In years past, aspiring book dealers learned the trade by apprenticing with experienced ones. Today, with so few “bricks and mortar” antiquarian book shops in business, those entering the field must seek out other ways to master this complex and challenging profession. In terms of formal educational opportunities, many dealers look to the highly acclaimed Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar as a means of learning the nuts and bolts of the rare book marketplace. If you find yourself looking for an historical perspective of the rare book world or an academic approach to specific areas of the field, Rare Book School (RBS) is unquestionably a good choice. RBS, headquartered at the University of Virginia (U.Va.), is a non-profit organization offering non-credit courses on “bookish and bibliographic” subjects. All RBS faculty members are recognized experts in the rare book field. The week-long classes are scheduled throughout the summer on the U.Va. campus and at other times of the year in New York, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. Affiliated RBS programs are located in Los Angeles and London. The tuition for each RBS course is currently $870. Students are accepted to RBS courses by application. You must complete a questionnaire detailing your work history and submit a short essay describing your interest in the particular class you would like to take. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis beginning four months prior to the course start date. While the application may be off-putting to some potential attendees, the process unquestionably benefits the program by ensuring that all attendees understand the subject matter and have an articulable interest in the field. Beyond top-notch educational opportunities, RBS offers book dealers the chance to meet people in the rare book world that they might not otherwise encounter. In addition to dealers, attendees include rare book librarians and collectors from all over the United States and several foreign countries. The chance to meet special collections librarians, whose career paths offer interesting parallels and intersections with rare book dealers, is a particularly valuable opportunity for dealers. Getting to know these librarians is a wonderful way to learn about institutional book collections and what the collections of the future might include. In operation for 24 years, the program at Rare Book School is well-run and seamlessly organized. The schedule follows the same general format each week. Attendees arrive on Sunday night for a reception and a light supper. The evening is capped by remarks from Terry Belanger, founding director of the Rare Book School. (In 2005, Belanger was named a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow for his work at RBS.) RBS courses run Monday morning through Friday afternoon. The days are full, with classes beginning at 8:30 a.m. and ending at 5:00 p.m. In the evenings, students have the opportunity to attend optional events, including guest speaker programs and book-related movies. There also is usually a bookseller night during which local used and rare book shops stay open late especially for RBS students. Friday evening closes with a reception. Charlottesville is a lovely town with a wide range of accommodations available. While many RBS students chose to stay in local hotels, U.Va. offers RBS students the opportunity to stay on “The Lawn,” part of Thomas Jefferson’s historic Academical Village. While Lawn rooms may seem primitive (no air conditioning or attached bathrooms), they offer abundant charm in the form of hardwood floors, fireplaces, and rocking chairs from which to watch the sun set on the brick colonnade facing Jefferson’s famous Rotunda. The curriculum at RBS is not for the faint of heart. Each class has a required advance reading list. The course registration materials explicitly state that registrants should consider withdrawing if they find themselves unable to complete the reading before the class. This preparation is a challenging but essential component of the information-packed program. The pace of the classes at RBS is brisk. Instructors hit the ground running and expect the students to do the same. Some of the courses even include evening homework assignments. While attendees work hard at RBS, the effort is well-rewarded. Beyond being one of the only places in the world where you can take these types of courses, RBS offers valuable opportunities to build relationships with some of the brightest minds in the rare book field. You can read more about RBS and its offerings at http://www.rarebookschool.org/. Originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of The Standard.

Most booksellers when evaluating their business assets will consider the cost and potential market value of their inventory, the cost of computer equipment, and maybe even the replacement cost of their reference library, but it seems that the value of their book-selling database is often overlooked. A database is far more than just a listing of books which you have for sale and the price you are asking for them. If that is all you need, you can simply input listings directly online, and then download these listings. The true value lies in the information which is not uploaded—the historical information about sold books, the private fields, and also in the other modules (client, invoice, wants, vendors, etc.) which work together with the inventory database. We use BookMinder, which is a template based on FileMaker Pro, one of the few programs for both Macs and Windows. The point of this informal commentary is not to advocate any specific program, but to toss out some thoughts that might help booksellers to expand the usefulness and value of whatever database they do use. If you think that you, as a bookseller, cannot afford to spend $200-$300 or so on a decent database, and that a “free” one is good enough, maybe the following will help you reconsider that decision. The first and most obvious value comes from the cumulative weight of entering books into a single database for years (we have slightly over 16,000 listings online now, with over 34,000 entries in our inventory database). While I have written most of the entries (at a rate of not quite ten books per day for ten years), we have hired others to do data entry at various times, and the usual payment was $1 per book. It doesn’t take a lot of math to see that at $1 per listing, we now have $34,000 “invested” in the database. However, it goes much deeper than that: by retaining information on sold books, we begin to gain a solid understanding of the prices at which copies will sell and how long it might take them to sell. Obviously, this is valuable for uncommon books, where prices are on a steadily upward trajectory (and where sometimes there are no copies currently offered for sale online), but it can also be useful for a lot of “bread-and-butter” books. Since the time it takes to write a new description is a significant factor in the cost of selling a book (especially for one that is inexpensive), our buying decisions are often skewed by whether or not a book is “in the database.” Sometimes this has unexpected results. For example, every first printing of a certain title which we were able to acquire sold reasonably quickly in the $30-$40 range. One day, we spotted a nice book club edition for sale, bought it, quickly modified the database listing, and almost as quickly sold it. Knowing which books will sell only in first editions (or only as signed copies), which books will sell easily in any hardcover edition, and which books will even sell as paperbacks can be very helpful—especially since the less expensive versions are usually a lot easier to find. Each record in our inventory has a “private notes” field which is not uploaded. The size of this field is essentially unlimited, and so are the types of information which I might include there. The actual name of this field in our database is “quote to/notes” but that is only one use for it. In addition to whether or not we quoted the book to a client (and if the client purchased or declined it, and why, if we know why), I might note the number of comparable listings online at the time we catalogued it and the price range (sometimes this info gets updated), any pricing changes we might have made, where we got the book signed if it is a signed copy, points that are not included in the actual description, and much more. For example, we just sold a signed copy of Westlake’s Castle in the Air. The private notes included the comments that when we first catalogued this in July 1996 there were only three hc 1sts on ABE, the book was mistakenly marked as sold, was signed in Los Angeles in 2004, and when it was reinstated online in late 2004 there were 28 hc 1sts on ABE. Abbreviated, this type of information takes almost no time to enter. Among the other private fields are those where we enter the price paid, and the vendor from whom we purchased the book. (In addition to the obvious bookstore names where we regularly buy books, we also create vendor ids for buying trips out of town. This will provide easily accessible documentation on how many books we bought on that trip, how much we spent, and how much profit we made from those purchases.) We use another field to create printed catalogues, and this field consists only of two character codes. For example, if I wanted to do a list of mysteries by women set in California or one for Florida children’s books, all I have to do is search in this field for “wo my ca” or “fl ch” respectively. There are probably 100 different codes which we use, and most of them are self-evident. We have other fields which are only used for uploading to specific sites. For example, we enter Amazon’s condition codes in one field. We can also enter three different prices for a book. If we were doing a lot of eBay auctions, we might create an eBay title field. The possibilities are unlimited. So far, we have just been dealing with specific books, but one of the benefits of “researching” books or authors on the internet is the ease with which the information can be captured. If I find an interesting article on an author or an illustrator or a book, I will copy this into a separate record (I use the subject name “author and book info” for these records) along with the author’s name, and maybe the url of the website where I found the information. These records can be as specific as the points of a single title, or the tracking of the prices of all copies being offered for sale over a period of years, or a complete bibliography of an author. Again, to give a specific example, I was cataloguing a book recently, and the illustrator who did the frontispiece had an extremely interesting career himself, so I created a record for him. When and if we come across something else with his work in it, we have the information needed to place it in context. The inventory portion of our business database is only part of the database. We also store our client records and our invoices, which provide complete information on books sold, including discounts, if any, sales tax collected, shipping charged, and the source of the sale. But even this small part is much more than just a listing of books we have for sale. It is a living, growing, ever-expanding, focused reference work—a combination of “book prices realized,” bibliographies and points of issue. It becomes worth far more than the few hundred dollars we actually invested in the program and in upgrades or the $34,000 we might have paid for raw data entry. It becomes the single most valuable and virtually irreplaceable asset in our business. Chris Volk operates Bookfever along with Shep Iiams and can be contacted at http://www.bookfever.com. Originally published in the Summer 2006 issue of The Standard.

“Is it a first?” “What are the points of…?” “I can’t find a price guide for…?” “No copy on the net, and need to know the value of…?” Such are the daily, ubiquitous questions found on the various bookish listservs to which many booksellers & collectors subscribe. Most such queries are asked by novice booksellers, or the o.p./used bookseller who has what is thought to be a [potentially] valuable book. And in fact, upon examination, all these questions have in common this last aspect of the bibliophilic world, for what matters the edition, or issue, or state, if not that fact’s relevance to commercial value? Before answering, recall, gentle reader, we pose this query from the perspective of the bookseller, vice book collector, as this IS an article for the IOBA Standard…and given one rarely sees a question posed regarding “which is the best scholarly text?” or something equally indicative of an interest other than monetary, most, I suspect, would respond to the original query with “very little”. So, let’s us make the assumption that commercial value is a driving force in the bookseller community, and that most, if not all, booksellers would prefer to not “undersell” a book, where it is understood that “undersell” is defined by the individual, and the definition of which will run the gamut of the individuals doing the defining. What then confers “commercial value”? The answer, in theory, is easy: nothing more than the forces of Supply & Demand. Determining such for a book not known to you… well, therein lies ‘the rub’, does it not? However this situation need not be too daunting if approached in a systematic manner. One just need evaluate the 4 basic factors that affect the commercial value of a given book: Edition (a Supply & Demand factor), Condition (also a Supply & Demand factor), Availability (a Supply factor) & Desirability (a Demand factor). There are then 3 subsequent factors, all pertaining to the individual bookseller, that will influence the price that bookseller actually establishes for the book to be sold: (1) the amount the bookseller paid for the book, (2) the bookseller’s desired profit margin, and (3) the bookseller’s customer base. Let’s begin by looking at, in greater detail, the first 4 factors… Edition. In Book Collecting, the “name of the game1“, is ‘First Editions’. Let’s take this as a given, and just accept that book collectors [in most cases] prefer the first edition (which we understand to be the first printing) of a given work. Though one qualifying remark need be made at this juncture…when determining commercial value, one must always look at the book from the perspective of the book collector, e.g., a Rackham collector will want the first printing with his illustrator’s work contained therein, which will not necessarily be the true first printing of the title in question, yet, to continue with this example, the ‘Desirability’ factor of Rackham illustrated books is such to give these works a significant commercial value, perhaps even greater than the true first printing of the title. So the question now becomes one of determining the edition of the book under consideration…there is no easy answer to this question, as different books from different periods require different approaches. However, this is key — don’t guess! Have some rationale or reference that substantiates your assertion that the book in question is the edition you state. And here is probably a good time to relate that, in my experience, reference books soon pay for themselves, and the old adage of using 10% of one’s annual profits to build a reference library is still valid today, despite the availability of information, and misinformation , on the Net. For the booksellers reading this essay, this last issue regarding reference books can be approached from another perspective, and can be conversely expressed via the question, “What price your reputation?” Do you wish to be known as someone who “wings it” or as a professional who “knows what they’re about”? Not to say errors won’t be made, we all make them, but in my experience the conservative approach, in the long run, will better serve. Condition. “Condition” in Book Collecting is analogous to “Location” in Real Estate, i.e., it is everything. Book collectors are little different than collectors of other material goods — they, more often than not, wish their collected pieces to be as close to “original” condition as possible. Simply put, the better the condition of a given book, the higher the commercial value. And remember, it is NOT a straight-line relationship…e.g., there are significantly fewer Fine/Fine 1st edition copies of GONE WITH THE WIND than there are VG/VG copies; as such, the Fine/Fine copies command a premium, and consequently are worth significantly more. And at this point, we should probably mention dust jackets…they first appeared on the scene in the 19th C. but until the mid 20th C. they were viewed as ancillary to the book, and were usually discarded. Hence dust jackets from the late 19th C. or early 20th C. are quite scarce, and this factor is recognized by market forces in the values assigned these uncommon pieces…e.g., an early 20th C. A. C. Doyle title usually sells for $3000 or so — a few years back one was auctioned with dust jacket (1 of 2 known as I recall). It pulled down over $100,000.00. Availability. Supply of a given work is primarily a function of initial print run, and other subsequent factors such as initial popularity, time in existence, etc., etc. ‘Availability’ can be sub-divided by condition & edition — e.g., if your client is seeking a Fine copy of a given book, the ‘Availability’ pool will be smaller than if a VG copy is acceptable. Edition can also affect this factor when Issues & States come into play…let’s consider Dickens’ OLIVER TWIST which has a famous issue point with respect to the title page — the first issue has the Dickens pseudonym ‘Boz’ on the title page. When Dickens saw this, he requested an author name change be made by the publisher, so the Second issue states ‘Charles Dickens’ on the title page… both are First Editions, but which one will your customer prefer? If Issue is not an issue, then the ‘Availability’ pool of First Editions is larger. Either way, the rule of thumb is that the 1st issue item will command a higher price, both for reasons of primacy and availability. Desirability. This is simply answering the question of ‘who cares, and why?’, and is probably the most influential factor in determining a given book’s value. The determination is relatively easy for some books (e.g., Hemingway’s THE SUN ALSO RISES), & more difficult for others (D’Anvers CRAFTSMAN)…but if you can’t ascertain any market whatsoever for the book under consideration, then rarity is strictly academic, and the book has little-to-no commercial value. Conversely, a book such as the NUREMBERG CHRONICLE that has recognized great historical significance with high demand and relatively low availability will command a significant price (5 figures for this particular book). Summary. So then, how does one arrive at a price? A methodology I employ is a series of questions & answers… First, what do I have? After determining the two factors that answer this question (e.g., edition & condition), I note whether or not it has any special attributes, such as ownership signatures (author or otherwise) or publication specialty (e.g., ARC). NB: Research signatures in books! I have more than once made a significant sum because the bookseller from whom I bought a book did not take the time to look at, much less research, the signature/inscription in a book. Next comes an idea of availability…Are copies currently available (e.g., AddAll.com), and in what quantities? If yes, how does my copy compare to those currently on the market? Where do I want to position my copy with respect to the others available? Who’s at the high end…what are the copies like at the low end? Etc., etc. If no copies are currently on the market, then a determination of track record is in order…here one can look at old bookseller catalogues, price guides, and auction records. If found, then one need to do no more than extrapolate to current conditions. Finally, if the book held has no history, at least as far as we’re able to determine (recognizing that extremely few books have absolutely *no* market history), then questions on importance to society & an estimate of desirability are in order…chances are if we’ve arrived at this juncture, then the market segment interested in the purchase of the item is perhaps quite narrow or the book is quite rare…but either way, with an item not currently available, one is still able to establish the price…simply make a value judgment on what is held, think of a price, and mark it on the flyleaf. Lastly, we need acknowledge individualistic factors in ‘marking that price on the flyleaf’…what was paid for the book? Booksellers cannot sell at a loss, and expect a long business life! Which presupposes that the book was bought at a price that allows for markup does it not! Second, how much profit margin is desired? Is the price to be set at the absolute top of the market? Somewhere in between? And what customer does the bookseller have for the book…for example, does a bookseller known for reading-copy mysteries have credibility with a buyer of Aldine imprints for that 1513 Cicero that came in a box of books? Probably not. So, all these factors warrant consideration by a bookseller looking to establish a price for a book. But, as you might imagine, there is no ‘pat’ answer, and each individual must decide their respective position on each book. In conclusion, & speaking solely from a personal philosophy, I don’t worry too much about ‘making a mistake’, i.e., underpricing. For, if I follow the above methodology, chances are I’ll be “close”, and I’ll certainly make my profit margin on the price I’ve established…and unpriced books do no more than take up space. Which, afterall, is in-and-of itself a cost…not to mention — there are always more books, and space is something I’ll definitely need for that next batch that walks in the door. 1For the most part — as with most rules-of-thumb, there are exceptions, with many coming in the Americana genre, where the addition of maps, etc. in later editions may challenge the first printing of a title in desirability and, consequently, commercial value. Originally published in the September 2001 issue of The Standard.

