The 48th California International Antiquarian Book Fair kicks off on February 6, 2015. One of the keynote events at the fair is a presentation on Jack London's photography, by archivist and noted London expert Sara S. Hodson. Jack London (1876-1916) is now best known for stories and novels like The Call of the Wild and The Sea Wolf, as well as his many adventures as a sailor, Klondike gold-seeker, and rancher, but in the early years of the 20th century, he was a noted journalist and photographer, reporting from around the world for the Hearst syndicate. His negatives are now housed with the California Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Huntington Library holds 12,000 printed photographs. (ABAA members occasionally offer some of his photographs.) London's vivid, sensitive photographs capture the homeless of Great Britain in 1902, recording scenes of ragged men and women huddled on the park benches and harassed by police; battle images and portraits of freezing Korean refugees during the 1904 Russo-Japanese War; some of the first photos of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake; the colorful life of the Hawaiian Islands and the South Seas photographed on the voyage of his sailboat, the Snark (1911); and the invasion of Vera Cruz in 1914. Wounded Japanese Soldier, Russo-Japanese War, 1904 Many of these images appeared in his newspaper and magazine stories as well as in his books The People of the Abyss (1903) and The Cruise of the Snark (1911), but few have been seen by many... [more Jack London, Photographer]
Years ago a colleague named Owen Kubik sent me an enigmatic manuscript. After considerable headscratching I determined it was the journal of a young naval officer sent to the Pacific to capture a sociopath who had committed murder and mutiny on the whaleship Globe. We sold it to the New Bedford Whaling Museum, and felt quite pleased with ourselves. Then it occurred to me that this manuscript would be an excellent frame for a new non-fiction book about the gory events aboard the Globe. Owing to the unexpected success of Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea, there was a bull market for maritime non-fiction books that year. I wrote a cracking good proposal and sent it off to my agent. She loved it, and several publishers loved it (because it closely resembled a book that had already proved to be successful) but there was a catch. Another writer had already sold a proposal for a book about the Globe, and he was being represented by the same agency that represented me. The idea of the same agency representing two competing authors writing about the same thing created a minor scandal in the publishing world. Many people considered it unethical. My agent, God bless her, didn't care what anyone else thought. She was young and brave, and had her eyes on the future. She sold my proposal to Little, Brown for $150,000. The resulting book, Demon of the Waters, came out at about the same time as the other fellow's book and, to everyone's considerable surprise, the two books demolished one a... [more Used Books of the Future]
Reading resolutions are becoming more common. Following the VIDA report on the paucity of reviews for books by women versus books by men in national newspapers and magazines, a lot of people resolved to read only women authors in 2014. Others resolved to read only young adult fiction, or to spend a year re-reading their favorite books. I usually tread the well-worn path of reading whatever I feel like, and end up with mostly new fiction and nonfiction, with a few old favorites thrown into the mix -- along with whatever books my teenagers tell me are "really cool." This year, I've resolved to read all of Colm Tóibín's fiction, and as much of his nonfiction as I can manage. Why Colm Tóibín? Well to start with, I'm Irish, and primarily read Irish writers. Colm Tóibín has become perhaps the finest Irish novelist currently working, and maybe one of the finest in the world, scooping major awards for his fiction (The Master), seeing a play produced on Broadway (The Testament of Mary), and his novels are now being adapted by Hollywood (Brooklyn). For the longest time, I was resistant to reading Tóibín. He's a generation older than me, and I had the impression (wrongly) that many of his novels were about the Ireland of the 1950s, a stereo-typically repressed time that in my younger days I thought had little relevance for me, a modern Irishman, an emigrant-by-choice, and techno-savvy citizen of the world. As time went on, I realized contemporary Ireland is sadly not so very dif... [more Reading Resolution: The Year of Colm Tóibín]
