ILAB Joins the Protest Against Amazon’s Bid to Control Top-Level Domain Names
Today, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers has joined the numerous other organizations, such as the Authors Guild or the American Association of Publishers, objecting to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN’s) plan to sell top-level domains to private companies. Online retail giant Amazon has bid to be the exclusive custodian of .book, .author and .read domains. Read more ...
Paris 2014 - 41st ILAB Congress
The ILAB and SLAM committees are very pleased to announce that the 41st ILAB Congress will run in Paris from the 13th to 16th April, 2014, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of SLAM. The Paris Congress will immediately follow the International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Grand Palais scheduled from 10th to 13th of April 2014. We hope that the very special program that we have planned will attract numerous visitors to Paris and we are looking forward to meeting our new colleagues and welcoming old friends.
Anne Lamort, President SLAM, Tom Congalton, President ILAB
16th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography
The 16th ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography will be awarded in 2014 to one or more books about books published in any language and in any part of the world between 2009 and 2012. Publishers, librarians, collectors, antiquarian booksellers and all book lovers are very welcome to submit books to the prize until the end of April 2013 by sending a single copy to the Prize Secretary.
Support scholarship! Submit books to the most prestigious prize until April 2013!
The World’s Expert Antiquarian Booksellers - In 1 Book!
The new edition of the ILAB Directory contains all names, addresses and specialities of the ILAB dealers who are organized in 22 national associations and who are located in 32 countries all over the world. Have a look!
“Book collecting is and almost always has been a vibrant, exciting and engaging pastime"
"It’s our job to make others understand that.” An interview with ILAB President Tom Congalton about his career, his favourite books, Between the Covers, collecting, ILAB and the future of the trade. Read it!
ILAB Booksellers on Video
"A wonderful snapshot of the rich history of both the ABAA and the rare book trade" - ILAB is proud to present the video archive project by Michael Ginsberg and Taylor Bowie. Recently added: interviews with two amazing ladies: Marguerite Goldschmidt and Florence Shay.
"Out of the classroom and into the world" - ILAB Internships
ILAB has launched an internship program for young antiquarian book dealers. Alena Lavrenova, Anastasya Zhikhareva, and other young antiquarian booksellers from Russia, spent several weeks in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and the United States. Read their exciting reports and join our new Facebook Group!
The World's Best Booksellers Met in Switzerland
From 22 to 26 September the presidents of 22 national antiquarian booksellers' associations and rare book dealers from all over the world met for their 40th Congress in Lucerne. Besides the meetings and elections on Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday, they climbed high mountains and dark caves and visited Switzerland's most outstanding museums and private collections. Read the online diary!
Old and Rare Books. From ILAB: the one stop FREE App for all lovers of rare books
The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) has launched an ILAB Moile App which is now available in the Apple Store and the Android Market. Search for “ILAB rare books” or “International League of Antiquarian Booksellers” to find the free App ready to install on your phone.
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Book FairsRare Books - Next Fairs
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08 Jun 2013 - 09 Jun 2013
The largest Antique Map Fair in Europe, established 1980, brings together around 40 of the leading national and international antiquarian map dealers as well as hundreds of visiting dealers,... [+] More
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09 Jun 2013
Dealers from the UK and abroad offer fine bindings, antiquarian, illustrated books, travel, modern firsts, children’s books, maps, prints, and ephemera. [+] More
EventsRare Books - Next Events
BooksellersAntiquarian Booksellers
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Egmond aan den Hoef - NETHERLANDS
Specialties: Art, Atlases and maps, Medicine, Prints and drawings, Science and technology, Topography
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Rare Book Gallery
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The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, Upon Plates...
SMITH, Joseph, Junior
Bookseller: Main Street Fine Books & Manuscripts, ABAA
Small 8vo. Full calf with black leather and gilt spine label. iv, 588pp, (2pp). Good plus. Almost, but not quite, rates very good, for it's tight,... MoreSmall 8vo. Full calf with black leather and gilt spine label. iv, 588pp, (2pp). Good plus. Almost, but not quite, rates very good, for it's tight, clean and quite handleable. Though quite edgeworn and age toned (with darkening at tail of spine), the spine and rear cover (archivally rehinged) are original, while the front calf board and front pastedown are expert modern "aged" replacements (also archivally hinged); text block moderately age toned throughout, with sporadic foxing. Housed in a black cloth clamshell case. Rare first edition of this coveted cornerstone of any Mormon collection, with the two-page "Testimony" at the conclusion. Supposedly printed in an edition of 5000 copies. Inner front flyleaf bears a pencilled vintage ownership signature (ca. early 20th century), from whose family this long buried copy emerges. All in all, a lovely copy of this desireable rarity. Less
Price: 95000.00 USD
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TO THE HONOURABLE THOMAS PENN AND RICHARD PENN ESQRS. TRUE & ABSOLUTE...