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 printed on Japan vellum paper from Rathbun’s original drawing, but the later scarcity and high price of Japan vellum may have necessitated Mosher’s printing of the plate on Van Gelder paper. It has been said that when Parke-Bernet auctioned the Mosher library in 1948, any of Mosher’s books that didn’t have the bookplate were given one. These plates may have been from a reserve stock Mosher had prior to his death. According to the Honey Jar, a small 1890s Columbus, Ohio magazine which often focused on bookplates: “First we have the plate of Thomas B. Mosher (of Bibelot fame). Concerning its origin the owner says it is drawn from the Old German. On a shield the base, sinister and dexter points of which round off into scrolls, an open book supported by two dolphins, tails entwined. Two demi-griffins of heroic size act as semi-supporters. On a ribbon beneath the shield and between a number of conventionalized flowers ‘Ex Libris Mdcccxcvij.’ Below is ‘Thomas B. Mosher.’ All within a serrated border.” Sappe, D. C., ed. Honey Jar: A Recep-tacle for Literary Preserves. Vol. III, No. 1. (Columbus, OH: Champlin Press at the Sign of the Green Wreath, November 1899), p. 16. IOBA Standard, Fall Edition 2008, Volume 9, No. 4. All material is copyright of the authors. The views expressed by writers for the Standard do not necessarily reflect the views of IOBA.

Back in 1891 a single press run of George Meredith’s Modern Love appeared from a totally unknown American press and publisher in Portland, Maine—Thomas Bird Mosher. To be sure, there were huge publishing houses in America turning out hundreds of books, but nobody in America was designing and printing the kind of aesthetically-styled books that began issuing from the Mosher Press in Portland, Maine. By 1900 94 titles would make their appearance and by the end of Mosher’s publishing program in 1923 there would be 384 editions, 338 reprints of those editions, and 61 “privately printed” books for a total of 783 books grouped into fourteen different series, all limited editions, and all personally designed and issued by the small Portland press that managed with only one assistant, a few helpers, and the use of three local printers. Curious? For further details see Thomas Bird Mosher—Pirate Prince of Publishers: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Source Guide to The Mosher Books Reflecting England’s National Literature & Design (Oak Knoll Press and The British Library, 1998) or click on http://marauder.millersville.edu/~mosher/printing/printing.html. This was a very fertile period in American book publishing and the small press movement which was stimulated by William Morris and various other private presses in vogue at the time in England. But in the States, Mosher became the granddaddy of small presses here including Copeland & Day, Way & Williams, Stone & Kimball, the Elston Press, the Alderbrink Press, and the Roycrofters just to mention a small handful of the many presses operating during the early 1900s. One of the criticisms of Mosher’s productions was that the covers in which they were bound were too dainty and fragile. Different papers like Japan vellum, colored Italian Fabriano, Japanese shadow papers and bright red Toyogami papers covered his productions. Beautiful, yes, and admittedly precious to the touch. Rugged and durable over the long term? No. But it was these papers which helped to separate the Mosher Books from other books of the era (and keep costs down), and even today finding excellent examples is a real pleasure for collectors. I’ve always said that a fine copy of a Mosher book, or any private press book for that matter, is a sheer joy, but there’s nothing worse than a grubby copy. They were meant to please the senses, not to repel. Mosher himself was aware of his books’ fragility and their beauty, including their need to be in tissue coverings and in protective slipcases, but he also often suggested that they be placed in temporary covers so that collectors could have them rebound in bindings of their choosing. Indeed, the text blocks of the Mosher books, as issued, are easily accessible by a binder. In his 1898 List of Books, Mosher indicated that … American and foreign binders have chosen many of these books whereon to lavish their skill. In America, Mr. Otto Zahn, the Misses Nordholf and Bulkley; in London, Miss Prideaux and the Guild of Women Binders have re-clothed in exquisite bindings not a few of the special copies of Mr. Mosher’s editions.(1) This is an area that has always intrigued me and so one of the sub-collection areas I’ve chosen (there are numerous sub-collections) (2) to emphasize in the Mosher collection is that of bindings placed on the Mosher books showing the level of importance owners and binders placed on Mosher’s publications. Along the way I’ll also reveal some of the steps one has to take to acquire some of this material—so in a sense the following also has a sort of instructional quality. From the outset, I suppose we should answer one question before proceeding. Why collect bindings? Since the Mosher books and many other private or quasi-private press books were, for the most part, not originally issued in fine bindings, (3) why should the collector consider this area? Of course there’s the flippant answer that hey, one should collect whatever pleases you. True, like the ancient Greeks said, in matters of style or taste there really is no argument. But aside from arbitrary opinion and fancy, there are a number of reasons why fine bindings should be taken seriously as an area to collect in addition to examples of the particular press’s publications. Some of these arguments could also be used for collecting any books, but I’m confining it here to the private, quasi-private, and small press productions. Bindings are a connection to a collecting past, part of the story of that private press and its reception by the public. After a title is issued, individual copies go all over the place. Some are distributed by the author and the publisher. Some are given from one important or interesting person to another which forms the whole realm of association copies. Some are just bought and taken into a private person’s or public institution’s collection. Part of this field of dissemination involves copies going into the hands of binders or into a private party’s hands and then on to his or her chosen binder. For the most part, it’s the better heeled individuals who could afford to have their books specially bound, but even in this area of biblio-accoutrement we find a whole range of bindings running from the home-made (often paper, suede or hand-illuminated covers) or amateur plain quarter, three-quarter, full leather bindings all the way to the sumptuous leather and the most skillfully decorated professional bindings of artistic merit. The latter instances also have a wide range of the more simple to the highly ornate and extremely well done with some full leather bindings costing the collector a small ransom to retrieve from his binder, or which a binder prepared for an exhibition placing his or her handiwork in competition with the work of fellow binders. The amateur class reflects the individual’s wish to integrate part of himself or herself with the book. It’s a book the person treasured and wanted to put into a more permanent dress which involved their handiwork added to the volume. Additionally, there are amateur binders who were newly learning the bookbinding craft by producing trial bindings or more accomplished bindings to impress their teachers or fellow students. Of course beyond those in training, there were binders already familiar with the fundamentals who received copies of a book that they felt the contents of which merited their special artful and creative talents, either because of the importance of the text or because of the beauty of the printing—or both! All the above instances are part of the historic connections one can derive from the binders and the owners of those bindings. Although always a relatively small area of craftsmanship (unlike furniture for example), to collect bindings is a way to more fully illustrate a particular binder’s accomplishments, or to show the placement of a particular book or set of books in an important collection. Some of the finest books in handsome “extra” bindings flowed into the more important collections. Here in America we have immensely important collectors from the golden age of book collecting (later 19th / early 20th century) like Robert Hoe III, Henry William Poor, Cortlandt Field Bishop, John Quinn, Jerome Kern, A. Edward Newton, William F. Gable, and William Loring Andrews just to name a few. On a strata below them we also have a whole host of collections of wealthy patrons which included many a fine binding. A good example would be Emilié B. Grigsby who inherited part of the Charles T. Yerkes fortune. Securing bindings from collections such as these provides examples of the kind of work often commissioned for these truly outstanding libraries, and is a solid nod to those who came before, and incidentally to those who also derived a sense of worth in the books so embellished. These bindings then are important due to their association with a particular monumental collection, they provide evidence of a chain of ownership from one collector to another, and they illustrate the historic phenomenon of fine bindings placed on treasured books. Of course there are also the singular bindings that were given as gifts or as tokens of affection or admiration. These also fit under the category of association and may have found homes with the author or a fellow author or otherwise important person. Trails of ownership, what is called provenance, can have importance beyond just ownership. The book may have been an influence on someone’s thought and writing, and having that very book in a most pleasing binding was part of the story. It may have been an expression of the book’s importance to the owner, or an expression of the sense of pride in having the volume. Last, but certainly not least, bindings involve the important element of aesthetic enjoyment. Having a small press book in hand, one usually feels the sense of lightness. The book’s size and often relatively few pages, unlike some of the massive tomes of yore, present the viewer-reader with a lovely printed, aesthetically pleasing text. When a fine binding is applied, that lightness to the touch somewhat disappears. The increase in materials from the boards and the feel of the leather used and possibly onlays or inlays of leather, the extra end sheets, and the gold and/or color (or blind-tooling), all add a sense of substantiality. There’s an added heft to the book, a feeling of weight in the palm of the hand, a feeling of solidity. Private, quasi-private and small press and fine printing productions are particularly well suited for containment in fine bindings, and to experience the marriage of such fine printing on choice paper all contained in the additional fine binding is particularly satisfying. It unites the artistic crafts of the paper maker, the type and graphic designer, and the printer and binder all in one package. One holds within his or her hands a truly marvelous objet d’art with meaningful text, all quite possibly enhanced by distinguished provenance. In addition to the individual binding or small groupings of bindings, a large collection of a press’s books in bindings begins to show all sorts of connections. My own collection of over 350 Mosher books in bindings reveals the work of master binders and their students. We have Cobden-Sanderson’s pupils and their students including Elizabeth Utley and Florence Foote, binding work of the famous Swiss binder Hugo Peller and his student Silvia Rennie, and the work of Daniel G. Knowlton of Rhode Island who was so important in training many American binders still practicing today. Likewise there’s the work of Ellen Gates Starr’s talented apprentice, Peter Verburg of Hull House in Chicago. There are striking bindings from the English binderies of Zaehnsdorf, Sangorski & Sutcliffe, Bradstreets, the Guild of Women-Binders, Bickers & Son, the Morrell Bindery, the bindery work for Hatchards, the Chivers Bindery, and Otto Schultz of Edinburgh. Quite a line-up. Here in America there are examples from the Harcourt Bindery and the work of Truslove and Hanson of Boston and the Oakwood Bindery of Pittsfield, MA; Toof & Co. and the Zahn Bindery from Memphis, TN; the Club Bindery, the Adams Bindery, the Knickerbocker Press Bindery, the Stikeman & Co. Bindery and the Launder Bindery all of New York; the R. R. Donnelley Bindery, the Lakeside Press Bindery, and the Monastery Hill Bindery of Chicago. There is also a far reaching assortment of individual binders like Lucien Broca who did the finishing work for Sarah Prideaux, the superb exhibition finisher Leonard Mounteney, G. Averill Cole, Mary Stuart Kernochan, F. T. Hubbard, Lorenz Schwartz, George A. Zabriskie, Fletcher Battershall, Eva Clarke, Fannie Coleman, Bogadus of the Huntington Library, and many, many others, some of which are identified and others of which only their initials are known. Of course there are European binders including the great René Chambolle and the Taffin Bindery both of France, and Jozsef Galamb of Budapest along with the Swiss binder mentioned before, Hugo Peller. As for important provenance, many of the great American collections are represented including Henry William Poor, Cortlandt Field Bishop, and Jerome Kern, and bindings containing inscribed copies like that of George Meredith’s Japan vellum copy of his Modern Love (1891) inscribed to Lady Jean Palmer; and the Emilié B. Grigsby / Ormond G. Smith copy of Fiona Macleod’s (a.k.a. William Sharp) The Silence of Amor (1902) containing what is most likely the first letter from William Sharp introducing Sharp’s feminine alter ego, Fiona Macleod, to Mosher. There’s even a copy of Oscar Wilde’s Poetical Works (1906) from the library of Princess Clara Elizabeth (Prentice-Huntington) von Hatzfeldt, and others owned by artists, poets, and socialites. The collection also includes a full set of The Bibelot, Mosher’s 240 part monthly periodical, bound in three-quarter morocco which bears the monogram of Flora M. Lamb, the Mosher Press publisher’s long-time assistant. Although I have yet to verify this, there is a red three-quarter binding on another set of The Bibelot which may be Thomas Bird Mosher’s own copy. The search to verify this goes on, which is part of the fun. Thomas B. Mosher’s publications were obviously a favorite with many collectors and binders as evidenced by the large number represented in the Bishop collection and further identified in my bibliography, Thomas Bird Mosher—Pirate Prince of Publishers. For the remainder of this essay I will simply concentrate on a few of these bindings and indicate some of the things I’ve done to acquire them which