“Grab Every Book That Grabs Back”: Notes from the 2017 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize This summer at Honey & Wax, we asked young women across the United States to tell us what books they were collecting. Their answers kept us talking well into September. We were so impressed with the submissions to our first book collecting prize that we granted awards to six women collectors under the age of thirty this fall: one $1000 prize winner and five honorable mentions of $200, all recently profiled in The Paris Review. When we announced our inaugural contest, we fielded questions from two groups: women older than thirty and men, both wondering why they were not eligible. While we wholeheartedly encourage collecting by everyone, all the time, we targeted this particular contest with intention. These were our thoughts. We capped the age of contestants at thirty because our goal was to encourage young collectors. No young collector, no matter how creative and motivated, is likely to assemble a collection that compares to one built over three or four decades. We could guess the age of our contestants with considerable accuracy from their essays alone: not from the quality of the writing, but from the depth and focus of the collections, which invariably improve over time. Even five years is a great advantage. It came as no surprise that five of our final six contestants were 27 or older, at the high end of the range. We limited the prize to women because we've observed that the wom... [more Notes from the 2017 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize]

Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s Gudis, Catherine It was reported that the package was removed from a customer's mailbox, ripped open, exhibition catalog removed, and the empty packaging left nearby. While a relatively inexpensive item, it may fit a pattern seen in another city targeting packages just after they have been delivered. Please contact the ABAA if you have any information. [more Stolen from package in Los Angeles: Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s]

What leaped off the pages and (figuratively) screamed "Buy Me!" as we thumbed through the most-recent catalogs from ABAA members. Well, these items for starters... THE LAST TYCOON: An Unfinished Novel, Together with The Great Gatsby and Selected Stories Description: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941. First edition, first printing with the “A” and the publisher's seal on the copyright page. A roman a clef, following the Hollywood rise to power of Monroe Stahr, modeled after film producer Irving Thalberg, and his conflicts with rival Pat Brady, a character based on studio head Louis B. Mayer. The novel was unfinished and in rough form at the time of Fitzgerald's death at the age of 44. His close friend, literary critic and writer Edmund Wilson, collected the notes for the book and edited it for publication. This copy is inscribed on the front flyleaf by Frances Kroll Ring to Nicholas Patrick Beck, an avid F. Scott Fitzgerald collector and scholar, who was also a journalism professor at California State University, Los Angeles. Ring (1916-2015) was the personal secretary of F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood from 1939 and until his death in 1940. She typed the manuscript for The Last Tycoon and settled Fitzgerald's affairs upon his death. This included corresponding with Wilson and advising him on the author's intentions for the book. Octavo. Original blue cloth binding, with gilt titles. An especially crisp and tight, near fine copy in an uncommonly nice example of the ... [more Books of the Week]

Even if you are not able to be in Oakland for the 50th annual California International Antiquarian Book Fair this weekend, you can still browse some of the dealer's material (virtually) through their fair catalogs. We've collected catalogs by ABAA members below. Enjoy! Athena Rare Books Booth 1005 Boreas Fine Art Booth 418 James Cummins Bookseller Booth 217 Eclectibles Booth 918 Donald A. Heald Rare Books Booth 301 Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller Booth 311 Honey & Wax Booksellers Booth 903 John Howell for Books Booth 914 Kaaterskill Books Booth 106 Ken Lopez Bokseller Booth 1015 Liber Antiquus Booth 213 Jeffrey D. Mancevice Booth 417 Musinsky Rare Books Booth 108 Abby Schoolman Books Booth 102 B&L Rootenberg Rare Books & Manuscripts Booth 103 Michael R. Thompson Rare Books Booth 915 John WIndle Antiquarian Bookseller Booth 205 **This page will be updated as more catalogs are published!** Browse selected highlights from the 2017 California Antiquarian Book Fair here... [more California Book Fair: Catalogs]

UPDATE (12/04/2020): All but one of the titles on this list have been recovered. Still missing is the following title: 1. Attavante Degli Attavanti, Cicle of. ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM - BOOK OF HOURS, USE OF ROME. NORTH ITALY, probably Florence, about 1480 Armorial binding of the late eighteenth century with the coat of King Ferdinand IV of Naples Rubricated initials in red and blue, many watermarked, 11 miniatures including 4 at full page. Content: Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis, ll. 1-126v; Officium Mortuorum, ll. 127-208v; VII Psalmi Penitentiales, ll. 209-252v; Officium Sancte Crucis, ll. 253-258v L. 1 recto: Incipit Officium Beate Marie Virginis secundum consuetudinem Romane curie. L. 258 verso: Explicit officium sancta crucis Deo Gratias Amen. The presence of Saint Zenobius in the Litany, on leave 236v, suggests Florence as the most likely source of this fascinating book of Hours. It was the first bishop of the city, and his relics are preserved in Santa Maria del Fiore, in an urn masterpiece by Lorenzo Ghiberti. Books of significant value were stolen from a West London warehouse on the night of 29th January while in transit for the California Book Fair. A full police investigation is underway. A list of titles can be found here. A further list will be circulated as soon as possible. If anyone offers you any of these titles, please contact the Police SCD6-ArtandAntiquesUnit@met.police.uk and quote crime reference number 0502127/17, ABA Secretary Camilla Szymano... [more Significant Warehouse Theft in London]

