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

ILAB Patrons of Honour

ILAB is very proud to present Sir David Attenborough, Barry Humphries, René Fayt, Michael Knoche, Reiner Speck, Jay and Jean Kislak and Sid Lapidus as Patrons of Honour:

"Their commitment to the preservation of printed culture makes them our clients, our audience, and our inspiration, and very often all three. The paths that they have followed and the collections that they have formed are likely to have an extraordinary influence on the understanding of human culture for future generations."

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.

GlossaryGlossary terms

CataloguesBook Catalogues

Book FairsRare Books - Next Fairs

  • London Map Fair

    08 Jun 2013 - 09 Jun 2013

    London Map Fair

    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,...

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  • Bloomsbury Summer Book Fair

    09 Jun 2013

    Bloomsbury Summer Book Fair

    Dealers from the UK and abroad offer fine bindings, antiquarian, illustrated books, travel, modern firsts, children’s books, maps, prints, and ephemera.

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EventsRare Books - Next EventsRSS

BooksellersAntiquarian Booksellers

Rare Book Gallery

  • Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et fabricati figura....

    MERCATOR, GERARD. - [PMM 100 - MERCATOR'S PROJECTION]

    Bookseller: Lynge & Søn A/S

    Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et fabricati figura. Denu
    Amsterodami (Amsterdam), Iodocus Hondius, 1613. Folio (48

    Buy from:

    Price: 1000000.00 DKK

  • THE IOURNALL, OR DAYLY REGISTER, CONTAYNING A TRUE MANIFESTATION, AND...

    Neck, Jacob Cornelissoon van:

    Bookseller: William Reese Company - Americana

    THE IOURNALL, OR DAYLY REGISTER, CONTAYNING A TRUE MANIFESTATION, AND HISTORICALL DECLARATION OF THE VOYAGE, ACCOMPLISHED BY EIGHT SHIPPES OF AMSTERDAM, UNDER THE CONDUCT OF IACOB CORNELISZEN NECK ADMIRALL, & WYBRANDT VAN WARWICK VICE-ADMIRALL, WHICH
    London: [Simon Stafford and Felix Kingston] for Cuthbert Burby & John Flasket, 1601.. [1],58,[4] leaves. Woodcut vignette of sailing ship on... More

    Buy from:

    Price: 75000.00 USD

  • [COLLECTION OF TREATIES BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND INDIAN TRIBES]

    [Indian Treaties]:

    Bookseller: William Reese Company - Americana

    [COLLECTION OF TREATIES BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND INDIAN TRIBES]
    [Washington. 1830s-1870].. Various paginations, most often 4pp. to 10pp. each. Folio. Original self- wrappers, often string- or ribbon-tied. On the... More

    Buy from:

    Price: 75000.00 USD

  • HISTOIRE DE LA NAVIGATION DE JEAN HUGUES DE LINSCOT HOLLANDAIS ET DE SON...

    Linschoten, Jan Huygen:

    Bookseller: William Reese Company - Americana

    HISTOIRE DE LA NAVIGATION DE JEAN HUGUES DE LINSCOT HOLLANDAIS ET DE SON VOYAGE ES INDES ORIENTALES...AVEC ANNOTATIONS DE BERNARD PALUDANUS DOCTEUR EN MEDICINE, SPECIALEMENT SUR LA MATIERE DES PLANTES & ESPICERIES...A QUOY SONT ADIOUSTEES QUELQUES AUT
    Amsterdam: Th?ore Pierre, 1610.. Six engraved maps on eight sheets (two double- page, two folding, two on two folding sheets), fifty-eight engraved... More

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    Price: 90000.00 USD

All ArticlesRare Books - Articles

  • Bibliographies - Rare Medical Books and Manuscripts

    Bibliographies - Rare Medical Books and Manuscripts

    Looking for a cure against the flu? Try bloodletting instead of antibiotics. These are some bibliographies and recommendations from ILAB dealers that might help. The Wellcome Collection is the specialist collection for the history of medicine. It covers books, manuscripts, archives, films and pictures from the earliest times to the present day. While medicine provides the unifying theme, hardly a subject relating to the history of European science is not represented: alchemy and chemistry, astrology and astronomy, physics, botany, zoology, cookery and pharmacy, exploration and travel, geography and geology, horology, mathematics, magic, mesmerism, phrenology, patent medicine, quackery, psychoanalysis, psychology and sexology ...

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  • Collecting Rare Books and First Editions: It's Purely Academic at The Private Library

    Collecting Rare Books and First Editions: It's Purely Academic at The Private Library

    Anyone who reads much so-called academic fiction may be forgiven for thinking that some of the folks teaching our sons and daughters are, for the most part, a bunch of narcissistic, neurotic misfits (Malcom Bradbury: The History Man; Elain Showalter: Faculty Towers).  Although the rise of this fictional genre began in earnest in the mid 1950s, its roots can be traced as far back as Anthony Trollope's 1857 novel of provincial Anglican preferment, Barchester Towers, and - more to the point - George Eliot's Middlemarch (1872).

     

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  • Early Africa Travel Literature

    Early Africa Travel Literature

    It’s a nice coincidence that printing with movable type was being introduced in the same century as European travellers were setting out to explore Africa and the New World. The three areas first discovered and hence written about in sub-Saharan Africa were west Africa – the Guinea coast; the Congo – an area extending for some considerable area around the mouth of the Congo river; and the Land of Prester John – Abyssinia or Ethiopia. (Prester John was to the Europeans of the middle ages a fabulous Christian monarch ruling somewhere in the East.)

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  • Rock in the USSR

    Rock in the USSR

    This is an underground Russian samizdat translation of Nik Cohn’s classic history of pop music - first published in 1969 as Pop from the Beginning (in America as Rock from the Beginning), and then under the title Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom - produced on a typewriter with manuscript additions for any English words and names and then mimeographed. Although the title here reads ‘London 1969’, the source text must have been the American edition given the title and as the sequence of chapters and their headings also follow that version.

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  • Collecting Rare Books and First Editions - Who is Anne Marie?

    Collecting Rare Books and First Editions - Who is Anne Marie?

    As personal papers and archival collections are increasingly sought after by librarians and collectors, we have accordingly been conducting a fair bit of original cataloguing of various special collections materials in order to keep up with the demand. I’ve thus become better at identifying and describing the papers and ephemera of obscure authors and artists, and even a few famous punk rockers unknown only to me; but every now and then I am confronted with anonymous or original materials of considerable interest which I cannot identify, despite my best efforts. Here for example is a hand-painted illustration from the 1930s signed “AM”. Can anyone identify this Unknown Woman?

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  • Collecting Rare Books and First Editions - The Ring Comes to London

    Collecting Rare Books and First Editions - The Ring Comes to London

    Swimming Rhine maidens, by special permission of H.M. the King of Bavaria – Wagner’s “Ring” came to London in 1882. "He planned to open his campaign in London, and visited in October 1881 to inspect the stage at Her Majesty’s Theatre, and again in April 1882 with his entire technical staff, just a month before the first performance was to take place.  Although the Theatre was in theory ready, it reneged on its contract and it fell to Neumann to arrange everything, from the orchestra and chorus to the advertising (presumably why the flyer here was printed in Leipzig), even the carpets in the foyer."

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