might be instructive to anyone seeking to build a bindings component to their own private press collection. (4) In December 2007 I acquired a large Rossetti volume bound unlike any other in the collection. The New York auction house had it incorrectly described as (a) a binding by Otto Zahn from the Zahn Bindery in Memphis TN, (b) listed it only as Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Poems of 1902, (c) indicated it was printed on vellum, (d) presented its designs as an “abstract Nouveau motif of sprays and dots” and “leaf design” and so on. After having my proxy examine the book carefully looking for some particular markings, I found out that it was actually two Mosher books bound as one: Rossetti’s Poems (1902) and his Ballads & Sonnets (1903), both copies #18 of 25 signed by the publisher and printed on Japan vellum (not vellum), and I knew the designs to be more homogeneous than what the cataloguer belabored to describe. The whole volume is a take off on a wheat design using a spike or what some may call the head of a wheat stalk. That’s right, mimicking spikes of wheat. This design motif is even most pleasingly expressed in the goffered gilt edges, and the divide of the two volumes is where the arched design meets to form a mirror image of itself. This is totally delightful. Most importantly, although they were correct in reporting that it was from the Zahn Bindery, they missed the most telling mark in the inside of the back cover: an intertwined “L” and an “S” which are the initials of Lorenz Schwartz. Otto Zahn (5) emigrated to America and established the Toof Bindery. When that folded, he later established his own business under the name of the Zahn Bindery, also in Memphis, which is where this binding was made, but it wasn’t bound and tooled by Zahn. As I indicated that overlapping S over an L stands for Lorenz Schwartz, a Danish binder who began working for Otto Zahn in 1904-1907 or thereabouts and then joined the Roycroft Bindery from 1907-1915 and from 1928-1947. I’m not sure where he was from 1916-1927, but he was very skilled. In fact some say his work rivaled one of the American giants of binding at the time, Louis Kinder who headed the Roycroft Bindery. I think he also favorably compares to Otto Zahn himself. As recently as January 2008 I sent two bindings to my conservator, the exquisite Rossetti volume, mentioned above, in need of some modest repairs, and a special Toof binding on a Japan vellum copy of The Bibelot which was pictured in The American Bookbinder. Although I’ve consistently tried throughout my book collecting career to acquire volumes in the finest condition, sometimes one simply has to get what’s presented, especially if it’s of particular merit. The following is a March 24, 2008 note I sent to my binder who had just completed what turned out to be a highly skillful restoration of the spectacular Schwartz binding and the smaller Toof binding: Although I’m a bookseller, I really am a Romantic when it comes to books, close friends, gardens, and the sense of place. I’m also very much of a precision guy with what I consider to be a connoisseur’s taste’s—including knowledgeable, exacting, and a fairly good aesthetic sense. So it’s with those eyes that I’ll be greeting your fine work. I judge your highly talented skills to be in sync or parallel with a connoisseur’s exactitude which is why I selected you to begin with. This shipment [return of the repaired books] is coming at a most fortuitous time. I’ve turned down a binding for the collection which, in my estimation, is one of the most deplorable examples of the binder’s art and just because of that I actually entertained buying it as an example of what NOT to do when binding a book. It was first offered to me back in January [2007], and although in great condition, was one of the most eccentric bindings I’ve ever seen. What a conglomeration of tooling, stamping out of register, tooling far too deep, the front doublure didn’t match the back leather doublure, roll tools sloppily used, etc., but to others it seems like a wonderful binding. It’s not, but so many others look but can’t see. To top it off, the binder spelled Rossetti’s name Rosetti on the front cover and the spine. That, to me, is sacrilege. Anyway, the book was sent to me in January and I returned it to the dealer who had a Mosher collection for sale. Then he “dumped” it in an auction and some folks contacted me about it, but of course I was already aware of what was going on and intended to attend the auction where, as you might surmise, I passed it by. An upper-level dealer recently listed it as a “magnificently bound in full dark blue, crushed morocco tooled and lettered in gilt; elaborately gilt decorated, ribbed spine in six compartments…” but didn’t list the binder so I wasn’t sure it was the same book so asked for some JPEGs. I got them and it was obvious that it was the same book, and even the bookseller’s description gave the author’s name as Rosetti reflecting the very mistake the binder originally made. He had the book priced at $525. I wrote back that I respectfully passed without mentioning my critical stance on the binding (not a good thing to do with a fellow dealer). The next time I looked the binding was re-priced at $725. Why not $950? After all, one absurd price might as well follow another. But it’s not the price that bothers me so much as it is the inability to discriminate between poor, fair, or very good, excellent work. Before this, there was another book from the same collection that was rejected by me, and upon entreaty by the seller who wanted to know why I rejected it and who was given a list of eleven reasons why, was resold to yet another dealer who then priced it in the stratospheric level, but again more importantly by mis-describing the condition which was totally baffling because he should know better than many others what “pure vellum” should be like to call it “very fine.” So… all this is to say that there have been several rejects which I was hoping to add to the Mosher collection, but which I had to pass upon. Before your talented work I had to pass by what were at one time beautiful bindings, but now my hope is that I’ll be able to depend on you for restoration of not only my personal books, but also for an occasional book I might acquire for resale. I don’t know why I found it necessary to vent a little—maybe because I’m trying to avoid doing my taxes which I dread as much as a visit to a dentist—but I just hoped it might convey my estimation of your work and your attitude toward perfection and conservation which I admire. I’m very much looking forward to receiving these two books which will be deservedly given an honored place in the Mosher Collection here at the Bishopric of Lancaster County. Oh, and the binding restorations, what of them? My binder didn’t disappoint. They’re spectacular! What’s even more gratifying is that the bindings are now conserved for the future. That Toof binding by Zahn on The Bibelot was all but a lost cause. Now it’s a pleasure to see and hold, although it never will be the same as when it was first bound. I should add too that both of these bindings might have never come my way. I placed a bid on the Rossetti which I had a proxy execute, but the binding went much higher and was finally “bought in” by the auction house. When I talked with my representative he told me we lost it but I instructed him to leave my card with the auction house specifically reiterating my offer; however, I essentially kissed it good-bye. Several days later I was still thinking about the book, lamenting the loss when I got a phone call from a colleague. He was talking about an expensive book which was sent from England and which reportedly arrived but was lost. Gulp! It got me thinking about loss and I just ran this by my colleague since he’s very adept at auctions: “You know that Schwartz at auction… I left a standing offer but suppose the book was finally sold to someone else after the auction. Perhaps I should at least telephone them to get the final outcome?” Well, that’s exactly what I did and lo and behold I found out that there was a miscommunication. They were unsure who made that offer after the auction (read: lost your card). After a little checking with the consignor they said the offer was good and that the book was mine if I wanted it. How can one explain it, especially since I wasn’t even the under bidder? As for the other book, it was part of a collection which wasn’t supposed to come my direction but the seller had second thoughts, offered me my pick of the litter, and told me the binding was one of those Sangorski bindings but was in rough shape. I asked him to send it along with my other purchases and I’d look it over. True, the boards were detached and there was a good bit of wear, but I liked the design, discovered it was a Toof binding by Zahn, and even found it pictured in the bookbinding literature of the day. Since I’ve mentioned Otto Zahn and the Toof Bindery, I might as well proceed to say a few things about Zahn and a few of his bindings. Otto Zahn apprenticed under T. A. Franke in Arnstadt, Germany (ca. 1872-1873) and also spent a year developing his skills in fine binding at the Zaehnsdorf bindery in London. Zahn came to America in 1883 and within one year he permanently settled in Memphis, Tennessee. He went to work with S. C. Toof & Co. in 1884, eventually becoming foreman and then, in 1918, president of the company until his death in 1928. The Toof firm and Otto Zahn were highly respected by Mosher who indicated “…I believe he [Otto Zahn] is without an equal on this side the waters.” (6) Zahn’s outstanding work was of exhibition quality, in fact he won numerous prizes for his designs and bindings. To coincide with the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, he wrote an illustrated manual On Art Binding—A Monograph which included pictures of several Toof bindings. One in particular has always been a favorite of mine due to its complicated art nouveau design and the fact that the book’s text was printed on real vellum. Like the Schwartz book described earlier, this volume houses two volumes bound into one and was acquired over eighteen years ago for the Mosher Collection. The volume is Walter Pater’s Marius the Epicurean—His Sensations and Ideas Vol. I & II (Mosher Press, 1900). Years after its purchase—the first truly expensive book I ever bought for the collection—the original solander book case was replaced by a specially engineered case designed and constructed by the binder S. A. Neff, Jr. The full morocco clamshell case not only allows for the viewing of the book without handling, but also includes a hidden compartment which houses a copy of Zahn’s monograph wherein the book itself is pictured. A far less complicated but nevertheless attractive Zahn binding is that of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Father Damien—An Open Letter to the Reverend Doctor Hyde of Honolulu (Mosher, 1897). This binding is signed “S. C. Toof & Co. / ZAHN” inside the front cover. Whereas the Marius the Epicurean only took one phone call to the dealer in order to establish purchase price, payments and terms, the Father Damien was tough to secure. I was first approached about this book through another bookseller at a Baltimore book show in September 2004. In 2006 we finally agreed on a deal, with payment going to the owner in Memphis, TN with a courtesy 10% going to the bookseller who originally contacted me. The bookseller turned down the payment because she was embarrassed that it all took so long and because of her total exasperation over the seller’s unwillingness to move in negotiations. The design appears to be very early Zahn / Toof. I’m familiar with his style and that front cover “trunk” of the floral stamp (the more or less vertical lines gently curving upward from the bottom of the binding and intersecting not quite midway at the place where two dots flank on either side of the intersection and then with the gold lines again curving upward until they meet with the branches, etc. of the floral area) is a proto design of what would soon after be a stylized (but further refined) way of Zahn’s handling the tooling from the outer picture frame gilt rolls to the inner design. This type of tooling became a signature design of Zahn’s although he was also famous for various studies in hand tooling replicating European styles of bindings as demonstrated in the bookbinding sections of The Printer and Bookmaker and The American Bookmaker of the mid-1890s-1900. Furthermore, this binding was most likely produced very early by Zahn, perhaps even before he was first in contact with Mosher. As I noted in the Mosher bibliography, Mosher and Zahn were becoming acquainted in 1897/98 which is when this binding must have been executed, although due to the proto nature of the design I truly think this may indeed be among some of Zahn’s earliest on a Mosher book. (7) Lastly, here is another one of the Zahn bindings, only this one did appear in the October 1896 issue of The American Bookmaker (p. 110). Both the front cover/spine and the inside front cover were pictured. Although this binding has seen better days, it still reveals the complexity of Zahn’s good tooling and finishing. This copy came to the collection through a book trade from the West Coast. It was Edward DeWitt Taylor’s copy (artist, etcher, designer, printer, Taylor & Taylor Printers, San Francisco) with his printer’s bookplate. The American binders of this era were plentiful and mostly located in our larger cities as one might expect, although certainly not all as attested by the Roycroft Bindery in small little East Aurora, NY. But the crème de la crème formed the Club Bindery in New York City. The bindery was founded in 1898 by Edwin Holden and a few other wealthy members of the Grolier Club to bring the art of fine bookbinding to America and to bind their most precious books following the finest standards of European binderies, but it ceased its operation in 1909. One of the bindery’s more outstanding binders and finishers was Léon Maillard who studied under France’s finest, including Marius Michel. In 1906 the Grolier Club held a major exhibition and published An Exhibition of Some of the Latest Artistic Bindings Done at the Club Bindery. Eight of the one hundred and thirty-eight bindings exhibited were on Mosher imprints—more than any other American publisher represented at the exhibition. Most of these bindings were very limited editions (ten or fewer) printed on Japan vellum or on pure Roman vellum, and belonged to Henry William Poor. Poor had a marvelous library in which appeared at least two hundred and forty-six imprints (including some sets) bound exclusively for the collector by New York’s Club Bindery. From that library there were thirty Mosher titles, all described in the “Henry W. Poor Library” sale catalogue (five parts, 1908-09). The third part of the catalogue, entry 812 contains notice of A Little Garland of Celtic Verse (1905) with Poor‘s red leather bookplate:812. MOSHER PRESS.