Scull, Nicholas:
Bookseller: William Reese Company - Americana
Philadelphia. 1759.. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three. Sheet size: 3 sheets, each approximately 31 x 21 1/2 inches. Excellent condition,... MorePhiladelphia. 1759.. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three. Sheet size: 3 sheets, each approximately 31 x 21 1/2 inches. Excellent condition, with three short repaired tears, very minor age toning at the sheet edges, overall in remarkable unsophisticated condition. Provenance: Laird U. Park (Sotheby's New York, Nov. 29, 2000, lot 322). The first map of Pennsylvania to be published in America. Scull (1687-1761) was born in Philadelphia and is thought to have been apprenticed at a young age to William Penn's surveyor, Thomas Holme. In 1719 he became deputy surveyor of Philadelphia County, eventually ascending to the surveyor generalship of Pennsylvania in 1748. An original member of Benjamin Franklins Junto, Scull was intimately involved with Indian relations of the period, having travelled amongst the tribes surveying the western counties. Siding with the Proprietors in his recollection of the Walking Purchase, at which he was present, no doubt held him in good standing with the Penn family. It is thought that this, in part, led to the publication of this impressive map. Dedicated to the Proprietors, it is among the largest and finest maps produced in America to that date. The map depicts Philadelphia, Bucks, Northampton, Berks, Chester, Lancaster, Cumberland, and York Counties, and is based on Sculls own surveys as well as the reports of Major Joseph Shippen, Colonel John Armstrong, John Watson, Benjamin Lightfoot, and others. In addition, some information was gleaned from printed sources, including Fry-Jefferson's important map, evidenced by a printed footnote on the map concerning the location of Fort Cumberland and the Maryland- Pennsylvania border. Elevation is accurately depicted, much in the style of Fry-Jefferson, by neat hachure marks. The eastern counties include a wealth of detail, such as churches, meeting houses, inns, iron forges, mills, and the manors of significant residents; roads, Indian paths, Indian towns, and forts are clearly shown throughout. Although generally quite accurate, it is curious that Scull included Fort Granville on his map, which had been destroyed by the French and Delaware Indians in 1756. Nevertheless, the importance and accuracy of this large-scale map is underscored by the fact that a copy of it was among the maps hung by the Board of War at Philadelphia in August 1776, twenty years after the map's publication (as listed by John Adams in his letter to his wife dated Aug. 13, 1776). The map was engraved by James Turner (d. 1759), a Philadelphia silversmith and prot? of Benjamin Franklin. Turner had previously worked on map engraving during the production of James Parker's 1747 maps of New Jersey, a project for which he had been recommended by Franklin. Little is known about the printer, John Davis. Although he had no shop, he appears to have specialized in large copperplate engravings of maps, as he is the printer identified in the imprint of the 1756 Philadelphia first edition of Joshua Fisher's important chart of Delaware Bay. That map and the present one are his only known works. Scull's 1759 map of Pennsylvania is very rare, with less than a dozen known institutional copies. Only a few have appeared at auction in the last half century, most notably in the sales of the collections of Thomas W. Streeter, Howard E. Welsh, and Laird U. Park (this copy). EBERSTADT 167:430 (quoting Wroth). EVANS 8489. Garrison, "Cartography of Pennsylvania before 1800" in PMHB, Vol. 59, no. 3. PHILLIPS, p.673. RISTOW, pp.52-53. STREETER SALE 965. WHEAT & BRUN 422. Less
Price: 185000.00 USD
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A MAP OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE IN AMERICA WITH THE FRENCH AND SPANISH...