To begin at the beginning, Charles Ralph Boxer was born in 1904 to a distinguished British family of considerable means. Educated at Wellington College and Sandhurst, he seemed destined for a military career following a family tradition that had seen Boxers serve in command positions in every British war since the French Revolution. He was posted to Japan in 1930 where he first developed his interest in Portuguese imperial history following the disastrous incursion into Japan in the 17th century. In 1936 he was sent to Hong Kong where by 1941 he was the chief army intelligence officer; wounded in the Japanese attack on Hong Kong he was captured and held as a prisoner of war until 1945 and his entire collection of rare Portuguese-related books was seized by the Japanese for the Imperial Library.* After his release he returned to Japan in 1946 where he was able to arrange for the return of most of his books, although a handful were never located. Before the invasion of Hong Kong he had prepared a catalogue of the collection, Bibliotheca Boxeriana, and in 1965 the Lilly Library of Indiana University purchased the entire remaining collection from Boxer – lacking the few missing books including one great rarity. In his catalogue he had recorded the existence of what is still thought to be the only known complete copy of the first edition of Figueiredo's “Hydrographia” 1608, surely the most important Portuguese manual on navigation of the late 16th-early 17th century and a ke... [more A Bibliophilic Miracle]
This week's news that President Obama will end the 54-year-old American trade embargo against Cuba and restore diplomatic relations marks a major change in Cuban-American relations. ABAA members have many fascinating items that chart the ebb and flow of American involvement in Cuba over the twentieth century, and a search for items relating to Cuba on our website can be a fascinating exercise. Members have documents signed by Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevera, along with other participants on both sides of Cuban history. Letter signed by all Moncada prisoners, including Fidel Castro (1953) Archive of Documents relating to the Bay of Pigs invasion... Documents relating to Hemingway's time living in Cuba are enlightening, both for students of the great author's career and those interested in Cuban politics. Ernest Hemingway draft and corrected letters to Fulgencio Batista (part of a larger archive of Cuban interest) Members also have various editions of the classic Blue Guide to Cuba, a popular guide book to the pre-revolutionary island. Perhaps we'll see a new generation of those classic Cuban guide books once the travel restrictions are lifted. [more Cuba: Items of Historical Interest]
Update on Proposed Internet Sales Tax Legislation Internet Sales Tax—What is it? Presently, catalog and online sellers must collect sales and use taxes only in states where they have a physical presence. In states where sellers don't have a physical presence, the responsibility falls on consumers to pay a use tax directly to the states in which they reside. Since the vast majority of consumers don't do that, legislation called The Marketplace Fairness Act has been proposed to shift the responsibility from consumers to sellers by allowing states to collect taxes from out-of-state “remote sellers” that have no physical presence in their state. Where does the proposed law stand now? In May 2013 the Senate, but not the House, passed the Marketplace Fairness Act. The Act contains an exemption for small businesses and calls for states to provide free software to aide online sellers in tax collection. Under it, states cannot collect taxes from “remote sellers with annual gross receipts in total U.S. remote sales not exceeding $1 million in the preceding calendar year.” In response, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee tasked with overseeing this proposal in the House, signaled his gross disapproval of the Senate's bill and issued his Seven Principles to guide drafting the House Bill. In December 2014, Goodlatte reaffirmed his position. What does this mean for my business? Two of Goodlatte's principles are relevant for members: Tech Neutral... [more Update on Proposed Internet Sales Tax Legislation]
Waste Not, Want Not: Social Media and Time Management When you are juggling an endless array of duties and priorities, as so many booksellers are, fitting yet another “thing” onto your already lengthy to-do list might produce the same effect as chopping onions. I would also bet that for many of us, when work gets extra stressful, social media is the first thing to go out the window. While dropping the ball happens to all of us on occasion, if I have done anything with these little blog posts, hopefully it has been to promote the idea that if you are engaging in social media, then it deserves the same commitment that you would put into other areas of customer care, such as answering inquiries promptly. Putting the soapbox aside now, there is one big distinction between your regular office duties and social media: social media is not confined to business hours. In effect, the clock never stops. How, ye gods, can one mortal keep up with such a beast?? Well, good news: being online 24/7 is impractical, not to mention physically impossible, so give yourself a break. Reaping the benefits of social media, contrary to what you might have been told, does not require you to be constantly plugged in. In fact, you would be surprised at what a small time investment can deliver. The trick is to get smarter about how you spend time online, and to know the difference between wasting your time and investing your time because believe me, it is all too easy to engage in the former while cla... [more THE SAVVY BOOKSELLER: Social Media for the Antiquarian Book Trade, Post #6]
