ILAB is coordinating a series of Pop-Up Book Fairs across the world for UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day on April 23, 2015. The two organizations have created an offiial partnership for the event and ILAB is asking as many members as possible to organize and attend as many pop-up fairs as possible. Former President of the ABA Laurence Worms describes the envisioned pop-ups: “Some booksellers,... [more]

Rock Toews (Back Creek Books LLC) is a key player in determining whether a Maryland area slated for development was the site of a Civil War parole camp. Priscilla Juvelis contributed a chapter to an upcoming book on William T. Vollmann entitled William T. Volmann: A Critical Companion. Don Lindgren of Rabelais Inc. is interviewed for Eater's piece on 72 Ways Food Can Change the World. He is in goo... [more]

UCLA's annual Kenneth Karmiole Lecture in Archival Studies will be presented by Professor Heather MacNeil on The Archive/Archives as Text: Themes and Variations on October 27. The Monk, the Bookseller, and the Manuscript: Tracking Lydgate's Boke of the Sege of Troy Through Bernard Quaritch's Catalogues PBS NewsHour's segment with Peter Mendelsund, the author of What We See When We Read and Cover,... [more]

The American Antiquarian Society was recently awarded the National Humanities Medal. We caught up with the Society's director, Ellen S. Dunlap, to hear all about it. Founded in 1812, the Society houses American books, broadsides, newspapers, graphics, and ephemera from first contact through 1876, and more selectively in manuscript collections. The award was given “for safeguarding the American s... [more]

Last Friday PBS NewsHour did a feature on a fine press printing of Walt Whitman's seminal poetry collection Leaves of Grass. The limited edition is being published by Arion Press and produced in the same way the first edition was produced on 1855-- on a movable-type printing press. [more]

The ABAA is delighted to welcome the following new members to the Association: Lawrence O'Shaughnessy of Franklin Books LLC and Teri Osborn of William Reese Company. Read a little more about each member below. Full Member Lawrence O'Shaughnessy, Franklin Books LLC (Oldwick, NJ) Larry O'Shaughnessy established Franklin Books in 2006 after spending over three decades in general management, investmen... [more]

Welcome to the new ABAA website. We hope you'll find it an exciting place to explore rare books, find items to purchase, and meet some of the best booksellers in the US. The site is packed with new features and possibilities. Many of these features are there to emphasize the individual booksellers, all of whom are members of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America and are held to the s... [more]

Last week the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin announced its acquisition of writer Ian McEwan's archive. The archive is comprised of a broad range of materials, from childhood items to his earliest stories to drafts of all McEwan's published works to correspondence with other notable literary figures. In addition to the spectrum of content represented in the archive, there ... [more]

A contest held by the University of Chicago's Special Collections Research Center has cracked the code of handwritten marginalia in a 1504 Venetian edition of Homer's Odyssey. Collector M.C. Lang donated his collection of Homer's works to the University of Chicago Library in 2007 so that it could be used by students and researchers. The 1504 edition of the Odyssey was included in the donation and ... [more]

The literary world has been buzzing all week about ABAA members George Koppelman and Dan Wechsler's possession of a dictionary, John Baret's Alvearie, they believe was owned and annotated by William Shakespeare. There has been considerable press on Shakespeare's Beehive, and Dan has had the opportunity to chat about their scholarship with a number of outlets. Dan Wechsler sat down with Amy Eddings... [more]

Here's some exciting bibliographic news to start the day! The Bibliographic Society of America has awarded member Joseph J. Felcone (Joseph J. Felcone Inc.) the 2014 St. Louis Mercantile Library Prize for outstanding scholarship in the bibliography of American history and literature for his book Printing in New Jersey 1754-1800: A Descriptive Bibliography (American Antiquarian Society, 2012). The ... [more]

George Koppelman and Daniel Wechsler have been waiting for this day for six years– the day the world will discover they are in possession of a book they claim was owned by William Shakespeare. Koppelman and Wechsler purchased a copy of Baret's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionarie (1580), on eBay in 2008. While other books have more famously earned the designation of Shakespeare source texts, work... [more]

The ABAA is delighted to welcome the following new members to the Association: Kara Accettola, Little Sages Books; John D. Kehoe, John Kehoe Bookseller; Michael Laird, Michael Laird Rare Books LLC; Thomas F. Nealon, Pazzo Books; Kurt A. Sanftleben, Read 'Em Again Books; Daniel Whitmore, Whitmore Rare Books. Read a little more about each member below. Full Members Kara Accettola, Little Sages Books... [more]

Florence Shay in the summer of 1942 when she and Art met at camp. Photograph by Art Shay Chicago Magazine recently published a lovely tribute for ABAA member Florence Shay who passed away in August 2012. The piece is based on an upcoming exhibit by Florence's husband Art Shay, the accomplished photojournalist, and the photographs present an intimate portrait of the intelligent, vivacious woman Ar... [more]

The ABAA is delighted to welcome the following members to, or to a new status within, the Association: Katharina Koch, Books Tell You Why, Inc.; Linda S. Moore, Alcuin Books; Kevin Mullen, Mullen Books, Inc.; and Lynne Veatch, The Veatchs Arts of the Book. Read a little more about each member below. Full Members Katharina Koch, Books Tell You Why, Inc. (Mount Pleasant, SC) Katharina Koch was born... [more]