Popple, Henry:
Bookseller: William Reese Company - Americana
London: Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms, 1733 [but ca. 1735].. Engraved map by William Henry Toms, with very fine full contemporary hand- coloring... MoreLondon: Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms, 1733 [but ca. 1735].. Engraved map by William Henry Toms, with very fine full contemporary hand- coloring (with twenty-two integral inset views and plans) on fifteen double-page and five single-page sheets, mounted on guards throughout, with the double-page key map by Toms, handcolored in outline. With the contents leaf, laid in. Folio. Expertly bound to style in half 18th- century russia over original 18th-century coated paper-covered boards, spine gilt, red morocco label. Very good. In a blue half morocco and cloth box, titled in gilt on the spine. A monument to 18th-century American cartography: a highly attractive fully colored copy of the first large- scale map of North America, and the first printed map to show the thirteen colonies. Popple maps with full contemporary color are exceedingly rare; we have handled only one other copy, and the only other comparable example to have appeared at auction in the past thirty years is the Siebert/Freilich copy. Popple produced this map under the auspices of the Lord Commissioners of Trade and Plantations to help settle disputes arising from the rival expansion of English, Spanish, and French colonies. "France claimed not only Canada, but also territories drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries - in practical terms, an area of half a continent" - Goss, p.122. The present copy of Popple's map, with its full contemporary hand-coloring, would have been particularly useful in these disputes. Mark Babinski, in his masterly monograph on this map, notes: "The typical coloring of fully colored copies...is described best by a contemporary manuscript legend on the end-paper affixing the Key map to the binding in the King George III copy at the British Library: 'Green - Indian Countrys. Red - English. Yellow - Spanish. Blue - French. Purple - Dutch.'" The careful demarcation of the disputed areas by color would have made the identification of whether a particular location was in one or another "zone" a great deal easier. Thus the coloring adds a whole new dimension to a map that is usually only seen in its uncolored state, and perhaps suggests that the copies with full hand-coloring were originally produced for some as-yet unrediscovered official use to do with the international land disputes of the time. Benjamin Franklin, on May 22, 1746, ordered two copies of this map, "one bound the other in sheets," for the Pennsylvania Assembly. It was the only map of sufficient size and grandeur available - and the map is on a grand scale: if actually assembled it would result in a rectangle over eight feet square. Its coverage extends from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland to about ten degrees west of Lake Superior, and from the Great Lakes to the north coast of South America. Several of the sections are illustrated with handsome pictorial insets, including views of New York City, Niagara Falls, Mexico City, and Quebec, and inset maps of Boston, Charles-Town, Providence, Bermuda, and a number of others. "Little is known of Henry Popple except that he came from a family whose members had served the Board of Trade and Plantations for three generations, a connection that must have been a factor in his undertaking the map, his only known cartographic work" - McCorkle. Babinski has made a detailed study of the issues and states of the Popple map. This copy is in Babinski's state 5: the imprint on sheet 20 reads, "London Engrav'd by Willm. Henry Toms 1733"; and sheet one includes the engraved figure "1" in the upper left corner just above the intersection of the two neat lines. The very rare small format table of contents is present. The key map is in Babinski's state 1, with only Toms' name below the border at the bottom and no additional place names in the 17 small insets. Mark Babinski, HENRY POPPLE'S 1733 MAP (New Jersey, 1998) (ref). BROWN, EARLY MAPS OF THE OHIO VALLEY 14. CUMMING, THE SOUTHEAST IN EARLY MAPS 216, 217 (refs). DEGREES OF LATITUDE 24, state 4 (but with engraved number to sheet 1). FOWBLE, TWO CENTURIES OF PRINTS IN AMERICA 1680-1880 (1987), 6, 7. JOHN GOSS, THE MAPPING OF NORTH AMERICA (1990), 55 (key map only). GRAFF 3322. HOWES P481, "b." LOWERY 337, 338. McCORKLE 21. PHILLIPS MAPS, p.569. SABIN 64140. SCHWARTZ & EHRENBERG, p.151. STREETER SALE 676. STEPHENSON & McKEE, VIRGINIA IN MAPS, map II-18A-B. Less
Price: 275000.00 USD
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THE FEDERALIST: A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS WRITTEN IN FAVOR OF THE NEW...