—A Little Garland of Celtic Verse. 12mo, handsomely bound in full red crushed levant morocco, paneled with green levant, gilt tooled, paneled and gilt back, doublé of red crushed levant, gilt borders, gilt edges, in case, by the CLUB BINDERY. Portland, 1905 *No. 2 OF 10 COPIES PRINTED ON VELLUM. The buyer: Cortlandt Field Bishop, the wealthy and well known figure in 19th century New York art circles. His most exquisite books and manuscripts were sold by the American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, the Kende Galleries and at auctions held in Paris. The next time the Little Garland appears is at London’s Phillips de Pury auction in 1993 at which time it goes back to America into a collection where it would wait its turn to be featured in a Grolier Club exhibition with accompanying catalogue Bound to be the Best—The Club Bindery in 2004 (entry 33 and plate 33). (8) I attended the opening of this exhibition and have recorded my reactions in the essay “At the Opening of the Club Bindery Exhibition” which can be found at http://marauder.millersville.edu/~mosher/other/club_bindery.htm. Several years later the Little Garland would grace the shelves of the Mosher Collection. It took many years of alliance with the former owner, Thomas G. Boss, to finally acquire an example of a Club Binding for the collection. My friend and fellow Mosher enthusiast, Norman Strouse, had a number of Mosher books in Club bindings, most if not all of which are now at the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, CA. He collected those years ago, but now there is scarcely a Mosher book in Club binding ever offered, so this is the only one which has entered the Bishop Collection to date. There’s a phrase in Larry McMurtry’s Cadillac Jack (1982) which says that “anything can be anywhere.” One never knows what might be found and where, and it was during such an instance that I acquired what might be said to be the best of my Mosher binding “finds,” this being from a little book and antique business in the wild, wild West. I was able to secure a copy of Mosher’s 1898 The Germ printed on real vellum (copy #4 of 4) and in a binding by one Mounteney. It’s the absolute “black orchid” of the whole Mosher corpus. I was looking at the “Westies” mimeographed “catalogue” The likes of Otto Zahn, Leonard Mounteney, and the binders at the Club Bindery were all European trained binders who made their way to America, but there were binders who received their training here, many of whom were talented and accomplished amateurs and some who became professionals in the field. In the late 19th century and early 1900s a whole bevy of American women went to learn the ABCs of binding in England and France. Many trained under Cobden-Sanderson of the Doves Press and the Doves Bindery. Evelyn Nordhoff became Cobden-Sanderson’s first pupil in 1895, and then a whole succession of students traveled to learn under his tutelage. All totaled there were more than a dozen women who trained at the bindery between 1897 and 1909 including Ellen Gates Starr of Chicago’s Hull House, and Florence Foote and Emily Preston of New York. From the Pittsburgh area Euphemia Bakewell became one of his best pupils, and like the others, when she returned to America she likewise took on students. Her two star pupils were the wealthy Rachael MacMasters Miller Hunt and her friend Elizabeth Utley. Hunt ended up binding at least six Mosher books, and both she and Utley provided examples of their work at the newly formed Guild of Bookworkers’ inaugural exhibition of members work at the old Tiffany Studios of Fourth Avenue, New York in April 1907. Among the seventy-four bindings in the show, there was Elizabeth Utley’s work on Rossetti’s The Blessed Damozel (Mosher, 1901) which is now in the Bishop collection of Mosher books. This same binding was also shown in The Art Society of Pittsburgh’s Exhibit of Artistic Industries in 1912, and at the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh’s annual exhibition at the Carnegie Institute Galleries in 1935. More recently it was part of the Craftsman Farms Foundation exhibition “Women’s Work: the Role of Women in the Arts and Crafts Movement” from July-October 1996. Mosher’s almost 5 ½” square printing of The Blessed Damozel became a favorite for American binders and I’ve seen this attractively printed book appear more frequently bound in fine decorated binding than just about any other title in the Mosher line-up. As before mentioned there are 350+ Mosher books in fine full or three-quarter leather in my Mosher collection. If you want to further explore some of the other binders and bindings represented in the collection just go to http://marauder.millersville.edu/~mosher/bindings/bindings.html and click on any of the links within the discussion. The collection includes a number of professional and amateur productions and work that came from American and European binderies. Works produced for major exhibitions, bindings for the holiday trade, and bindings just given as a loving memento from friend to friend are all represented. Should readers have an interest in reading more about the Bishop Collection and how it was assembled, just go to http://marauder.millersville.edu/~mosher/other/bishopbio.html then scroll down and click on any of the essays provided. It’s hoped that this present essay and those further listed will not only provide for your reading pleasure (admittedly, you’ve got to be a collector to love this stuff), but also to help give hints as to how the collecting game can be played. Maybe you’ll include a few wonderful bindings in your own collection. And now for an unabashed advertisement: should anyone reading this essay in the “IOBA Standard” have a Mosher book in a fine highly decorated full leather signed binding that they’d like to donate or sell to the Mosher collection here, please feel free to contact the writer. Additionally he’s always looking for these particular kinds of things relating to Mosher Press: — Association copies — — Letters to / from Thomas Bird Mosher — — Mosher books printed on real vellum — — Illuminated copies of the Mosher Books — — Books from Mosher’s library with his bookplate or inscription — Please forward all correspondence or contact via e-mail or snail mail to: Philip R. Bishop MOSHER BOOKS P. O. Box 542 Ephrata, PA 17522-0542 717-733-1476 mosher@ptd.net Bookplates (Addenda): Thomas Bird Mosher submitted by Philip R. Bishop 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 printed on Japan vellum paper from Rathbun’s original drawing, but the later scarcity and high price of Japan vellum may have necessitated Mosher’s printing of the plate on Van Gelder paper. It has been said that when Parke-Bernet auctioned the Mosher library in 1948, any of Mosher’s books that didn’t have the bookplate were given one. These plates may have been from a reserve stock Mosher had prior to his death. According to the Honey Jar, a small 1890s Columbus, Ohio magazine which often focused on bookplates: “First we have the plate of Thomas B. Mosher (of Bibelot fame). Concerning its origin the owner says it is drawn from the Old German. On a shield the base, sinister and dexter points of which round off into scrolls, an open book supported by two dolphins, tails entwined. Two demi-griffins of heroic size act as semi-supporters. On a ribbon beneath the shield and between a number of conventionalized flowers ‘Ex Libris Mdcccxcvij.’ Below is ‘Thomas B. Mosher.’ All within a serrated border.” Sappe, D. C., ed. Honey Jar: A Recep-tacle for Literary Preserves. Vol. III, No. 1. (Columbus, OH: Champlin Press at the Sign of the Green Wreath, November 1899), p. 16. FOOTNOTES: (1)A List of Books in Limited Editions. Portland, ME: Thomas Bird Mosher, 1898, p. 6. (2)For a list of these sub-collections, see the companion piece interview in this issue of the IOBA Standard. (3)The Roycrofters were a notable exception in America, and the Doves Press in England having its correlative Doves Bindery and likewise with the Gregynog Press and its bindery. (4)It should be strongly noted that all bets are off with the field of collecting modern books. Here a book and its dust-jacket as issued are of prime importance and the rules of the game totally change. A fine binding on a modern book of literature may actually destroy the value of the book as a collectable. But like anything else, there are notable exceptions so even this doesn’t hold true in all cases. (5)More information on Zahn and photos of some of the Toof bindings can be found in Don Etherington’s article, “Will the Real Otto Zahn Please Stand Up?” in the Guild of Book Workers Journal. Vol. XXXIII, No. 1. Spring 1995, pp. 21-31. Although there are a number of bindings pictured, Etherington apparently didn’t take notice that several of them were signed “L.S.” meaning the work was done by Lorenz Schwartz. Additionally Zahn did quite a number of bindings illustrating historical work from decades or even centuries past. (6)Mosher to Emilié Grigsby ALS, March 21, 1898, p. 2, at the Gleeson Library, University of San Francisco. (7)At the Houghton Library there is a letter dated October 31, 1898 from Otto Zahn to Mosher (No. 1638) with twenty-seven photographs of bindings on Mosher books (twenty-six covers and one doublure). The titles identified from the pictures are: from the Old World Series Helen of Troy (two copies), Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sylvie, The Rubáiyát, The Kasîdah, The Sonnets of Michael Angelo, Aucassin and Nicolete (three different copies), Félise, The New Life of Dante Alighieri, and Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (two copies). Bindings on The Bibelot Series include Long Ago, The Defense of Guenevere and The Rubáiyát (1894). Bindings on books from the Brocade Series are The Hollow Land, The Story of Cupid and Psyche, and The Story of Amis and Amile. There are also: Father Damien (Reprints from “The Bibelot” Series), Essays from the “Guardian” (Reprints of Privately Printed Books), In Praise of Omar (Miscellaneous Series), From the Upanishads (Miscellaneous Series), and a sample binding on one of the bound volumes of The Bibelot. All these bindings represent a wide array of styles ranging from art nouveau to the more Grolieresque designs. In yet another letter at the Houghton dated April 27, 1897 (No. 1638a), Zahn tells Mosher he has sent ten copies of Old World Series books “to the Nashville Centennial [the Tennessee Centennial Exposition], put up in elaborate art bindings. I bought the books from the Mansford Co. here.” He further remarks, “I also have bound some of your editions for booklovers in San Francisco, Cal. and Minneapolis, Minn. The prices of the bindings you saw at the Grolier Club are as follows: Sylvie: $30.00 The Kasidah $27.00. All the others: $20.00. I will be glad to dress your beautiful editions in a garb befitting their worth, should you chose to entrust me with them.” Mosher highly prized Zahn’s work and recommended the Toof & Co. to some of his more special customers.( 8)My own copy of this book is inscribed “For The Prince of Mosher Collectors Philip Bishop from his friend Tom Boss / The first inscribed copy 1 September 2004” along with and inscribed “invitation #1 T.G.B.” to the opening of the exhibition. Philip R. Bishop operates MOSHER BOOKS out of Ephrata, PA and can be contacted at http://www.stairway.org/mosher.

Blurbettes: Faux Real: Genuine Leather and 200 Years of Inspired Fakes by Robert Kanigel (Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2007) comes with two holes in the dust jacket. More on that later. From the front inside flap. “What makes genuine leather genuine? What make real things…real? In an age of virtual reality, veneers, synthetics, plastics, fakes, and knockoffs, it’s hard to know. “Over the centuries, men and women have devoted enormous energy to making fake things seem real. As early as the 14th century, fabric was treated with special oils to make it resemble leather. In the 1870s came Leatherette, a new bookbinding material. The 20th century gave us Fabrikoid, Naugahyde, Corfam, and Ultrasuede. Each claims to transcend leather’s limitations, to do better than nature itself—or at least to convince consumers that it has. “Perhaps more than any other natural material, leather stands for the authentic and the genuine; GENUINELEATHER, like a single German word, is how we think of it. Its animal roots etched in its pores and in the swirls of its grain, leather serves as cultural shorthand for the virtues of the real over the synthetic, the original over the copy, the luxurious over the shoddy and second-rate. “From formica, vinyl siding, and particle board to cubic zirconium, knockoff designer bags, and genetically altered foods, inspired fakes of every description fly the polyester pennant of a brave new man-made world. Each represents an often passionate journey of scientific, technical, and entrepreneurial innovation. Faux Real explores the borderland of the almost-real, the ersatz, and the fake, illuminating a centuries-old culture war between the authentic and the imitative.” From the rear inside flap. “Robert Kanigel is the author of the critically acclaimed The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He also wrote Apprentice to Genius and The One Best Way, a biography of efficiency expert Frederick Winslow Taylor. Kanigel is a professor of science writing at MIT, where he directs its Graduate Program in Science Writing. He has worked with leather, off and on, for more than 30 years.” From the rear panel, next to a hole. “Is it real or faux real? You decide. Tell us if you feel the material covering this book is real or faux real—and let us now what you think of the book. Win money-saving coupons and get fun facts about the material used to cover this book when you participate. E-mail fauxreal@nas.edu now!” The boards are kind of a sickly yellow color, very cheap to the touch. The contest should really be whether they are leatherette or fake leatherette. I emailed the following message weeks ago. “This book was very interesting—certainly the best I’ve ever seen on real and fake leather. I am going to guess that the cover is actually made out of fake leather, because you could totally fake us out good by using real leather, but that would probably cost so much more that it wouldn’t be worth it.” Thus I participated, but did not receive a reply from this National Academy of Sciences address, let alone any money-saving coupons or fun facts. What could be more transitory than an email address in a book, but I sent it in the year of publication and half expected the promised bounty. Were they so flooded with responses that they’ve had trouble keeping up? Was this just a cheap gimmicky promotion they never intended to honor? Or was the offer itself fake, serving as intentional irony? You decide.

