The good news kept getting better in 2021 in the rare book trade. 2020 had been a surprisingly good year, with prices of books and collectible paper at auction rising by 3.6%. 2021 was much better. This time prices rose 8.8%. This was based on the median, or midpoint of all lots sold during the year. While based on anecdotal comments booksellers did not participate in 2020's party, they did in 2021. Dealers' sales, unlike auctions, aren't public knowledge, but based on the upbeat comments we have heard, it sounds like the wealth has now been spread around. Covid may have lingered around ano...
Slipping into the daily news flow in January, The New York Times recently published an homage to William Reese, the exceptional rare book dealer who dominated collectible printed Americana over his...
Join us on February 2nd as Rare Book Hub and the international book community celebrate the joyful centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, published in 1922 by a brave American woman...
When the Rare Book Hub compiled a list of the Top 500 prices paid at auction for books and paper collectibles in 2021, there was a bit of a surprise in the Top 10. It was a book of artwork and the ...
Shirley Anson, 82, historian for the Town of Plattekill in Ulster County, New York passed away December 14, 2021 and I write to remember and celebrate her commitment and interest in history and pre...
Exhibit is free at the Grolier Club in NYC through April 16 and also online
Sherlock Holmes in 221 Objects draws upon selected items from the impressive collection assembled by Glen Miranker of...
What’s Happening?
The dust has settled on 2021, the sale of 521,461 lots from 636,853 resulting in a sell thru rate of 81.8%, about 1,000 over the estimate projected in my article from October of ...
There was a time not that far away when learned people could spend their lives trying to determine the exact location of the terrestrial Paradise described in the first book of the Bible. Father Da...
It’s been two years since the ABAA has held a sanctioned in-person event and 2022 opens with the ABAA’s biannual fair in the Bay Area on Friday 11 February. One hundred and two exhibiting dealers ...
For those interested in old and rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera here’s a fair in southern California, in Pasadena to February 4-6. During the Covid-19 period, in-person book fairs, in t...
Nancy Johnson’s San Francisco book fair has been held for many years but during Covid-19 was suspended. Here is some good news. It’s back!!!! Forty-two exhibitors are signed up and some spaces ...
The virtual fair runs from February 18th to the 22nd, with the electronic version of the printed catalog available for download starting February 3rd.
Every year, German and internationa...
A publishing company employee has been arrested in a new twist on an old crime - manuscript theft. It is a scheme that fits with the reality of how manuscripts of books are written today. They are ...
Some authors are so popular they have museums dedicated to their work. Several have achieved that status. There is one for John Steinbeck in Salinas, California. Theodore Geisel, whom we all know a...
This month we review five new bookseller catalogues. Librairie Clavreuil of Paris and Stephan Clavreuil Rare Books of London have combined to publish a catalogue of 81 precious books. The William R...
