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
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12 Aug 2013 - 16 Aug 2013
California Rare Book School is a continuing education program dedicated to providing the knowledge and skills required by professionals working in all aspects of the rare book community, and for... [+] More
BooksellersAntiquarian Booksellers
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Balk - NETHERLANDS
Specialties: Art, Autographs, Illustrated books, Literature, Music, Photography, Twentieth century
[+] More
Rare Book Gallery
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Habitus praecipuorum populorum, tam virorum quam foeminarum singulari arte...
[AMMAN, Jost] / [WEIGEL, Hans]
Bookseller: Martayan Lan, Inc.
Folio [31 x 20 cm], (4) ff. [including colored frontispiece], 219 plates (of which 210 are colored), (1) ff. Bound in contemporary blind-stamped... More
Folio [31 x 20 cm], (4) ff. [including colored frontispiece], 219 plates (of which 210 are colored), (1) ff. Bound in contemporary blind-stamped calf with raised bands on spine, worn at extremities. Minor foxing, scattered staining, some expert repairs to tears in blank margins, occasionally affecting text; occasional reinforcement of plates; generally a good copy in magnificent, unusually thick contemporary color. [Bound first:] NICOLAY, Nicolas de. Der Erst Theyl: Von der Schiffart und Raysz in die T?ey unnd gegen Oriennt. . . mit sch? Figuren ... der Frantz?chen Sprach in die Teutsche gebracht. Nuremberg, Dieterich Gerlatz, 1572. (3) ff. (including frontispiece), 108 (CVIII) ff., and with (60) contemporary handcolored plates. Less
Price: 110000.00 USD
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To the Honourable Thomas Penn and Richard Penn Esqrs. True & absolute...
SCULL, Nicholas (1687 - 1761)
Bookseller: Donald Heald Rare Books
Philadelphia: 1759. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three. Excellent condition, with three short repaired tears, very minor age toning at the... More
Philadelphia: 1759. Engraved map on six sheets, joined as three. 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, 29 November 2000, lot 322). 3 sheets, each app. 31 x 21 1/2 inches. "The first map of Pennsylvania to be published in America [as well as] the most ambitious cartographical work to come from an American source before the Revolution" (Wroth). Nicholas Scull, Jr. (1687-1761) was born in Philadelphia to Nicholas Scull, Sr. the surveyor and mapmaker, who had been apprenticed 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. A bibliophile, he was an original member of Benjamin Franklin's Junto. Scull was intimately involved with Indian relations for the colony, having travelled amongst the tribes to survey the western counties. He was knowledgeable in several local Native languages. But in the dispute that arose about the infamous Walking Purchase of 1737, at which he was present, his recollections favored the Proprietors. This is hardly surprising but it no doubt put him in a good position with the Penn family, and it is thought that this may have led to the publication of this impressive map. It was the first map of Pennsylvania since Thomas Holme's 1687 map of the then much smaller settlement, and represents a vast amount of on-site surveying. Dedicated to the Penn brothers, Scull's map is among the largest and finest maps produced in America in the 18th century. It was an extraordinary achievement. The map depicts Philadelphia, Bucks, Northampton, Berks, Chester, Lancaster, Cumberland, and York Counties, and is based on Scull's own surveys, as well as the contributions of several others (whom he acknowledges). Some information was gleaned from printed sources, including Fry-Jefferson's important map, evidenced by a printed footnote concerning the location of Fort Cumberland and the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. Elevation is accurately depicted, much in the style of Fry-Jefferson, by neat hachuring 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: all 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 noted by John Adams in his letter to his wife dated 13 August 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. Nicholas Scull's grandson William Scull revised and extended the 1759 map in a version that was also dedicated to the Penn brothers but which was published in London in 1770, and appeared subsequently in several editions through the decade. Much of the geographical information is the same, but interestingly the earlier map is both larger and evinces greater aesthetic satisfaction. 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). Everstadt 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; Sellers & Van Ee 1294.0 Less
Price: 185000.00 USD
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A discourse of a method for the well-guiding of reason, and the discovery of...
[DESCARTES, Ren?/ Tr. ANON.]