BEA. To go, or not to go, that was the question. With my new baby, Perfect Pines Books and Gifts still in its infancy, I had to ask myself first if I could afford to go. That question had an easy answer, but only if I wanted to be completely honest with myself. “No.” So, I admitted that I couldn’t really afford the expense of attending Book Expo America in New York and ended the internal dialog. And then THEY started talking. You know them. Most people refer to them as the angel and devil duo, and they are often depicted perched on opposite shoulders. I would have settled for just two voices arguing for or against attending, but instead I got to put up with the fan, the reader, the journalist, the novelist, the cartoonist, the satirist, the biographer, the self-help guru, the adventurer, the traveler, the book and book bag collector and a host of other bookish and not-so-bookish types that weren’t satisfied with the usual suspects—time and money—being the only voices to chime in on my decision. In the end, the deciding vote was cast by a genre I should be more familiar with—Fantasy. I was going to go, and somehow it was all going to work out. I figured the rest of the cast would have fun with that resolution as it developed. With no wizards, faeries, or similar other-worldly types to intervene on my behalf, I turned to a few characters in my life that tend to lean toward the heroic when faced with a damsel in distress. Fantasy became reality and my happily ever after, at least for the immediate future, was secure. I was going to BEA. My Prince Charming would hold down the fort . . . er . . . castle and take care of the prince and princess, and in lieu of a horse-drawn carriage, I’d be transported to the big city in a horseless carriage accompanied by my father, who would be too tickled if I referred to him as The King. I had some plans to make, but in keeping with the fairy tale adventure, much of the work had already been done for me. Kudos go to the ABA, which chose a top notch hotel for their members, and who were so friendly and helpful throughout BEA. The Brooklyn Marriot was a treat. The rooms were clean, full of amenities, and the entire staff was friendly, helpful and quick to offer assistance. The shuttle service between the Marriot and the Javits Center was very efficient and user-friendly. No need to navigate, just board bus #5 and ride. We were able to flip through catalogs, review the daily schedule, or finish off our morning coffee while our drivers did all the hard work of navigating through Gotham. We used the shuttle bus, exclusively, to make the trek to BEA and back each day. These accommodations, combined with ABA’s bag check service and the Book Sense Lounge, ensured that we felt quite spoiled during our time at Book Expo America. The bag check was a much appreciated benefit that allowed us to drop off our books, catalogs, and so many other goodies so that we could enjoy the Expo without lugging a heavy bag around—a much welcomed convenience. Adding to our enjoyment of the Expo was the Book Sense Lounge and staff, who provided much needed refreshments and a friendly place to take a short break. (I finally did figure out that food, drink, and rest were necessary, even at BEA, and the Book Sense people apparently knew this before I did. They even had that most important of all food items, chocolate!  🙂 Day one of BEA was almost happily ever after. All that was lacking was air conditioning. The heat in the Javits convention center was a bit stifling, and felt nearly as hot as it was outside—somewhere in the 90s—but most seemed to take it in stride. Hats off to the many authors who still reached out to press palms with their devoted, if somewhat soggy, fans. We whined a bit, and fanned ourselves with promotional cards, as we waited in long lines to meet our favorite authors and to collect their coveted signatures and wonderful books, but when it was finally our turn, the wait was more than worth it. The day was filled with memories and our bags soon overflowed with treasures. No worry—it seemed that there were more bags at almost every booth. I couldn’t help but be a bit overwhelmed as I found myself face to face with authors whose work I have long admired. Although the long queues meant that greetings had to be exchanged quickly, there was no mistaking the excitement that so many of us felt as we anticipated our turn to thank our favorite authors, or to get the opportunity to preview the debut novel of a talented writer, yet unknown, who may soon be a prize-winning or bestselling author. I spent most of day one, and day two for that matter, completely star-struck and awed. Maybe the heat had something to do with it, but I felt a bit of a “buzz,” a natural high. Of course, hunger and dehydration could have contributed. When Dad called me on my cell phone to tell me that he had pizza waiting in the food court, I wondered how anyone could take the time out to eat! Even waiting in line provided opportunities to meet other booksellers, collectors, librarians, fans, and even a few authors! What a helpful group of folks. On one occasion, a married bookselling duo with two adorable daughters gave me a printed copy of the autographing schedule when I lamented, out loud, that I had forgotten to bring mine to the convention center. Others allowed me to sneak out of line to grab a catalog from a nearby booth I hadn’t yet visited, or to zip over to the Petite Chef booth to accept a smoothie being offered. On the bus trip to Javits, another bookseller surprised me with a copy of a book that suggests great reads for book clubs—a much appreciated gift for a bookseller with a new shop. I returned those favors with little offerings of my own whenever possible, but the overall feeling that these many small kindnesses added up to isn’t something that can be easily returned or repaid. Almost without exception, everyone was polite, enthusiastic, and quick to offer assistance, suggestions and tips, not only for navigating my first BEA, but also for my new book shop. I learned so much from so many! There were so many highlights of our time at BEA. Being presented with signed, advance copies of the 40th Anniversary Edition of S.E. Hinton’s, The Outsiders, James Patterson’s next novel, You’ve Been Warned, Judy Blume’s new book, Soupy Saturdays with the Pain and the Great One, and Jan Brett’s beautiful new title, The Three Snow Bears (which will make a wonderful gift, by the way), were among the many generous presents that were lavished on attendees. In so many ways, this gathering is like Christmas for book lovers of all ages. So many authors, so many books, and so little time! Even with Dad and I both waiting our turns in the various lines, there were so many authors we didn’t get to meet. Each line that we chose meant several we would have to miss, and it was so hard to choose. No matter which line I found myself in, however, there was one constant. The authors were all so incredibly kind and gracious. I asked many authors if I could take their picture for my book shop, and almost without exception, they not only allowed the picture, but often took a second to pose for me (lines/time allowing) and many even asked if I would like to be in the picture. It was so awesome to be standing next to these talented authors and illustrators whose work I so admire, and to meet up and coming authors. I realized, as I chatted with authors whose work was, as yet, unfamiliar to me, that I could play a part in bringing their work to others. In fact, I had already decided on a few books that I knew I wanted to share with my customers before I had even eaten that cold piece of pizza on day one! It was, at once, an empowering and humbling epiphany that brought with it an overwhelming sense of excitement and was tempered, a bit, by an equally impressive sense of responsibility. Publisher’s Weekly, in their “Show Daily, Day 2,” quoted Roger Cooper of Vanguard Press as saying, “It’s about people and books. It may be about too many books, but it’s still about books.” I am usually quick to say that one can never have too many books, but if you have to haul them back with you, indeed you can have too many. But the point of Mr. Cooper’s comment is, for many of us in the book business, the point of it all. “It’s about people and books.” Mr. Cooper wisely puts the people first, and those of us who work in this business are wise to be mindful of that. I had the feeling, at BEA, that the authors—even those who had already achieved a degree of fame and financial comfort—hadn’t forgotten to put people first. People, books and for some of us, BEA was about food, too. Dad and I found that we didn’t have to go far to find GREAT food and service. In fact, a memorable dining experience was within walking distance from our hotel in Brooklyn. We might have missed out, but along with our morning coffee at ABA on day two was an ARC of a soon to be released cookbook featuring cheesecake recipes from Junior’s—a restaurant and bakery right there in Brooklyn. What a way to top off a wonderful day! Dad and I shared two meals, lobster tails and chicken parmesan, and found both to be absolutely delicious. I am surprised that I even had room for the main course after enjoying relishes, cornbread and rolls, and my salad. But somehow, I found room. We did, however, end up getting our desserts to go. Dad opted for the strawberry cheesecake which was piled high with gigantic strawberries, and on our waiter’s suggestion, I chose the carrot cake cheesecake. I had taken his advice on which entrée to choose, and he hadn’t let me down. It took Dad almost three days to finish his substantial slice of cheesecake. I’ll blame BEA for my appetite, but I polished off half of my cheesecake that evening back at the hotel, and enjoyed the rest with coffee for breakfast on day 3. If you love good food, great service, and cheesecake, you have to stop at Junior’s! If you can’t wait ‘til your next visit to New York, may I suggest a wonderful new cookbook coming out in October? You can pick up your copy ofJunior’s Cheesecake Cookbook; 50 To-Die-For Recipes for New York-Style Cheesecake, by Alan Rosen and Beth Allen, at Perfect Pines Books and Gifts, in Hale, Michigan. The afternoon of day two at BEA found me playing a game of mental tug of war. Although meeting authors and getting to preview their new books was so much fun, and such a treat, I knew that the bookseller in me needed to be visiting those booths and talking with those representatives from so many publishing houses and companies. I knew that my baby, my book shop, would benefit from their knowledge and that I needed to make some valuable connections with the people and companies that could help my small business to survive, and hopefully, eventually, thrive. It’s about people, and books, but we can’t work for people, or with books, if we don’t make at least some money. (I think this is where the food part comes in. Ya gotta eat!) In addition to realizing that my business needed to make some money, I also knew that I couldn’t stock every new title, and I would have to make some tough decisions when I placed my orders in the coming year. I needed some guidance in that process, and the people who could help with that weren’t in the autographing lines. They were in the booths with their books. The night before, at a lovely reception sponsored by Harper Collins, which featured presidential memorabilia (and wonderful treats, by the way), I met Roslyn, who gently reminded me that I was here on business. I needed to get out of the lines and get into those booths. So I did. The reader in me moped, but in the end, I was glad that I pulled myself away and set out to see what books, products, and services would benefit my beloved book shop. My Dad likes to say that we don’t know what we don’t know—I don’t know where he came up with such a saying—but anyway, my visits with various exhibitors and representatives showed me that there was still much that I didn’t know I didn’t know. This was my first BEA, and I wasn’t exactly sure how “things” were done. As it turned out, I didn’t need to know it all, or to be savvy. I mustered up the courage to walk into the Harcourt booth and say, “HELP!” Okay, so it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but I did squeeze around a few ladies packing their various book bags with galleys, and walked right up to a rep from Harcourt and said, “I have a new, independent shop which has been open, quietly, for the past six months, but now our grand opening is on the 22nd of this month, and I need to know which of your titles I absolutely HAVE to have in my shop. We’re small, and I’ve got to be choosy.” I don’t think I took a breath while I presented my case. Imagine my relief when she smiled, and proceeded to make it all so easy. She “walked me through” their new children’s catalog, their frontlist titles, and asked me the kinds of questions that made it easier for her to help me make selections for my customers. As she previewed their new offerings with me, she handed me a few galleys and books as we went along. I started to feel that one of my many hats as an independent bookseller, that of the buyer was going to be a bit easier to wear. A few minutes later, she introduced me to her counterpart at Harcourt who would introduce me to their frontlist titles for adults, and in the process teach me about print runs, and share other bits of information that would enable me to make informed choices about what to offer in our particular shop. From the Harcourt booth, I ventured out to many more booths and talked with many more reps and exhibitors, and I can say without hesitation that it was time well-spent. As I listened and learned, I didn’t feel quite as badly about not being in line 12 or 22 at 3:00 when another of my many favorite authors would be signing. (Besides, my copy of Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Mega-Beasts, signed by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart, was now tucked safely in my Puff the Magic Dragon book bag!) I felt like Charlie, toting around the golden ticket. There was that moment, however, when I stared down at my tickets for Alan Alda’s and John Lithgow’s autographing lines that I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stand in those lines. Fortunately, Dad and I had both wanted to meet these gentlemen, and we each had tickets, so Dad would still have the privilege. Unfortunately, Dad hadn’t yet figured out how to get his digital camera to focus, so I have to trust that the men in his photos are indeed Mr. Alda and Mr. Lithgow. (Some things we accept on faith.) These were opportunities missed, but I decided that if I paid attention to the business side of my book shop, there would be many more opportunities to meet authors. If I didn’t pay attention, the visual that usually gets me back on track is one of me being dragged off to debtor’s prison kicking and screaming and trying to grab a few books on my way out the door. (Dad keeps reminding me that they don’t send people to prison for being in debt these days. Whew!) Turns out, I didn’t need to be so worried about missing the chance to meet authors. Day two found Dad and me exploring the Book Sense Lounge, and discovering that we had opportunities to meet authors right there! The chocolate, lemonade and snacks were great, but meeting authors such as Markus Zusak, author of the Prinz Award winning novel, The Book Thief; the dynamic duo of Robin Preiss Glasser and Jane O’Connor, illustrator and author, respectively, of the Fancy Nancy books; and Joe Hill, an author who is fast becoming a favorite among my customers, in a more relaxed setting than the traditional autographing lines permitted, was a gift. What a treat to meet them, take pictures, and ask about what’s coming next for their many devoted fans. I was pleased to hear that many of these popular authors are working on their next book. Great news for my customers, their fans, who, I was always mindful of, would be waiting back in Hale, Michigan to hear all about BEA and to help me read all of the wonderful new books offered to us by publishers, authors and sales reps and to somehow choose which of the many, many great offerings to include in our shop in the coming year. They were going to enjoy hearing about how Joe Hill, who, after signing ARCs of his new book, 20th Century Ghosts, spent some time with a small group of Spanish speaking attendees who had apparently asked if they could take a short video with their digital camera. I wasn’t at all surprised that Mr. Hill had taken this extra time, nor was I surprised when Markus Zusak simply moved over to a nearby table so that he could continue to autograph books for fans when his time slot was over and a few of us were still waiting in line. Gracious is the word that continually comes to mind when I think of the authors and illustrators that I met at BEA. Karen Kingsbury gave yet another example of how it’s about people AND books as she greeted each person in her autographing line on OUR side of the table and took the time to take a photo with each fan that would appear on her website.\ Day three of BEA dawned with a sense of rush and a need to hurry. There was still so much I hadn’t done, and so many booths I hadn’t yet stopped by. There were catalogs to collect, sidelines to preview, and yes, still a few authors on my list that I had to meet, or books I simply had to read. I was there on business, as Roslyn had reminded me. Today I needed to focus on sidelines. The books were selling well, but I had to admit that not everyone was a reader, and even those who loved books sometimes wanted a small gift—such as a stuffed animal or a puzzle—to go along with their gift of a great book. I found several companies whose offerings would do well in my shop, some I had already known about, and some that I might have never have discovered if I hadn’t attended BEA. Perhaps this is one of the many reasons to attend. A short article on the BEA website, not too long ago, said something about how we come to BEA to find the perfect book that we didn’t know we wanted. In my case, I found many perfect books that my customers didn’t yet know that they HAD to read, and plenty of wonderful gift items that they didn’t yet know they would HAVE to give. But they would soon. It’s about people and books. It’s about matching each person to that perfect book, and providing people with lots of options for making their own matches. There’s no formula for that—no diagram or flow chart that helps us to do this. There’s a magic to it, and I am convinced that the more time we spend with people, and books, the easier and more magical the process becomes. There are a few tools that can help us—bestseller lists, reviews, synopses, ARCs, galleys and such—not to mention the valuable help of so many wonderful booksellers, many of whom have been making magic longer than I have been alive, but when it comes right down to it, booksellers are often the bridge between the people and the books. It’s meaningful work, if you can find it—or if it finds you—and if you don’t necessarily need much in the way of money to get by on. There is some truth to the many anecdotes tossed around about the continual state of poverty that many booksellers manage to adjust to. I suppose I have my own anecdotes. You may have noticed me in the line to meet Holly Black, author of The Spiderwick Chronicles. I was the one munching on the Frosted Mini Wheats that I had brought all the way to New York with me so that I wouldn’t have to pay food court prices for something to eat. Anyway, the payoff for those of us who choose this business likely isn’t measured in dollars and cents. As for the bills, the utilities, the lines of credit, and so many other varieties of “wolves,” they are going to continue to knock at the door, and to threaten with their huffing and puffing. They don’t understand that it’s about people . . . and books. For now, I am keeping them happy and keeping my doors open. Nobody said it was going to be easy. But then, no one said it was going to be magical, either, and yet it is. Perhaps Lori Benton, who was quoted in “Show Daily, Day 2,” said it best when she stated (in reference to the inadequate air conditioning), “I guess if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the book business!” By day three of BEA, I was ready to cheer, “Bring it on!” I’m still cheering louder than the wolves can growl. It will take a little magic to keep it that way. Have you stopped by your favorite, local, independent book shop today? There’s a little magic in each of us, you know. Laura Smith operates Perfect Pines Books & Gifts out of Hale, MI and can be contacted at http://www.perfectpinesbooks.com. IOBA Standard, Summer Edition 2007, Volume 8, No. 3.

