The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) is delighted to announce the winners of the 2024 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest: First Prize Amanda Zhao (Georgetown University) for "War's Little People". Zhao's sponsor notes he was particularly impressed with her focus on exploring WWII history with an eye towards the effects of the war civilians and an ultimate the goal of expanding her own knowledge and writing a novel. Second Prize Dennis Schäfer (Princeton University) for "Charting the Visual Universes of E.T.A. Hoffmann Illustrators". Shäfer's interest in Hoffman was initially academic in nature, but this soon blossomed into a passion after he received a beautifully illustrated edition of Hoffmann's The Golden Pot upon joining the E.T.A.-Hoffmann-Society. The awards celebration will be held at the Library of Congress's Whittall Pavilion on September 13th at 5pm. The ceremony will feature Rebecca Romney, a renowned book dealer, appraiser, and author, as the keynote speaker. All are welcome to attend. The National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest is jointly administered by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), and the Grolier Club, and is supported by the Rare Books and Special Collections Division (the Library of Congress). Noted collector, bibliophile, and philanthropist Susan Jaffe Tane funds the prizes for the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. The priz... [more 2024 NCBCC Winners]

The ABAA is accepting entries for the 2023 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, which is jointly administered by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), the Grolier Club, and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division (Library of Congress). The National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest is open to all prizewinners of college book-collecting contests, as well as to interested students whose institutions do not offer formal contests. (More information can be found here...) All entries should be submitted at https://www.abaa.org/ncbcc/ncbcc-application... All entries for the 2023 competition must be submitted by June 15, 2023. For more information on the contest, please visit https://www.abaa.org/ncbcc/the-national-collegiate-book-collecting-contest... The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America promotes ethical standards and professionalism in the antiquarian book trade, encourages the collecting and preservation of rare books, and supports education and research. The Fellowship of American Bibliographic Societies was formed in 1993 as a national organization of member book collecting groups. The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress was established in 1977 to promote books, reading, literacy and libraries, as well as the scholarly study of books. Noted collector, bibliophile, and philanthropist Susan Jaffe Tane funds the prizes for the Nation... [more 2023 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest]

Join ABAA Member Stuart Bennett on Tuesday February 7th at 5:00pm ET, for an illustrated talk on the history and development of book production in England, especially bookbinding on novels, including how Jane Austen's novels were originally bound. The talk will start with the hand-press era and take us all the way to classic editions of Austen's novels in the nineteenth century to show the art and science of bookbinding. Presented under the auspices of Jane Austen & Co. Sign up for the Zoom webinar here. Donations are invited, but sign-up is free: simply enter "0" in the "Add a donation" box to attend for free. Image from Jane Austen & Co. [more WEBINAR Feb 7th: Bookbinding and the English Novel from Aphra Behn to Jane Austen]

Please join us on October 21st at 3pm ET to honor this year's prizewinners of the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest's Susan Tane Prize for Student Book Collectors by Zoom. In addition to the awards, the Library of Congress' Chief of Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Mark Dimunation, will interview each winner. To attend, you must register for the Zoom meeting at this link. First Prize Daria Rose Evdokimova (Harvard University) "Ardis Publishers and the Immigrant Identity" Second Prize Francesca Mancino (Case Western Reserve University) “Reassessing Modernism: Women Writers and Publishers of the Lost Generation” Third Prize Austin Benson (University of Virginia) “The Little Office of Our Lady, 1599-1966: Online Book Collecting During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Essay Prize Elizabeth Propst (Harvard University) “How Much Am I Bid for the Moon?: Collecting Poetry on the Cheap” With thanks to our colleagues and judges from the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), the Grolier Club, and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division (the Library of Congress) for making the contest happen once again, and to Susan Tane for funding the prizes. We look forward to seeing you there. NCBCC Award Ceremony Registration [more National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest Awards on October 21]

