Bibliofile will be an occasional column at The Standard, which will present bits and pieces from around the world related to the love of books. Today’s offerings all come from Atlas Obscura, a website that features articles about sometimes little-known – but always very cool – people, places and things. “If you’re searching for miniature cities, glass flowers, books bound in human skin, gigantic flaming holes in the ground, bone churches, balancing pagodas, or homes built ent

IOBA members may not be aware of a bookish ‘event’ held in NYC every January… Bibliography Week. It’s a (loose) gathering of collectors, booksellers, and librarians who come to New York the last full week of January to participate in bookish-oriented activities, including the annual meetings for the Grolier Club, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the American Printing History Association. A more complete description of this year’s activities can be found here:...

The bookplate Mosher used in books from his personal library was designed in 1897 by Frank R. Rathbun of Auburn, New York, with the designer’s monogram of an “F” with two “R’s” mirror imaged on either side. The bookplate was part of an exhibit (entry 1371) of bookplates from the Club of Odd Volumes held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1898. Mosher’s bookplate is described as “emblematical pictorial” in the Burnham collection. The original plate was photo-mechanically

Dated 2/19/1952, probably International News Photo.

I had been selling books for just about a year, and was on a scouting trip. After a long unsuccessful, very hot morning of yard sales my last stop was one with a lot of cardboard boxes filled with books. Her price, 25 cents for the hardbacks, 10 cents for the paperbacks. So I settled in. I picked and chose quite a few and then browsed the paperbacks, composed largely of science fiction. Some were quite old and all were in fine condition, and I picked up a few. I didn’t know m

Isn’t the internet wonderful? Received a call from a customer who told me that he’d just visited a London bookshop. He was in search of a book, a biography of an English punter and racing identity. Imagine his surprise when the bookseller told him that the only available copy on the internet was our copy in Dromana, Australia! My client lives in Melbourne, a little over an hour away from Dromana. He was most anxious that we hold the book until his return from the other side o

Yesterday I received an email from AbeBooks which stated that I could save 48% on Stephan King’s Duma Key. Stephan King? It seems that Abe’s ‘Passion for Books’ doesn’t extend to proofreading. Maybe I’m being overly critical but this is a company in the business of words, books and literature! You’d think that they’d go to greater lengths to ensure these types of errors didn’t occur. What would happen if TechCrunch had a headline that read ‘Steve Jubs predicts iPod success’?

MacIntosh Books and Paper 2365 Periwinkle Way, Sanibel, FL http://www.beachhunter.net/advertising/Sanibel/macintosh_books_and_paper.htm We made a wonderful jaunt to Sanibel Island in June and stumbled upon this cheery establishment where Susan and Jennifer sell swell books by the seashore. I doubt if I will ever see a wild manatee and old books in the same hour again. My front desk shot was blurry but the website has some good ones. From the back of a little bookmark they giv

From the inside front cover of A History of England by W. Freeman Galpin (NY: Prentice-Hall, 1938), and weighing in at 2.75” by 3.5”.

From the inside front cover of A Treatise on Fine Arts by W. B. Brandt et al (W. B. Brandt & Co., 1930). Not much publishing information, other than this is Copy 871 of an unknown limitation. This is an insurance company gift bookplate for a work that combines ruminations on the fine arts with a naked attempt to sell “All Risks Fine Arts Insurance.” From the Introductory Remarks: “Have you ever returned to your home at night, tired out mentally and physically, and looked thro

Excerpts from recent online book descriptions: – Very Good + in god DJ. [A book on John Baptist de La Salle.] – Slight sunfade to spine end, background color only not the words. It has faded to a light purple color and looks good still with red lettering (not faded). – A spill stain on the cover dose no damage to the rest of book. – Book is pretty nice, the dj is kind of ratty. – So much beaurocratic Bla-bla that I can’t figure who the actual publisher is. – Page 533 has chip

While on a mid-week visit to Antietam last April I noticed another guy touring the nearly deserted battlefield. He looked about my age and was dressed in the uniform of a musician from the Union Army. He noticed by the lettering on my van that I was a bookseller. He came over, introduced himself, and we started talking. His name was Steve Bartel, a graphic art designer, writer and drummer from Los Angeles. He was a reenactor who portrayed a “sheepskin fiddler” (drummer), and