Books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera at auction had been performing exceptionally well through 2018 with $609,830,918 of sales and then the 2019 market further increased with $725,695,460. Yes, there were some disturbing reports in Asia and the US western states during the last few months that a health crisis could be brewing but nothing was certain until February 11th 2020 when Covid entered our lexicon. But plans are hard to make and even harder to break, and there wasn’t any consensus that the yet-to-be-understood illness would be a game changer. So the ABAA kept to their plan to host...
Historic wrongs are impossible to undo. The past cannot be changed, only the future can be made better. A recent story from Rocky Mountain PBS highlights a case that ties to books in a most unpleas...
Kurt Zimmerman began writing his popular blog American Book Collecting in 2011. In the next eleven years he focused on topics of interest to those in the book trade and the world of collecting. “I...
The Brooklyn Public Library is celebrating its 125th anniversary, so you can be sure a lot of books have been borrowed from their collections. They looked back on that and created a list of the 125...
The history of Hong Kong has been interwoven with economic and social genius, among those who have had it, the Hotung Family whose many generations have created significant collections of the fines...
If there were hopes that the conclusion of the recent election cycle would bring an end to the recent rash of book banning and censorship attempts at libraries, it turns out not to be so easy. The ...
The book banning epidemic took a turn for the worse when one library tried to deal with the issue by providing some twisted form of balance. The Wake County (North Carolina) Public Libraries have h...
The 19th Century Rare Book and Photograph Shop offers in its Catalogue 195 a collection of 60 books, manuscripts, and photographs representing humankind’s greatest achievements. Highlights include:...
Not only do black holes reconcile the quantum theory with the force of gravity, but they also make science and religious books agree on one (black) matter: all is vanity.
I was enjoying a lit...
The highlight of Christie’s December Books Manuscripts auction is the first 110 lots: the Collection of a Lady being sold to benefit Historic Deerfield. The collector acquired these books and manu...
By Ian Ehling
Director, Fine Books Manuscripts
Bonhams New York
In his autobiography The World of Yesterday, Stefan Zweig describes his interest in collecting manuscripts: “The one thing tha...
Leland Little, the North Carolina auction house at 620 Cornerstone Court, Hillsborough, has composed an eclectic sale of highly curated lots that, for those who are prepared to reward themselves, t...
The Philadelphia Rare Book Fair is set to take place Thursday, December 8, through Saturday, December 10. The Philadelphia fair has drawn 25 booksellers from across the eastern states to exhibit. N...
There have been several stories of books that have disappeared from a collection finally making their way home recently. Those are happy ending stories, and these days, we all need some cheer. So h...
“His treatise pioneered the development of modern sciences, forever changing the way that mankind looked at the nature of life.1” He would be Charles Darwin and his treatise was On the Origin of Sp...
For December, we review 12 new bookseller catalogues as the holiday season heats up with new offerings. For those interested in travels as they were in another time, Shapero Rare Books has a catalo...