Bookseller: Martayan Lan, Inc.
London: Thomas Newcombe for John Holden, 1649. Very rare first English edition and fine copy of one of the most important works of Western... More
London: Thomas Newcombe for John Holden, 1649. Very rare first English edition and fine copy of one of the most important works of Western Philosophy ever written, Descartes’ Discourse, containing for the first time in English the phrase which is not only the conceptual cornerstone of Rationalism, generally considered the beginning of modern philosophy, but is synonymous in the cultural imagination with the very field of Philosophy: “I think, therefore, I am.” This English edition was the earliest recorded in the inventory of John Locke’s library (see J. Harrison/ P. Laslett, The Library of John Locke. 2nd ed #2451), and it is generally considered that Locke’s encounter with the ‘New Philosophy’ as it was known in England in the 1660’s, led him to write the Essay, his philosophical masterpiece. “Descartes’ purpose is to find the simple indestructible proposition which gives to the universe and thought their order and system. Three points are made: the truth of thought, when thought is true to itself (thus cogito, ergo sum), the invincible elevation of its partial state in our finite consciousness to its full state of the infinite existence of God, and to the ultimate reduction of the material universe to extension and local movement. From these central propositions in logic, metaphysics and physics came the subsequent inquiries of Locke (164 eg Essay on Human Understanding), Leibniz (177, Th?ic?, and Newton (161 Principia); from them stem all modern and scientific thought.” – PMM 129 (1637). Rather typically for English books of the period, the work is known in issues regarding the title page (and only the title page). These have not been well defined, and the circumstances of the translation’s commissioning and publication are simply unknown: as of 2002, when a series of facsimiles of Descartes’ works in English and related 17th c Cartesian writings was published, the translator of the present work remained unknown (see R. Ariew & D. Garber, Descartes’ Works in Translation, vol. I, p. ix.) According to the entry in the Norman catalogue, several states of the title are known: the title of the Norman copy is ‘A Discourse of a Method for the well guiding of Reason’, and it contains a signature marking, A4—highly exceptional if not unique for a 17th century English book; it does not contain Descartes’ name on the title. This is such an egregious and uncommon error that it is most likely the sign of the earliest state. Another title gives a different spelling ‘for Wel-‘ and Discovrse’; and yet another, like the Norman copy, omits Descartes’ name. OCLC lists 5 copies in American libraries: UCLA, Newberry, Northwestern, Harvard and Wisconsin. Wing adds Folger. In British libraries, Wing lists Oxford, Cambridge (King’s), Patent Office (London), National Library of Scotland. Through additional searching, we have also located two copies at the BL (one with the variant title), and one at Yale (Cushing Medical Library). Remarkably, the book is sufficiently rare that it is not included in the excellent Descartes bibliography of Guillebert; it was NOT included in the Biblioth?e Nationale’s anniversary exhibition celebrating the 300th anniversary of the publication of the Discours in 1937, and to this day there remains no copy of the present translation in the Biblioth?e Nationale. Finally, it is missing from (at least) two major collections of 17th century English printed books of this level of importance: the Morgan Library and the Huntington. * Wing D1129; Norman 624 (variant imprint); J. Harrison/ P. Laslett, The Library of John Locke. 2nd ed #2451 not in Guillebert; Julien Cain/ Biblioth?e Nationale. Descartes. Exposition organis?pour le III i? Centenaire du Discours de la M?ode. (Paris 1937).. 8vo., 4.5 X 9 cm], (7) ff., of which the first two are blank and integral, 127 pp. (verso blank). Bound in contemporary calf ruled in blind, gilt spine and edges of covers faded and rubbed. Binding a bit shaken, and joints a bit fragile. Minor toning in margin, but a remarkably fresh copy in its original binding, housed in modern bookbox. Less
Price: 90000.00 USD
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A Monograph of the Phasianidae or Family of the Pheasants
ELLIOT, Daniel Giraud (1835-1915)
Bookseller: Donald Heald Rare Books
New York: published for the Author, [1870]-1872. 2 volumes, folio. (23 1/2 x 18 inches). 2pp. subscriber's list. 79 fine hand-colored lithographic... More