Hartfelt Gratitude Letter to the editor. “Please contact Jim Hart and express my heartfelt gratitude for the wonderful article he wrote about Dr. Len Lanfranco [‘Thoughts on a Friend’s Passing—Leonard Lanfranco,’ IOBA Standard, May 2002, Volume 3, No. 2]. I met him as an employee of the Columbia SC Post Office and worked closely with him on the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Journal and many mailing projects. He was a ‘king’ among men.” Andy Koin, Columbia, SC Happy Hits Excerpts from recent online book descriptions. – Dust jacket is made from pieces of dust jacket pasted to color stock—looks good. – This may be one of a kind. Front endpaper map is upside down. – DJ is somewhat worn due to “big book” stress. – Hardbound ex-library naturally in very good condition as it appears to have been checked out only two times. – The Roman Numerals on the title page state 2047 (MXMXXXVII), however the copyright page states 1937. And this last one was spotted by Joel Dilley of Outpost Books. – If your name is Hazel M. Phillips you won’t need to sign the front pastedown again. Blurbettes – “This is a book about one of the great untold stories of modern cultural life: the remarkable ascendancy of prizes in literature and the arts.” So begins the dust jacket inside flap blurb for this interesting work by James F. English (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). The title on the front panel of the dust jacket reads, The Economy of Prestige: Pri ds, and ion of Cultural Value. That’s because there are four medallion decorations which obscure the text. Over all this, there is a round sticker with the full title, revealing such words as “prizes,” “awards,” and “circulation.” I queried the author and publisher as follows. “Good day. I was curious about the dust jacket design for this book. The subtitle on the front panel is partially obscured by some of the design work. Is the round sticker over that a corrective action, or part of the original plan?” They do not win any prizes or awards for favoring me with a response. – From the rear inside flap of The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the New Hardcore Movement of Faith by actor/family man/born-again Christian Stephen Baldwin (NY: Warner Faith, 2006). “When thinking about the cover for this book . . . early on, I thought the idea of half my face would look suspect and cool . . . Later it occurred to me that with one side of my face on the front and the other on the back it would convey what this book is for me . . . The experience I’m having on the pages between these halves of my face . . . that’s what makes me whole.” [His pauses.] Book Blogs Bibliophile Bullpen (A Whiff of Old Books with Your Coffee.) http://bibliophilebullpen.blogspot.com Posted 3/5/2007 Yes, a bomb went off in Baghdad’s book district – big freaking surprise. Did the war finally get your attention? News Flash – we invaded Iraq FOUR YEARS AGO and it is still a war zone. People and things are getting blow up, killed and destroyed there EVERY DAY. Children, old folks, cab drivers, 95 journalists. What? did you think that bookstores were safe zones? whatever gave you that arrogant idea? War doesn’t care about bookstores, or museums, or architecture, or children who may grow up to doctors. War is loud, messy, destructive and heartless and ultimately unwieldy enterprise. Did you think it could be contained? restrict it to certain ‘zones’? Do you really think putting more bright young green soldiers riding around in humvees would some how placate a city 81 square miles of terrified civilians and screaming insane combatants? War will not be contained. Whomever had the bright idea that WAR was the first, best and controllable answer to a problem should be tied to an IED with small children throwing rocks at their head. I am sorry if I disappoint folks I won’t rend and wail because a bookstore was bombed instead of an emergency room. It was inevitable. Besides I am already running at full pitch because of every bombing, every IED, every kidnapping, every mealy mouth denial that this was a BAD FREAKING IDEA to begin with. You want to help the booksellers of Baghdad? don’t offer to take up a collection – buy a stamp and tell your fat ass congressman/senator to get us the hell out of a country that we shouldn’t have invaded in the first place. Ye Olde Booksellers Things that fall out of books can be as interesting as books themselves, as this 6.5” by 10” four page brochure for Blackwell’s in Oxford, England demonstrates. The only date we find is 1966, when the map was drawn, and the images have been cropped a bit for better resolution. To find out more about this venerable establishment, opened by Benjamin Henry Blackwell on New Year’s Day in 1879 with an inventory of 700 books, click on the following link. Speaking of book fallouts, browsers in the shop were once treated to a “much publicized row” between Lewis Carroll and George Bernard Shaw. http://www.blackwell.com/downloads/HistoryFlyer.pdf Made in IOBA My name is Craig Horle and I am a partner with my wife, Laurie Wolfe, in Classic Books and Ephemera. Included in my publications are the following: Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume Three: 1757-1775 (chief editor; author of 28 out of the 131 essays, published by the Pa. House of Representatives, 2005, available from Penn State University Press); Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume Two: 1710-1756 (chief editor; author of 48 of the 228 essays, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997); The Records of the Courts of Sussex County, Delaware, 1677-1710, 2 vols. (editor, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992); Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume 1: 1682-1709 (chief editor; author of 89 of the 325 essays and several introductory essays, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); The Quakers and the English Legal System, 1660-1688 (author, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988); The Papers of William Penn, 1701-1718 (co-editor, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987); and The Papers of William Penn, 1685-1700 (co-editor, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985). Laurie Wolfe was an editor and author on Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume Three: 1757-1775 and on Lawmaking and Legislators in Pennsylvania. A Biographical Dictionary: Volume Two: 1710-1756. House Calls Most house calls are neutral to pleasant affairs, with some negotiating, some manual labor, and mutual benefits on both sides. Everything is relative, of course, but it can also be said that there are book buying house calls from Hell. It was a dark and snowy night. The kind you wouldn’t go out into unless you had a chance to oust unsuspecting Redcoats from a distant Revolutionary War fort, or something like that. A hundred and fifty miles of Northway and muddy back roads (round trip), with nothing between the howling wilderness of the lower Adirondack Mountains and your bare skin but a heated Plymouth Grand Voyager and winter clothing. Sunshine patriots would have waited, but the whole region was about to be socked in for weeks, and the prize was some deceased guy’s early science fiction library. Yes, early science fiction, a holier grail than most. I interrogated the caller for ten minutes the night before, looking for all the telltale signs of a wasted trip. She was specific but nebulous, insistent yet not anxious. Something said Don’t Go, Don’t Go, Don’t Go, thrice no less, but I had to. It’s my job. I’m a bookseller. I’ve been on countless backwoods roads, but this one was especially grim and endless. Perhaps it was the time of year, drear early winter, with fading light and slippery conditions; or perhaps it was because Google Maps and cell phones hadn’t quite been invented yet. When you don’t know where you are going, trips seem to take longer. Just when I began to doubt the county map, houses and farms appeared again, and a crooked mailbox displayed the correct number. Knock knock. “Hi. We spoke last night. I’m here about the books.” “You made it. Follow me,” she said, donning a winter coat over the house dress. Lead on to the cold room, I thought, but she goes back outside. To the garage! Location was a topic we covered on the phone. She had said something about them being inside, which was correct, strictly speaking. Strike One. Fifty years of hundred degree temperature swings and book bugs, with a possible topping of raccoon or bat poop. Strike Two. There above the faithful old workbench in a frigid setting with very little molecular activity, on a short shelf over the window, sat a pathetic row of sawdusted and misshapen Popular Science magazines from the 1940s and ‘50s. My breath hung in the still air like a deflated dollar sign. Virtually worthless, even in perfect condition. Not even real science fiction. Not even hard cover. Thinking back, she referred to colorful dust jackets with futuristic designs on the phone. Technically correct in a way, I guess. It was true then. I shouldn’t have gone. There was so much to do back at home, and this fruitless and somewhat dangerous trip had been a complete waste of time. How could it have been any worse, short of being murdered by rural miscreants or something? “Sorry but I’ll have to pass on these. They aren’t exactly what I pictured from your description.” “Well I’m just going to get rid of them then. None of the other booksellers who came out were interested either.” Sheeee struck him out! Library File The following item appeared in the Youngstown Vindicator on 7/25/2006 and was reprinted in the 9/2006 issue of American Libraries, succinctly titled there as “Library Toe-Sucker Indicted.” “A grand jury indicted Joseph Colella, 28, for felony gross sexual imposition after he allegedly kissed a woman’s foot and sucked her toe at the Boardman branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio. “The woman said she was in a study room at the library July 11 when Colella entered and closed the door. She said Colella told her he needed to kiss people’s feet and record their reaction for a sociology project. She refused, but eventually allowed him to because he kept insisting, and she didn’t think he would leave unless she agreed. She went home and later called the library; a staffer told her to call the police. “Detective Michelle DiMartino told the paper that Colella is also a suspect in a similar event at the library from 2000. If convicted, Colella could be imprisoned for six to 18 months and fined up to $5,000.” Solicitations The Standard can always use interesting, well-written articles on subjects of interest to the bookselling trade. Please query first, however, to editor@ioba.org. You will be supplied with submission guidelines, but to summarize, the material should be original, it is subject to editing, you retain copyright, and of course there is no payment other than most everyone’s satisfaction. You do not need to be a member of IOBA, except for the IOBA Bookseller Profiles section, though we would surely like you to join. We are very interested in the book trade outside the U.S. as well. Currently we are seeking short pieces for the following self-explanatory columns. House Calls; Garage/Estate/Library Sale Tales; Auction Action; Book Show Impressions; Book Store Lore; and Library File. Booku Entry number one in my online catalog and meant to stay there forever sold this week, an undated eight page conundrum titled Price List, Cortland Corundum Wheel Company, grinding machinery and large corundum and emery wheels their specialty. Comic Books From the comic section of the Sunday Mirror dated 8/22/1948, the final panel of “Mickey Finn” by Lank Leonard.