What new additions to the abaa.org website caught the eye this week? An interesting endorsed letter to President Andrew Jackson, a very early collection of medical recipes, and first editions of books from Virginia Woolf and Richard Fariña, among other items... The Waves (First Edition) by Virginia Woolf New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, .. Octavo, original blue cloth, spine panel stamped in gold, top edge stained brown. First U.S. edition, first printing with "first edition" on copyright page. Connolly 70. Kirkpatrick A16b. A fine copy in decorated dust jacket (designed by Vanessa Bell) priced $2.50 on front flap with light tanning to spine panel, a couple of mild fox marks, and some general dust soiling. Actually, a pretty decent copy overall. (Offered by L.W. Currey) Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (First Edition) by Richard Fariña New York: Random House, 1966. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. First edition. xii, 329, (1, note about author) pp. Fine in Very Good with small tear in top of front panel, light wear and rubbing, slightly sunned spine. The folksinger's only novel, published not long before his death. (Offered by Burnside Rare Books) The Old Woman Who Lost Her Dumpling; Japanese Fairy Tale Series No. 24 (First Edition) by Lafcadio Hearn Tokyo: T. Hasegawa, 1902. First Edition. Self wrappers. Very good. Duodecimo size, pp. Printing B (for identification only, no sequence is suggested) of those noted in BAL 7937, with the colophon at the foot of... [more Books of the Week]

Every famous poet and writer started small, usually with cautious publishers who printed small batches of the first edition of their early books. For most, the cautious print runs continues, even after winning awards, because poetry has ever been an relatively low-volume business, even for the big names. When they later became reknowned, even famous, at home and abroad, these relatively scarce first editions became highly prized by their fans and collectors. Here are a dozen first editions from poets who became big names in their time, drawn from the current inventory of ABAA members. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot New York: Boni & Liveright, 1922. Near Fine/Near Fine. First edition. Publisher's flexible cloth, the stamped number (198) 5mm in height, and the "a" in "mountain" on page 41 (a possible state in the first printing); one of the first 500 copies. Very nearly fine with a bookplates in a dustwrapper with some tiny chips and internal tissue strengthening at the folds; in a custom clamshell box. (Offered by Between the Covers Rare Books) POEMS: NORTH & SOUTH - A COLD SPRING by Elizabeth Bishop Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1955. 1st edition, full blue cloth, with dust jacket. The author's second volume of poetry, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956. There were only 2000 copies published in the first printing (MacMahon A2). Printed by The Riverside Press in Cambridge, the present copy has The Grolier Book Shop, Cambridge, label on the bottom FEP. Only gentle shelf rubs to the... [more Poetry First Editions]

Great Catalogues by Master Booksellers: A Selection of American and English Booksellers' Catalogues, 19th-21st Century. By John R. Payne. Introduction by Kurt Zimmerman. Austin , Roger Beacham, Publisher, . One could be forgiven for thinking it odd that something as ephemeral as the bookseller's catalogue should be treated to such a sumptuous production as John Payne's Great Catalogues by Master Booksellers (GCMB). But, as the author reminds us, “Bookshops open and close. Booksellers retire, change professions, and pass on. What remains, other than memories and reputations, are their catalogues, the lasting tangible record of a bookseller's creativity and expertise – a remembrance, a talisman.” (Preface, page xi). The author has selected one hundred forty catalogues from amongst tens of thousands viewed during his time at the Lilly Library at Indiana University, The Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin, New York's Grolier Club, and the Huntington Library in San Marino. The individuals and firms represented include the giants of the last one hundred fifty years of bookselling, names such as Breslauer, Eberstadt, ExLibris, Les Enluminures, Fleming, Goldschmidt, Goodspeed, Kraus, Maggs, Quaritch, Reese, Rosenbach, and Rostenberg & Stern, as well as more contemporary booksellers who will be seen in retrospect, if they are not already, as giants themselves. An introduction by Kurt Zimmerman briefly outlines the impact booksellers' catalogues has had on the fo... [more Book Review: Great Catalogues by Master Booksellers]