New York: published for the Author, [1870]-1872. 2 volumes, folio. (23 1/2 x 18 inches). 2pp. subscriber's list. 79 fine hand-colored lithographic plates (including 1 folding plate of feathers) after Joseph Wolf by Joseph Smit (58) or John Gerrard Keulemans (21), printed by M. & N. Hanhart and P.W.M. Trap, coloured by J.D. White, 2 uncolored lithographic plates by and after Smit, on India paper mounted. (Expert neat repairs to titles, the lower margin of the folding plate of feathers, and the text leaf in vol. II describing the Lady Amherst's pheasant). Contemporary red morocco gilt by Bickers & Son, covers with elaborate gilt border composed from fillets, decorative rolls and stylized foliage tools at cornerpieces, spines in seven compartments with double raised bands, lettered in the second and fourth, the others with overall decoration of massed small tools, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, g.e. The most splendid of Elliot's great monographs, and a rare American publication of this elegant class of books. Issued in 6 parts between June 1870 and October 1872, A Monograph of the Phasianidae is described by Sitwell as "the equal in every way to any work by Gould." The magnificent size and beautiful coloring of the plates after Joseph Wolf's drawings reflect the importance which Elliot attached to the Phasianidae. Of all the families in the ornithological system, he regarded it as the one most vital to the human race, "containing within it the species that afford food for thousands of mankind, and also those which are the original source of all the domestic poultry met with throughout the civilized world." He generously dedicated the work "To my friend Joseph Wolf", calling his "unrivalled talent...its chief attraction." Anker 130; Fine Birds Books (1990), p. 95; T. Keulemans & J. Coldewey Feathers to brush... John Gerrard Keulemans 1982, p.61; Nissen IVB 295; Wood p. 331; Zimmer p. 206. Less
Price: 160000.00 USD
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Love for sale – The story is simple: Lenore Doolan is 26 years old and working for The New York Times as a cake columnist, Harold “Hal” Morris is a globe-trotting photographer in his early 40s. Disguised as Lizzie Borden and Harry Houdini, they met at a Halloween party, fell in love with each other, have a happy time full of romantics, share everyday life in a New York flat – and split up after a little more than three years. And then they do what not only famous people nowadays often do when a change in life arises: They pack their things, give them to an auction house, where a sale is announced ... [+] More
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The Austrian National Library is going to digitise its complete holdings of historical books from the 16th to the 19th century –one of the five internationally most important historical book collections. [+] More
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Hesse’s personal library and his literary remains were divided between the Marbach Archives (Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach) and the Swiss National Library (Berne) in 1964. Links to databases, bibliographies and museums. [+] More
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"For many people in the west mention of Japanese woodblock prints brings to mind the beautiful single sheet colour examples by artists such as Hokusai, Hiroshige and the many other artists of extraordinary skill working during the 18th and 19th centuries. Immense pleasure can also be gained from looking a little further and discovering the plethora of games, decorative papers, books, calendars, lists, news-sheets, maps, advertising, and ephemeral material of every kind that was published using woodblock printing methods during the Edo and Meiji periods." Sally Burdon's collecting tip is one of the highlights of BookFare 2, the recently published newsletter of the Australian & New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB). Read the article and subscribe to further issues! [+] More
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A year ago the spectacular theft of the Codex Calixtinus was reported in the press. Almost 12 months later, this famous Codex, which is considered one of the most valuable books worldwide, has been found by the National Police in a garage in Santiago de Compostela. On Wednesday, 4th July, the police arrested the alleged thief, Manuel Fernández Castañeiras, who had been working as an electrician at the Cathedral for several years. It is said that he claimed 400,000 € compensation from the Cathedral for his unfair dismissal. [+] More
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I would like to tell you about the last part of my American trip which took place in Boston at 36th Annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. I spent four days in Boston and I was able to see the city which I liked very much. But the fair gave me much more impression and emotions. Most of the time I spent working at the Between the Covers booth, arranging books, communicating with customers, as well as exploring the fair and what everybody was selling, meeting new people and making interesting acquaintances. I got an incredible opportunity to meet the best booksellers! [+] More
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