Happy Hits Relying on a general internet search for some information on a new book titled Great Graves of Upstate New York, Google asked, “Did you mean Great Grapes of Upstate New York?” This reminds me of another time some automated spellchecker didn’t like how I abbreviated New York Public Library down to NYPL. “Wrong. Try nipple.” Blurbettes From the dust jacket rear panel of The Triumph of the Fungi: A Rotten History, by Nicholas P. Money (NY: Oxford University Press, 2006). “What a wonderful collection of fungal vignettes!” We learn from the inside rear flap that Professor Money is also the author of Mr. Bloomfield’s Orchard: The Mysterious World of Mushrooms, Molds, and Mycologists; and Carpet Monsters and Killer Spores: A Natural History of Toxic Mold. I wouldn’t want to be his housekeeper. Book Blogs Typo of the Day (Database Protectors: We are 170 librarians working together for better data.) http://typooftheday.blogspot.com Posted 10/28/2006 “Special Bonus Typo” Normally, we take the weekend off, but we ran across this on the wacky news segment of Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. He claimed that this might be the typo of the century, and we can only imagine the impact it had. Reuters recently had to retract a story about the lives of bees, [as] somebody made an unfortunate substitution for the term “Queen Bee,” and provided the following information: “Queen Elizabeth has 10 times the lifespan of workers and lays up to 2,000 eggs a day.” Lesson to librarians – “Watch those macros.” Ye Olde Booksellers How many times can you use the word “book” in the title of a book without overbooking that title? John Power pulls it off with five occurrences in A Handy-Book About Books, for Book-Lovers, Book-Buyers, and Book-Sellers (London: John Wilson, 1876). The ten parts listed in the Table of Contents follow. -Bibliography: Books about books in all the principle Western languages, with annotations. You read the list of these early, highly esoteric bibliographies and just want to own them all. -Chronology: His earliest references are kind of shaky, but there is much of interest. B.C. 50: According to Chinese chronology the art of printing was discovered. 1285: Wood engraving invented about this year in Italy by “the two Curio.” This work is a representation in eight parts of the actions of Alexander the Great, with Latin verses. 1473: Collectorium super Magnificat, printed at Esslinga (Esslingen in Wirtemburg), by John Gerson. The first book in which printed musical notes are found. 1514: Historical subjects began to be used for stamped covers instead of arabesque. 1543-4: Zumarraga [first Bishop of Mexico] [his brackets], Dotrina breve, 8vo, Mexico. Supposed to be the earliest existing book printed in America. 1622, Aug. 23: The certain News of the present Week, small 4to, published; considered by some the first English newspaper. 1676: First book auction in England was Dr. L. Seeman’s, and sold by William Cooper, bookseller, in Warwick Lane. 1690: White paper first began to be made in England; all before was brown only. -Useful Receipts: More like recipes, for getting out stains, making paper water or fire proof, polishing bindings, etc. Many involve acids, liquid solutions, blotting paper, and hot irons, and a good number of these methods would probably be frowned upon today. SCENT OF RUSSIA LEATHER.—This peculiar odour, which some persons like, but to many is very disagreeable, is given with Empyreumatic oil of the birch. OLD WRITING, TO MAKE LEGIBLE.—In a pint of boiling water put six bruised gall-nuts, and let it stand for three days. Wash the writing with the mixture to restore the colour, and, if not strong enough, add more galls. [What gall!] He also explains how to varnish old maps and prints to make them bolder, and gives a formula for strong paste which ends with, “This is poison.” The final page is partially blank for the stated purpose of adding your own favorites. -Typographical Gazetteer: “List of Places Where Printing is Carried on in Great Britain, with the Date of Its Introduction.” -Booksellers’ Directory: In four parts (London, Provincial, Foreign, and American), in alphabetical order by place and then by bookseller. There is an asterisk in front of the firm if it published catalogs. The author complains that booksellers themselves did not cooperate very well in the compilation of this list when solicited through Notes & Queries (“the book-lovers’ friend”). “The present list is mainly due to the kindness of correspondents who have forwarded from their localities such information as they were able to give.” “It is to be hoped, if a second edition of this work is called for, the dealers themselves will furnish the information: the publication of which is so obviously to their advantage.” -Dictionary of Terms: Twenty-four pages of generally outdated terms, for which he gives the sources, omitted here. ALMANACK-DAY.—The day on which almanacks for the new year are ready by the publisher for delivery to the trade. It is by custom fixed on the 21st of November, though, under peculiar circumstances, it is sometimes later. ANASTATIC PRINTING.—Gr., anistemi, to raise up. A mode of obtaining fac-simile impressions of any printed page or engraving without re-setting the types or re-engraving the plate. The printed page or engraving being saturated with dilute nitric acid, which does not affect the part covered with printing ink, a transfer is taken on a plate of zinc, which is soon corroded or eaten away by the acid from the non-printed parts of the page, leaving the printed portion in slight relief. A further application of acid deepens the corroding and heightens the relief to the extent necessary to enable the subject to be printed in the ordinary manner. ARMARIAN.—An officer in the monastic libraries who had charge of the books to prevent them from being injured by insects, and especially to look after bindings. He had also to keep a correct catalogue. BASTARD FOUNTS.—Small-faced type upon a larger body, such as nonpareil on minion, minion on brevier, &c., so as to give the printed pages the appearance of being leaded. BEAD.—The little knot of the headband. BIBLIOMANIAC.—Ger.,büchernarrr, book fool. An accumulator who blunders faster than he buys, cock-brained and heavy pursed; divided by the Abbé Rive into three classes: 1. The inordinate collector. 2. The collector of certain authors, editions, subjects, &c. 3. The collector of books for the sake of binding only. Perhaps this definition is rather too severe. BIBLIOTAPHE.—One who keeps his books under lock and key. CATCHWORD.—A term used by early printers for the word at the bottom of each page, under the last word of the last line, which word is the first at the top of the next page,—now generally disused, but still to be found in Acts of Parliament, Parliamentary papers, the ‘Quarterly Review,’ and a few other publications. FILLETED.—When the bands of a volume are marked with a single gilt line only. FOLDER.—The person who folds the book according to the pages previous to its being sewn. In large towns it is generally done by females. FORRELL.—Rough undressed skins of beasts used in early times for bindings. Specimens are to be seen sometimes in old libraries. GUARDS.—Shreds of strong paper interspersed and sewn in a book for the insertion of prints or other matter, to prevent its being uneven when filled; also the pieces projecting over the end-papers. HALF-EXTRA.—Books forwarded carefully, and lined with marble paper, having silk head-bands and narrow roll round the sides, but plain inside. INK.—Pancirollus says that kind of ink which was used by emperors alone and forbidden to others was called encaustum; from which he derives the Italian inchiostro. From the same source we may derive the French encre and the English ink. LARGE PAPER COPIES.—Books printed on paper of extra size with wide margins. Dr. Dibdin says he never met with a book printed in this country on large paper before 1600, except a unique copy of Scot’s ‘Discovery of Witchcraft,’ 1584. LONG PRIMER.—A type so called from having been used to print primers; used for dictionaries, works in 12mo, and other works, in which much matter is required to be got into a small space. MACKLE.—When part of the impression on a page appears double, owing to the platen dragging on the frisket. [Editor’s note: I hate when that happens.] NIELLO.—A pulverized substance, composed of silver, copper, lead, sulphur, and borax; used by the early engravers to fill the lines so as to make the design visible on silver or copper plates. PAMPHLET.—Any work that does not exceed five sheets octavo is called a pamphlet. The derivations suggested for this word are par un filet, held together by a thread; or palme feuillet, as leaves to be held in the hand. PEARL.—[A very tiny type is reproduced.] Very good for those blessed with strong sight. RECTO.—The term formerly applied to the side of a sheet of parchment that was written on. The blank side was called VERSO, or the REVERSE. It is now used to denominate the page of a book printed on the right hand side—always the odd page. REGISTER, or Registrum Chartarum.—A list of signatures and first words of a sheet, at the end of early printed books—now disused. STET.—When a word has been struck out in a proof, and is afterwards decided it shall remain, the word is marked with dots underneath, and stet written in the margin. -Miscellaneous: An interesting hodgepodge here. The following excerpt from Memoirs of Libraries by Edward Edwards, on degrees of rarity, volunteers to serve as an example. 1. Books not current in the trade and hard to find, are of unfrequent occurrence. 2. Books not common in the country in which sought for, and those not easily met with, are rare. 3. If the copies are hard to find in neighbouring countries, they are very rare. 4. If only 50 or 60 copies are printed, or the work so dispersed as not to make its appearance more frequently than if 60 copies alone were in existence, it is extremely rare. 5. Books of which there are not 10 copies in the world, are excessively rare. “Mr. Edwards adds that it is implied; though not stated, that these terms apply only to such books as, for some cause or other, are sought for, and in this Brunet agrees with him.” -Appendix: “All the additions that have been procured while the foregoing pages were at press, and also such corrections as have been found necessary, are given in this part.” The ninth and tenth parts of Power’s impressive effort are the index and a section of interesting book-related advertisements. There are close to 25 copies of A Handy-Book About Books available online, starting at reasonable prices and topping out near $500. One modern bookseller opines thusly in his description. “A curious work of reference, attempting to convey too much information in much too short a space—for a wide audience of bibliophiles—and accomplishing the job only about half as well as it ought to have (the author does tender certain apologies in his Preface).” Even if that was true though, half is better than nothing, so good job, John Power. Made in IOBA Leonard Roberts of Leonard Roberts, Bookseller is the author of Arthur Hughes, His Life and Works: A Catalogue Raisonne (Woodbridge, Suffolk: ACC Ltd., 1997); and wrote the exhibition catalogue for Arthur Hughes: The Last Pre-Raphaelite (Museum of Richmond, Surrey, 10 Nov. 1998 to 13 Mar. 1999). House Calls I don’t follow soccer all that much even though I played it, but it’s kind of relaxing to watch, and after a laborious day I sunk into the couch and stumbled onto the end of the 2006 MLS Cup championship game between the Houston Dynamo and the New England Revolution, which was pretty good for an American match. Regulation ended in a 0-0 tie, and two quick goals at the end of overtime made it 1-1. As the exhausted players girded their loins for an exciting penalty kick shootout, the phone rang. My wife indicated it was a book call, and as I have not been returning them as promptly as I should, and calculating I could dispatch it before the game resumed, I took the call. The elderly woman on the other end had all fifteen books in front of her. It was my fate to learn their relatively worthless titles one by one. She did not believe they were not valuable after all, or that I don’t travel two counties away for one armload of common books. Nothing short of hanging up would dissuade her from a full recitation. With mute on, the shootout began. There was a great stutter-step shot, and another skimmed off the cross post. It looked like the bald, yellow-clad goalie for one team took and easily scored a penalty kick against his usually distant counterpart, who had a little gray in his beard. What the heck? I never saw that before. Both teams had missed one shot. Time to shoo her off, restore volume for the commentary, and catch the final two attempts. “So, as I explained, the books you have are not worth much at all, but you could look in the phone book in your area and get a second opinion from another bookseller. I really have to go now though.” “Well, I have one in the next room I didn’t want to tell you about, but I’m told on good authority it is extremely rare and worth a lot of money. I’m not saying I would part with it.” The chances were virtually nil, but as the fans held their breath and the penultimate ball rocketed toward the net like a Brian Ching bicycle kick, bookselling took over, and I ceded the end of this exciting match. “Okay. What is the title of that one?” Steps, creaking. “I have it right here. It’s The Life of George Washington.” “I’m sorry to say this again, but that does not sound all that valuable.” “Hold on, I’m not done with the rest of the title yet.” The game was over. I don’t even know which forgettably named team won, but the margin was a single missed shot for a final score of 0-0, 1-1, 4-3. There was pandemonium at the stadium, and I imagined the commentators wrapping everything up nicely. The season was over, they were late for the next scheduled program, and it may be five years before I watch American soccer again. “The Life of George Washington in Words of One Syllable.” Library File The Flyleaf is published by Rice University’s Friends of Fondren Library. In the Summer 2006 issue, Archivist Emerita Nancy Boothe tells the 1980 tale of lowlife library thief Robert Kindred, who specialized in removing valuable plates (flora and fauna, Harper’s Weekly engravings, etc.) from early periodicals and selling them in “antique prints” stores in Garland, Texas and in California. He was finally pinched in a nearby university library, and Boothe was called in to identify some Fondren Library material. (They eventually discovered 4,000 plates were missing from 257 volumes in 24 titles.) Police located Kindred’s blue Cadillac and found 140 plastic bags of pilfered material. Everything in the trunk got a property tag. “Other property tags showed, in addition to stolen plates, information as to the brand and size of his jockey shorts, a Ramada Inn key labeled: ‘Thank you for staying with us,’ tapes by Olivia Newton-John, and tons of photos of Annette Funicello, one of the original Disney Mouseketeers, with whom he was apparently infatuated.” Solicitations The Standard can always use interesting, well-written articles on subjects of interest to the bookselling trade. Please query first, however, to editor@ioba.org. You will be supplied with submission guidelines, but to summarize, the material should be original, it is subject to editing, you retain copyright, and of course there is no payment other than most everyone’s satisfaction. You do not need to be a member of IOBA, except for the IOBA Bookseller Profiles section, though we would surely like you to join. We are very interested in the book trade outside the U.S. as well. Currently we are seeking short pieces for the following self-explanatory columns. House Calls; Garage/Estate/Library Sale Tales; Auction Action; Book Show Impressions; Book Store Lore; and Library File. Booku Your title page is on the left hand side, Ted Aber and Stella King’s History of Hamilton County, with your copyright page facing it on the right! Comic Books From the Comic Weekly section of the New York Journal American dated 3/10/1946, half the panels of The Little King by O. Soglow.