Longtime friend of the ABAA Nicholas Basbanes will be signing copies of his latest book, On Paper, at the upcoming Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. You can find him at the ABAA Booth at 1pm on Saturday, November 16th. Proceeds will benefit the ABAA's Benevolent Fund, which provides aid to booksellers in distress. The cost of the book is $35. On Paper takes the reader on a journey throug... [more]

We are only nine days away from opening night of our 36th Annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair and I am ready to head north to Beantown! I'm excited to see all the wonderful material- books, maps, ephemera, etc.that will be on exhibit, see friends and members, and take advantage of my time in Boston. It's a fantastic city with no shortage of history, culture, and activities, so we h... [more]

The Battle of the Fruit and Vegetable Soldiers by Francis Darwin (image via Open Culture Charles Darwin is famously known as the father of evolution, but did you realize he was also the devoted father of ten children? This seems like a colossal number today (the Duggars and their like aside), but a large family wasn't uncommon in Darwin's time. It was also not unusual during this period to find a... [more]

Well, not literally. But the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers has announced the winner of the 16th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography, and the prize goes to Jon Gilbert for his bibliography on Ian Fleming (Jon Gilbert. Ian Fleming: The Bibliography. Preface by Fergus Fleming. Foreward by Michael L. Vanblaricum. Edited by Brad Frank. London, Queen Anne Press, 2012). Gilbert's bibl... [more]

Steve Green, President of the U.S. arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby, recently revealed his purchase of what some scholars believe may be the oldest known Jewish prayer book. The 11 x 10 centimeter, 50 page book is a siddur, a Jewish prayer book that contains daily prayers. It dates from 840 and is written in an ancient form of Hebrew that includes Babylonian vowel marks. This indicates that i... [more]

Who would have thought that the University of Pennsylvania's PennApps competition would produce an app beneficial to the rare book world? PennApps is touted as the "premiere college hackathon" and it brings together 1,000 university students from more than 100 institutions across the globe for a 48-hour competition to create hacks and apps for web or mobile platforms. This year three students fro... [more]

In addition to being a top-notch bookseller, member Dan Wechsler (Sanctuary Books) is also a filmmaker. His latest film is More Than the Rainbow, a documentary chronicling the life of Matt Weber, a NYC taxi driver turned street photographer. The film premiered at New York's documentary film festival DOC NYC last year and was featured as an official selection. It was awarded the same honor at the S... [more]

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is a museum in Hartford, CT located in the house where Stowe and her family moved to in 1873. She resided there for the final 23 years of her life, during which Stowe continued to write, lecture, and made considerable contributions to local art institutions. The Center has a worthy collection: over 12,000 books, 4,000 pamphlets, 180,000 manuscripts, and 12,000 ima... [more]

This sounds fascinating. All the official info is below& "Authenticity" Rare Book and Special Collections Division The Library of Congress December 6, 2013 The Library of Congress announces a symposium on “Authenticity,” a program that will look at one of the most difficult subjects facing libraries, private collectors, and booksellers todayjudging the genuineness of printed materials. The sy... [more]

Stuart at the completion of his ride. As anyone in the trade knows, being an antiquarian bookseller is a pretty much a 24/7 job, so it can be surprising to hear about sellers' lives outside of their work. Nonetheless, sellers can do some amazing things in their spare time! A perfect example is member Stuart Lutz (Stuart Lutz Historic Documents, Inc.). While he's not working with historic document... [more]

Each summer is an extra treat for the rare book world because of the excellent educational programs provided by Rare Book School and the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. Rare Book School offers a number of fascinating courses on an array of trade-related subjects (to name just a few courses from this past summer: Developing Collections: Donors, Libraries & Booksellers; Digitizing the Historical ... [more]

First prize winner Elias Serna gets props from his Santa Monica community! We can't wait to meet him at the awards ceremony on October 18th at LC! [more]

ILAB has announced the contenders for the 16th Breslauer Prize for Bibliography, a prestigious competition that occurs every four years. I'm proud to say that four of the candidates are ABAA membersDavid Bromer, Joseph Felcone, Gordon Hollis, and Jeff Weber. The official press release from ILAB and the full list of submissions are below. Best of luck to all these bibliographic scholars! ***** “... [more]

The winners of the 2013 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest are: First Prize: Elias Serna, University of Califonia-Riverside, The Chicano Movement Second Prize: Ashley Young, Duke University, New Orleans' Nourishing Networks Third Prize: Amanda Zecca, Johns Hopkins University, From Berkeley to Black Mountain Congratulations to our winners! The Awards Ceremony will be held at the Library of... [more]

The Felpham home that William Blake lived in is currently on the market for �650,000 (or approximately $988,000). Blake lived in the charming cottage from 1800-1800 while he worked on several illustration and engraving projects for William Hayley, a popular poet. Blake had run into some financial difficulties at the end of the 18th century and began to rely heavily on patrons for his paintings and... [more]