What newly listed or catalogued items caught the eye this week? A rare astronomical textbook from 1482; a useful set of Firsts, a magazine about collecting first editions; and a first edition by today's birthday boy, George Orwell. A bound collection of 32 full-color costume plates of French noblewomen by LANTÉ, LOUIS MARIE; GEORGES-JACQUES GATINE (ENGRAVER) (1827) Slim folio 32 colored plates bound in contemporary 3/4 leather with speckled paper over boards, decorative gilt stamped borders on both boards, and a leather label mounted to the front board, with the gilt title "Costumes Francoises," within ornamental gilt floral borders (label just starting to peel at the edges). These plates most likely originally came from a larger work consisting of 70 plates, titled "Les femmes célèbres de la France historique et littéraire à travers 70 costumes finement coloriés à la main à l'époque et rehaussés d'or." The front board is heavily mottled, the boards are exposed along the edges, and the plates are sporadically lightly foxed. Contains the following thirty-two hand-colored plates: Marguerite De Flandre, Épouse de Jean de Montfort, Duc de Bretagne; Isabeau de Bavière, Femme de Charles VI; Suivant d'Isabeau de Bavière; Suivant d'Isabeau de Bavière; Jacqueline de la Grange, Femme de Jean de Montagu, Grand Ministre de France sous Charles VI; Dame de Famille des Ursins, sous Charles VI; Agnès Sorel; Euriant, Femme du Comte de Nevers sous Charles VII; Anne de Bretagne... [more Books of the Week]

On October 4th, 1862, a children's literature tycoon was born. With his humble beginnings, of course, no one ever would have suspected that a talented writer and publisher was in their midst. Edward L. Stratemeyer was born the youngest of six children in Elizabeth, New Jersey to a young tobacconist and his wife. Both of Edward's parents had immigrated from Hanover, Germany in 1837, and yet Stratemeyer's main language was English growing up. As a child, Stratemeyer read Horatio Alger often, enjoying his rags-to-riches tales immensely. He later was said to have remarked on how much Alger's stories influenced him as a young man, and gave him some of the confidence he later used to begin his career. It looks as though even as a teenager Stratemeyer had some idea of what he wanted to do as an adult, as he opened his own amateur printing press in the basement of his father's tobacco store. He printed local & homemade flyers and pamphlets, and a few short stories such as The Newsboy's Adventure and The Tale of a Lumberman. After graduating high school, Stratemeyer worked daily in his father's shop, and kept up printing a few items here and there. It wasn't until he turned 26 that he sold his first story to popular children's periodical Golden Days, and received $76 for his contribution (a fact that the helpful internet informs us was over six times the average weekly paycheck for the average U.S. citizen at the time). After experiencing this hint of fame and riches, the young writer... [more Edward Stratemeyer: King of the Children’s Series]

Which books and pieces of ephemera caught the eye among this week's crop of new listings? First editions of The Lord of the Rings, a medieval manuscript in a 15th-Century binding complete with library chain, and a contemporary fine-art binding of Sinclair Lewis' classic, It Can't Happen Here, among others... THE LORD OF THE RINGS comprising THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE TWO TOWERS & THE RETURN OF THE KING (First Editions) by TOLKIEN, J. R. R. "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all And in the darkness bind them"THE LORD OF THE RINGS comprising THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE TWO TOWERS & THE RETURN OF THE KING, Allen & Unwin, 1954, 1954 & 1955 respectively, each in first edition, (first printing), all 3 volumes vg+ or better in vg dust-wrappers save for some light fading and wear and tear to the dust-wrapper spine extremities. INTERNATIONAL FANTASY AWARD winner and an enduring classic of literature. The quintessential fantasy quest saga from which all others are derived !!! A set of books which in fine condition, first printing & first edition has increased its value 100 fold over the last forty years. Offered by Fine Books Company. 1948 World Series Braves vs. Indians Program, 4to, pictorial covers, illustrated, 40 pp. Slight edgewear, one signature (4 pages) loose, one inch margin tear through loose signature, otherwise bright and clean; very good overall. This program is the Braves edition, featuring pictures of both managers on the ... [more Books of the Week]