Recently Anne and David Bromer, proprietors of Bromer Booksellers in Boston, made a $10,000 stock gift to the Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund. It hasn't been my practice to single out contributors to our charitable funds for public thanks — but this gift is important on several levels and should be recognized publicly. First of all, I should point out the extraordinary generosity of a donation this size. The Bromer's gift is among the largest single bequests ever made to the Fund, and it adds signicantly to its reserve. This is important: for much of the past decade, grants made from the ABBF slightly exceeded incoming donations. That trend has now begun to reverse, and with gifts such as this one we can now begin condently to speak of a long-term goal of building a self-sustaining Benevolent Trust that will function in perpetuity. The Bromer's gift is also unprecedented in another way: until now, the ABBF had been set up only to accept gifts of cash; with this gift we can announce that the ABBF can, for the rst time, accept gifts of stock as well. This has certain tangible benets for both the Fund and for donors, especially those wishing to make larger gifts. If you'd like more information on how to make a gift of stock, please contact Susan Benne. I'm consistently amazed and humbled by the generosity our members have displayed, year-in, year-out, in their support of our Association's various benevolent activities. Whether through donations to the Antiquarian ... [more Anne and David Bromer Give Stock Gift to Benevolent Fund]
At Pazzo Books, the shop that I kept for years in the outer neighborhoods of Boston, MA and now run out of a two-story in-law addition in my home, I've learned that old books are funny things. Often you catch them looking at you sideways, across a room, and it occurs to you to wonder what they've seen; where they've been; and what odd parade of owners they've survived. Typically you can only imagine, but once in a very long while a book wanders through with enough information stored in it, in bookplates, inscriptions, and ephemera, that you can piece together a narrative. Évrard Titon du Tillet, great patron of the arts, son of Maximilien Titon de Villegenon, secretary to Louis XIV and alleged Scotsman, plotted to build a vast sculpture garden to celebrate the great writers, dramatists, artists, and musicians of France. Originally planned around a bronze statue, a model and description of which was executed in 1718, the project soon incorporated dozens of artists, growing to resemble a great folly (a penchant for which ran in the family; the Titon family mansion was called La Folie Titon). The budget swelled to 2 million livres and Tillet was forced to abandon the project. Instead he turned his Parnassus into a book, Le Parnasse François, the first and largest installment of which appeared in 1732. Additions, often occasioned as artists died or gave up their craft, appeared in 1743, 1755 and 1760. This particular copy has the 1732 edition bound together with the 1743, and a... [more History Between the Pages]
'Deckle edges' are the rough, untrimmed edges of a sheet of handmade paper (the deckle, from the German Deckel, 'little cover,' being the thin wooden frame around the mould on which the pulp is placed). John Carter's ABC for Book Collectors notes that deckle edges are 'much prized by collectors, especially in books before the age of edition-binding in cloth, as tangible evidence that the leaves are uncut; for the deckle edge normally would be—and indeed was meant to be—trimmed off by the binder.' I should note here the distinction made by booksellers between the terms 'uncut' (or 'untrimmed'), which means the deckle edges have not been cut off, and 'unopened,' which is used to describe a book where the conjoined leaves of a gathering have not been cut open with a paper knife, in preparation for reading. Carter has a separate entry for 'deckle-fetishism,' which he defines as 'the over-zealous, undiscriminating (and often very expensive) passion for uncut edges in books which were intended to have their edges cut.' Collectors (and, naturally, booksellers) have always particularly prized copies with ample margins. Size often does matter when comparing copies of books from the hand-press period. Deckle-fetishism seems to be a peculiarly Anglo-American affliction. I know French and Italian collectors, for example, who would prefer a book to be in a contemporary binding, rather than having it uncut in the original printed wrappers. Each to their own. Of course, one could argue ... [more Deckle-Fetishism]