You've no doubt heard the great news that Assembly Bill 228 has been introduced by California State Assembly Members Gloria and Chiu. If passed, this bill will provide significant relief from the most troubling and onerous provisions of AB 1570, California's new autograph law. The ABAA, IOBA, PBA Galleries, and The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, The Manuscript Society, The Ephemera Society, The Professional Autograph Dealers Association, Horror Writers Association, The Grolier Club, Biblio and The Easton Press have formally expressed support for this pending legislation in the linked letters. The legislative process is long and complicated. Bills pass through policy committees in each house of the legislature and the process takes many months. What this bill needs to help ensure that it becomes law is your support. We encourage members and interested parties to write a letter of support for AB 228 addressed to the bill's primary author: Assemblymember Todd Gloria P.O. Box 942849 Sacramento, CA 94249-0078 You can also add your name and comments to the change.org petition. We'll keep you updated on progress here. [more Assembly Bill 228 Introduced to Address Consequences of California Autograph Law]

The 50th annual California International Antiquarian Book Fair will take place in Oakland, CA from February 10-12, 2017. Recognized as one of the world's largest and most prestigious exhibitions of antiquarian books, the California Book Fair gives visitors the opportunity to see, learn about and purchase the finest in rare and valuable books, manuscripts, autographs, graphics, photographs and more. Where: The 50th California International Antiquarian Book Fair Oakland Marriott City Center 1001 Broadway Oakland, California When: Friday, February 10 (3pm to 8pm) Saturday, February 11 (11am to 7pm) Sunday, February 12 (11am to 5pm) Largest Book Fair on the West Coast Featuring the collections and rare treasures of 200 booksellers from the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, the California Book Fair will present volumes from five centuries of printing, as well as original manuscripts that predate Gutenberg. Books will cover every imaginable area of interest -- from the history of travel and exploration, early science and medicine to classic literature, modern first editions, children's and illustrated books, and the arts. Items range in price from a few dollars to more than six figures. Special Events This year's California Book Fair will include a special exhibit from The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, which has a long history of collecting the literary fiction of California, highli... [more California Book Fair Celebrates 50 Years]

Bernard M. Rosenthal was born in 1920 in Munich. Most of his immediate family left Munich for Florence in 1933, left Italy for France in 1938, and arrived in the US in 1939, each move in response to the problem of being Jewish. Both sides of his family, the Rosenthals and on his mother's side, the Olschkis of Italy, were heavily involved in the book trade going back generations as antiquarians, printers, publishers and authors. An extensive interview with Rosenthal was conducted by Dan Slive (head of Special Collections of the Bridwell Library at SMU) and appeared in the RBM Journal in 2003; in it, Rosenthal gives a fulsome account of his early days in the trade, starting in 1949 as an apprentice bookseller in Zurich under a bibliographical “tyrant,” Herr Frauendorfer, then later under the tutelage of Arthur Swann at Parke-Bernet, and finally starting off on his own in 1953, at 71st and Madison in Manhattan as a seller of scholarly and bibliographical works. In 1970 he moved his firm to San Francisco and remained in Northern California the rest of his life. His specialties included early printed and manuscript books, the history of scholarship and bibliography, and paleography. He joined the ABAA in 1955, served as its president from 1968-70, and was a generous guide, resource and mentor to many of the ABAA's current members. One of Rosenthal's greatest contributions was his catalogue of a collection of early printed books bearing extensive contemporary manuscript annotat... [more In Memoriam: Bernard Rosenthal (1920-2017)]

Bookseller Ed Smith (Ed Smith Books) interviewed Kurt Brokaw, a professor and film critic, who likes to moonlight as a rare bookseller (specializing in noir paperback originals) on the streets of Manhattan. I got to know Kurt Brokaw through a mutual friend. When I was in Manhattan for a movie memorabilia auction at Bonham's that I'd partly consigned, I stopped at his weekend table of 1940s paperbacks and earlier pulp magazines. He often sets up outside Zabars at 80th & Broadway, or further down Broadway in Lincoln Center. He's the only bookman doing high end vintage paper on the street that I've ever met, and he explains an actual New York City book law from the 1890s that gives him the legal right to vend written matter on NYC sidewalks without a license. This 6-minute spontaneous and unrehearsed interview should be of interest to collectors. (Photo by Lynda Bullock/Flickr via cc license) [more Selling Rare Books on NYC Sidewalks]

“The greatest beauty is organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe.” -- from “The Answer” by Robinson Jeffers Within his lifetime, the work of Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) was at various points revered, deliberately shunned, and generally neglected. In 1932, the poet was featured on the cover of Time magazine; but by 1948 his publisher, Random House, saw fit to add a “Publisher's Note” to his collection The Double Axe in which they expressed their “disagreement over some of the political views pronounced by the poet in the volume.” By the time of his death he had already passed into irrelevance, with younger poets such as Kenneth Rexroth attacking him and his work rarely anthologized. Still, his work was read and studied by other poets such as Gary Snyder (who noted his work showed “a profound respect for the non-human”) and his greatest disciple William Everson, and today, despite his continuing marginalization in some circles as a “California poet,” his work continues to reckoned with. Critic and Poet Laureate of California Dana Gioia, a great modern-day champion of Jeffers, has noted, “I consider Jeffers the most important American poet in the western third of the country—the great poet of the West.” Gioia adds, “He's a titanic if singular figure,” and therein lies some of the difficulty in dealing with Jeffers. Jeffers' theory of “inhumanism,” which the poet described as being “based on a ... [more California’s Wild Coast: Poet Robinson Jeffers]