Hamilton, Alexander; James Madison; and John Jay:
Bookseller: William Reese Company - Americana
New York: Printed and sold by John and Andrew M'Lean, 1788.. Two volumes bound in one. vi,227; vi,384pp. 12mo. Contemporary sheep, spine with plain... MoreNew York: Printed and sold by John and Andrew M'Lean, 1788.. Two volumes bound in one. vi,227; vi,384pp. 12mo. Contemporary sheep, spine with plain gilt rules. Expertly rebacked, with original spine laid down, boards somewhat rubbed. Light foxing and toning. Pencil notes on free endpapers. Small tear in pp.49/50 with no loss. Overall very good, with the bookplate of F. Olcott. In a half morocco and cloth clamshell box with chemise. The rare first edition of the most important work of American political thought ever written and, according to Thomas Jefferson, "the best commentary on the principles of government." The first edition of THE FEDERALIST comprises the first collected printing of the eighty-five seminal essays written in defense of the newly-drafted Constitution. The essays were first issued individually by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in New York newspapers under the pseudonym Publius to garner support for the ratification of the Constitution. The first thirty-six numbers of THE FEDERALIST were here published in book form in March 1788, with the remaining forty- nine, together with the text of the Constitution, in May of that year. Upon its publication, George Washington noted to Alexander Hamilton that the work "will merit the Notice of Posterity; because in it are candidly and ably discussed the principles of freedom and the topics of government, which will always be interesting to mankind" (George Washington, letter to Hamilton, August 28, 1788). The genesis of this "classic exposition of the principles of republican government" (Bernstein) is to be found in the "great national discussion" which took place about the ratification of the Constitution, and the necessity of answering the salvos in print from the Anti- Federalists and other opponents of a strong federal government. The original plan was that James Madison and John Jay were to help Hamilton write a series of essays explaining the merits of their system, whilst also rebutting the arguments of its detractors. "Hamilton wrote the first piece in October 1787 on a sloop returning from Albany...He finished many pieces while the printer waited in a hall for the completed copy" - Brookhiser. In the end, well over half of the eighty- five essays were written by Hamilton alone. Despite the intense time pressures under which the series was written "what began as a propaganda tract, aimed only at winning the election for delegates to New York's state ratifying convention, evolved into the classic commentary upon the American Federal system" - McDonald. THE FEDERALIST is without question the most important commentary on the Constitution, the most significant American contribution to political theory and among the most important of all American books. EVANS 21127. GROLIER AMERICAN 100, 19. STREETER SALE 1049. CHURCH 1230. HOWES H114, "c." COHEN 2818. SABIN 23979. FORD 17. PRINTING AND THE MIND OF MAN 234. R.B. Bernstein, ARE WE TO BE A NATION? THE MAKING OF THE CONSTITUTION (1987), p.242. R. Brookhiser, ALEXANDER HAMILTON: AMERICAN (1999), pp.68- 69. F. McDonald, ALEXANDER HAMILTON: A BIOGRAPHY, p.107. Less
Price: 185000.00 USD
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Following is an essay Helen wrote in 1997. What is amazing is that NOTHING HAS CHANGED SINCE THEN. Except for changing the number of years we have been in business (from 20 to 30) the essay is just as it was ... [+] More
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Online: Michael Holzmann und Hanns Bohatta, Deutsches Anonymen-Lexikon 1501-1850, 4 volumes [+] More
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"Und die Moral von der Geschicht, In Zweifelsfällen kaufe nicht!" - Karl Geigy-Hagenbach about fakes and forgers in autograph collecting. His own legendary autograph collection is documented in “Autographensammlung von Karl Geigy-Hagenbach in Basel” (addenda 1933 and 1939). For J. A. Stargardt’s “Der Autographen-Sammler” Geigy-Hagenbach wrote a series of articles about his passion from 1936 to 1938. [+] More
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Susan A. Burgess, writing in Children's Books and Their Creators, penned a rather harsh assessment of this celebrated story's author. He was, she suggested, a hack journalist, an undecorated soldier, and a low-level government official whose best-known work is full of inconsistencies and contradictions, evidence of careless writing. An assessment, incidentally, with which the author's admirers profoundly disagree. [+] More
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October 2 is the birthday of poet Wallace Stevens (1879), who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955 for his Collected Poems. For many years, he was frequent visitor to Key West, beginning in 1922. In 1936, he encountered Ernest Hemingway there, and thereby hangs a tale. [+] More
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How to identify a rare book? "I got stumped last week, trying to catalog a book I’d recently purchased. It was the first full length biography of the American naval hero James Lawrence, and it was supposed to be 244 pages long. However, my copy seemed complete at page 240, which ended with the word “finis.” I must’ve spent an hour pouring through my reference books trying to reconcile the discrepancy. I had a dim recollection of the pagination issue being explained to me by the gentleman from whom I’d purchased the book. But I couldn’t remember the details, and I couldn’t piece it together from the bibliographies ..." [+] More
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