annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar will be held this year July 16 to July 21, at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Our keynote speaker this year is Kevin Young, the author of ten books of poetry, including Book of Hours, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award; Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels, winner of a 2012 American Book Award; and Jelly Roll: A Blues, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is currently Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at New York Public Library, and was recently named Poetry Editor of the New Yorker magazine. Our specialty dealer this year is ABAA bookseller, Heather O'Donnell, formerly of Bauman Rare Books and now proprietor of Honey & Wax Booksellers in Brooklyn, specializing in literary classics and curiosities, and a past graduate of CABS. More than a dozen scholarships are available this year: please see http://www.bookseminars.com/scholarships.php for more information. Of particular note this year is an addition to the faculty, the consummate collector and political activist, Lisa Baskin. Other returning faculty members include: Terry Belanger, founder of Rare Book School and a 2005 MacArthur Fellow; Brian Cassidy, ABAA bookseller and specialist in most things contemporary; Lorne Bair, ABAA bookseller specializing in labor history and social movements; Maria Lin, Chief, IT and Photography Departments, Rulo... [more 40th Annual Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar]

This item is still missing as of 6/12/2019. The following item has been reported stolen: Title: A Display of Heraldry Authors: GUILLIM, John (1565-1621). Date of publication: 1610 Publisher: Printed by William Hall, London Description: FIRST EDITION. Folio. Recently respined and recornered, possibly in panelled calf. If you have any information on this item, please contact Adrian Harrington at rare@harringtonbooks.co.uk. [more Stolen: ‘A Display of Heraldry’ (1610)]

The ABAA Benevolent Fund recently received the largest contribution in the fund's history from the estate of Gyngr Schon, who owned Old London Books in Bellingham Washington with her husband Michael Schon. Gyngr Schon became an ABAA member in 2008, after her husband's death, though the Old London Bookshop had been an ABAA member firm since 1994. She had worked as a secretary in her twenties and befriended a rare book librarian at The Huntington, later entering the antiquarian book business with her husband. In 1988, like many other antiquarian booksellers, the Schons began operating their business out of their home — a large, 17-room Victorian in Bellingham. After her husband's death, Schon established a presence on the internet, and through what her colleague Ed Smith describes as “hard work and a positive attitude” kept the business going at a difficult time. Smith recalls the last time he saw Gyngr Schon was at a Book Club of Washington event that “included a stop at Old London Books where Gyngr served refreshments to all and was holding court surrounded by book people who were having fun and laughing and enjoying themselves and buying books from her.” Schon's friend and fellow-ABAA member Taylor Bowie explained the impulse for this bequest: “I recall very well the time I happened to visit Gyngr at her home/shop in Bellingham. No one else was there that day but the two of us, and so she talked very freely. She told me that her will stipulated a large donation t... [more Gyngr Schon Bequest]

This item is still missing as of 6/11/2019. The following item has been reported stolen: Autograph note signed, April 16, 1785, with address panel, to “Monsier Ruston, Hotel d'Orleans, Palais Royal.” “Mr. Jefferson's compliments to Mr. Ruston and begs the honor of his company to dinner on Tuesday next the 19th instant.” If you have any information pertaining to this document, please contact The Raab Collection at 800-977-8333 or nathan@raabcollection.com. [more Stolen: Jefferson Autograph Note]

The following book is missing, presumed stolen, from NY Book Fair, March 13, 2017. STEELE . An Essay upon Gardening, Containing a Catalogue of Exotic Planes for the Stoves and Green-Houses of the British Gardens… York: Printed for Author, By G. Peacock, 1793. 4to (25.7 x 20.1 cm). Description: Later 19th century half calf on pebble maroon paper boards. The front cover is loose, almost off. Raised bands with double gilt lines; gilt title in upper panel; wear to edges. Collation: xxii , , 126, , , 127- 159, , , , 102, , pp. + 3 copper engraved folded plates. The text has some edge dusting and minor toning. Plates and Explanation pages have toning and minor to moderate foxing, plates only. The text block has been trimmed slightly, resulting in absence of plate mark at head and tail of plates. Details of plates is not affected, only blank margin inside plate mark. This is scarce complete copy of one of the first publications with identification of origin of exotic plants growing in stoves, green-houses and British gardens. If you have any information, or believed you have been offered this item, please contact Eugene Vigil (360-354-7512) or vigile@comcast.net. [more Stolen in New York]

“Three columns of unknown verse by the Mad Poet of Broadway: Life is good.” (A brief remembrance of Robert Fraker from Garrett Scott, May 3, 2017.) I probably met Robert Fraker of Savoy Books sometime in the mid-1990s, though later neither of us could ever remember when exactly it happened. It must have been some February back when I worked for John Crichton at the Brick Row Book Shop in San Francisco, when Robert would have been wandering through the shop a day or two before a California Book Fair. This genial bookseller from back east immediately stood out because even when judged by the recondite standards of the Brick Row Book Shop, Robert tended to purchase remarkably obscure titles of American verse. In those days, to have sold anybody a copy of C. L. Woods's Kaw-Wau-Nita, and Other Poems (Stockton, Calif., 1873)—as I believe we did to Robert around that time—seemed to me an event worthy of at least minor celebration; to have sold it to a colleague in the trade, who presumably labored under the belief that he might someday sell it, and at a profit, seemed to my tender sensibilities even more baffling and worth further inquiry. Across the broad landscape of 19th century American poetry, a landscape marked by tall trees like Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson (or even by the spreading shade trees of Fitz-Greene Halleck and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, or by the tough native shrubbery of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman or even Jones Very), what kind of bookseller would in... [more In Memoriam: Robert Fraker]