-Tell us a little about yourself: My passion for paper started in the school playground, swapping comics, cigarette cards and later, ‘naughty’ postcards. In the mid 1960s, swathes of houses in my neighbourhood were being bulldozed to accommodate the motorcar, and these abandoned homes gave up all kinds of printed treasures. Along with the discarded books there were magazines, old documents, photographs, cigarette cards—in fact ephemera of every kind. As a teenager I found books both fascinating and frustrating (I’m mildly Dyslexic) but ephemera opened a window on the past for me, and made it real. On leaving school I quickly discovered that I was unfit for conventional employment, and have contrived to avoid a proper job ever since. I’ve been a boatman, footman, building restorer, gardener, antique dealer, window cleaner… Alongside bookdealing—which I’ve done for more than a quarter of a century—I’ve been equally active as a campaigner for historic building preservation, an environmental troublemaker, and latterly, a founder and director of a charitable community development trust. -What led to your interest in antiquarian bookselling? I’ve never been interested in antiquarian bookselling—I’m a bookdealer. I buy and sell books for a living. Old books, used books, new books—but always I hope—interesting books. I started selling them because I had lots and needed money. And it was very easy to turn books into money in the 1980’s. -How did you learn the trade? By doing it. Very few of the dealers I know have had any kind of training, let alone a formal apprenticeship. But I don’t really think you can learn to be a bookdealer, you just are one. We’re book junkies and we deal to support our habits. Of course, you need to learn a great deal about all sorts of things in order to stand any chance of being a successful bookdealer. -You seem to be in an especially idyllic corner of England if the official tourism website at Stroud District Tourism is any indication. Tell us all about Inprint, your charming book store. It is a lovely and fascinating. Opening the shop was an act of commitment to the town and it provided a base from which to run various campaigns against the wanton destruction of its architectural heritage and social fabric. Times have changed but I hope the shop still excites people’s interest and serves some of their needs. When we opened we stocked what turned up, but the shop stock has over time become strongly arts based, and reflects the subjects we enjoy, and hopefully, know something about. We still try to offer books at every price from 50p to many hundreds, and sometimes, thousands of pounds. I hope you can get some impression of the shop from visiting its web page [see link at the bottom]. -You have been at the same location in Stroud for over twenty-five years. How have things changed in terms of clientele, buying patterns, etc.? What hasn’t changed? In the early years we reckoned to pay all our overheads from the paperback sales — it wasn’t unusual for some customers to buy up to ten novels a week! Charity shops cut deeply into paperback sales, although we are now undercutting their prices by selling fiction in the covered boxes outside. We’ve seen huge growth in book collecting over the past twenty-five years, much of it in subject areas that interested me. Initially we stocked a lot of material largely overlooked by an older generation of dealers and collectors—pulp fiction, SF, popular entertainment, old magazines and ephemera were main stays. I suppose the majority of our stock still reflects popular culture, particularly the visual and performing arts—although we have always said that we try to stock the books our customers tell us they want to buy. For many years we ran a book finding service which gave us valuable insights into our customer’s interests and the often-surprising rarities they were looking for. Along with most other secondhand bookshops, we have been struggling to cope with the seismic effects the internet has had on bookshop trade. Joy (my wife and more recently business partner) is bringing a fresh eye to the shop after years of running our book search, and we are both spending more time in the shop dealing with customers. On a good day we now sell two or three times the number of books from our window displays than from the internet sites we list on. And weather permitting, there are always people searching for bargains in boxes on the pavement. The internet has hugely increased the average person’s awareness of out-of-print books, and many of these newly-aware, potential customers, are walking past our door. All we have to do is lure them in… -What aspects of maintaining a physical bookstore are the most problematic? Simply achieving a turnover that’s sufficient to pay the ever-increasing bills. Secondhand bookshops by their very nature have a fairly low ceiling on the turnover that they can realistically generate. Increasingly this means that they are being priced off the High Street. -What are some of the most unusual things that ever happened in your shop? A gas company van crashing into the front -In general terms, who are some of your favorite customers, past or present, and why? My favourite customers? The ones who save a quiet day, or week, with their purchases and all those who say “what a wonderful shop”—and then buy something! -Celebrity customers? Bob Geldolf might have become a customer if my wife hadn’t asked him to leave for talking very loudly into a mobile phone. We live in something of a royal ghetto, so some of the more minor ones use the shop. And, as we also live in “Cider with Rosie country”, Laurie Lee is a much-missed customer. Unlike some celebrities he understood that the principle reason for visiting a bookshop was to buy books. -Cinema and entertainment seem to be your main specialty? How did you get into that? It was personal interest. Twenty-five years ago it was close to impossible to find books on these subjects out here in the sticks, so I set about trying to make it easier. -Here’s one from left field, as we say in the states. What is your all-time favorite movie? Bomber and Paganini. Made in Germany in the mid-70s, it’s a very black comedy about a couple of inept petty criminals who hate each other, but are forced by circumstance into mutual dependence. If anyone can supply the English subtitled version, on any format, I will pay handsomely. -How do you acquire most of your stock? Walk ins, other bookshops, flea markets, book fairs, auctions, ebay, car boot sales, internet databases, skips—anywhere and everywhere. You can still find lots of interesting books if you’re prepared to look. And of course it helps that I’m a compulsive book buyer. -How do you keep ahead of the perennial space problem? By selling as many books as we buy, and only buying those we know will sell. If books are hanging around it’s usually because they’re too expensive, and ours is a tiny shop so we have to be ruthless. -Are all of your internet listings available right there in the shop, or are they stored offsite to keep them in the described condition or to simplify inventory management? A lot of our shop stock is listed on the internet. I’ve never understood dealers who kept their internet or book fair stock separate—don’t they want prospective customers to see their better books? Of course it raises stock control issues, but our fulfillment rate rarely falls below 90%, and as we cover most dust wrappers, and are assiduous about shelving, we rarely have problems. -What is your most memorable purchase? A recent memorable purchase was an enormous folio volume entitled: -Tell us about the proverbial one that got away? The original artwork for the frontispiece of Mervyn Peake’s Titus Alone, a pristine first of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe … I could go on … and on. -It would take a separate interview to cover TheBookGuide, which is your online guide to sources of secondhand and antiquarian books in the U.K. In addition to listing and describing hundreds of book stores, you also provide current information about fairs and auctions, you dispense informative news stories relating to our profession, and you provide all types of interesting content. While this is obviously a labor of love, it seems very labor intensive, and on behalf of the profession I would like to thank you for the effort and the contribution. What can I say? It is a labour of love, but then I always seem to have worked for love rather than money. 🙂 -I especially enjoyed your Drif page. For those who have not heard about this caustic U.K. book store reviewer, check it out from TheBookGuide home page. You are carrying on his work, in a more polite fashion, with great concern for the quality and survival of physical bookstores. Your first couple of Drif reviews were not so hot. “I still remember our review in the first guide: … ‘UNR (unreliable opening times) … hippyish bookshop with bizarre prices’. It was a relief to have at least become REL (reliable) in the next edition but I aspired to the accolade ‘WAD’ (worth a detour).” This Drif review from the Inprint “Shop” page must be more recent. “Immensely attractive style … a lovely atmosphere … it looks like something out of a film: The Bookman of Alcatraz!” So, some Drif questions. Do you remember him coming to your shop any of these times? Did he collect anything himself, or was it all buy low and sell high? Any favorite Drif anecdotes, and what ever happened to him? I didn’t know Drif, but met him a couple of times in our shop and occasionally bumped into him in others. I think he warmed to us when his request for anything on necrophilia, or children’s books featuring frogs, resulted in me selling him both. I don’t imagine he collected anything, but I suspect that he often bought high and sold very high. He disappeared after his novel—said to be a work of some brilliance, but ruined by obsessive rewriting—failed to find a publisher. A rare Drif sighting comes from an old friend of his, John Martin, who bumped into him at a Chiswick (London) car boot sale last year. Apparently Drif had spent the previous three or four years in Calcutta, and confirmed that he was no longer involved with the book trade. They exchanged phone numbers … and then John lost his mobile! -In closing, we spend a lot of time discussing our evolving relationship with ABE, Alibris, and Amazon. Even if they treated us as partners rather than dependent suppliers, you can’t blame some book buyers (and booksellers for that matter) for using the internet for the sake of convenience and savings. Have physical book store closings leveled off, and what must they do to survive? I certainly don’t blame anyone for buying or selling books on the internet—we do it. But it seems to me that as a buyer it’s becoming less convenient, and as a seller, more expensive. Buying relatively common titles is a nightmare of wading through dross, and some of the sins of omission in the descriptions of more expensive books are jaw slackening. As a seller, the only online venues that move any books exact an ever-increasing price, not only in cash, but in the loss of independence and the ability to build relationships with customers. As to the big question: how will bookshops survive? I think that the answers will rely as much on developing retailing and marketing skills, as they will on the books we buy. Hopefully some of my answers indicate how we hope to survive, and indeed prosper—but it’s a complex subject, which I would like to return to on another occasion! Mike Goodenough operates Inprint in Stroud, England and can be contacted at http://www.inprint.co.uk.

International Editions Dear Editor, I thank you for your service, and have found the information on your web site to be most useful. I am an engineer disabled with Lou Gehrigs disease, and as such I pass the time and maintain my intellect engaged in a variety of independent research projects. As I do not have ready access to a quality technical library I purchase a large number of books and other reference materials over the internet. The information on your organizations web site has saved me considerable heart and head ache over the years. I would like to make a suggestion for an addition to your glossary of terms. In the last six months or so I have noticed the so-called International Edition of books offered for sale by a number of internet book vendors. They are being sold as new books at steeply discounted prices, which is a true statement as they are in fact new books at a very cheap cost. However, International Editions are known to have problems. They are often printed in black and white, when the regular edition (also known as the United States Edition) is printed in color. The quality of paper in an International Edition is often inferior as well. The graphics and type fonts of the International Edition are seldom the same as in regular editions, and this is particularly true for technical books. International Editions often suffer from poor quality control. Common problems include skewed pages, margins that vary from page to page, inverted print or mirrored print, smeared ink, non-sequential or missing pages, and blank pages. In fairness, all these problems do not occur in every International Edition, nor do they appear simultaneously. Sellers will frequently claim the International Edition is the same as the United States Edition, or that the International Edition is simply a paperback version. It is not uncommon for the International Edition to have its own ISBN (International Standard Book Number), particularly if it is an authorized copy. However, some overseas publishers do not bother to obtain a new ISBN, or they do not bother to include it as an identifier. This is especially true of publishers in India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Korea, and other Pacific Rim countries. Do not confuse the International Edition with the European Edition. Frequently technical books have a European Edition and a United States Edition. The main difference here is simply in units of measurement, with the European Edition using the metric system and the United States Edition using the inch/pound system. Other differences may be in the choice of language, like centre in the European Edition instead of center in the United States Edition. The end of chapter problems in science, engineering or mathematics books are usually quite different between European and United States Editions. In short, prospective purchasers should realize that there is probably a good reason that International Editions are so steeply discounted. It is not uncommon to see them selling for half the cost of a regular edition. You get what you pay for. Eric Sawyer Manchester, NH Happy Hits -Just picked up two signed copies of My Memories: 1886-1977, by Ira Gray, the Adirondack Mountains guide. Only one copy listed at $95. Author/title searching on Gray/Memories, the only other hit was for a single copy of My Hair and Other Memories: The Adventures of a Boomer Facing 50, by Bill Gray. A brief excerpt from what is perhaps the more important work, under the heading, A Wilderness Picture. It was a nice warm evening along the last of June. I had been out and got me a mess of trout. Had just finished my supper and lay on the bunk in my cabin near Miners Marsh. I had the door open, as it was real warm. I hear a little noiseand there by the doorway was an old partridge and her brood of eleven little babies. No pictures on T.V. can be like this. -From a Texas A&M University Libraries 2004-2005 printed report, With Al and Darlyne Lowman’s donation of Adrian Wilson’s Printing for the Theater (1957) to the Lowman Collection, the University Libraries now claims a quartet of books popularly considered to be the four most important in the history of 20th-century fine press printing. The other three volumes are D. B. Updike’s The Book of Common Prayer (1928), Edwin and Robert Grabhorn’s Leaves of Grass (1930), and the Grabhorns’ The Santa Fe Trail (1931). Further research shows that Printing for Theater was limited to 250 copies, with twenty tipped-in examples of Interplayers theater printing, in addition to extra rear pocket programs (17 in one case) which are different for each edition. When you author/title search Wilson/Printing for Theater on ABE there are no copies listed, but a full author search reveals two with the variant spelling Theatre, priced at $950 and $1,500. BookFinder reveals a third copy through ILAB, priced at $900. Theater is spelled correctly in the title but the other way in the description, which is fine, and they added a the to the title, which is not fine but would not be a search term fatal flaw. (The Texas A&M entry goes back and forth on the added the themselves.) One of the online offerings includes this nice description. Folio, original decorated cloth, illustrated endpapers, with the prospectus (and other material as described), in the original shipping carton, exceptionally fine. This copy was mailed at publication to one of the Wilson’s oldest friends, Alma Holmgren, long a figure in Bay Area publishing, and subsequently a teacher. Alma attended the publication party, or a party, at which Wilson sold copies in order to finance a trip for himself and his wife Joyce Lancaster, to Europe. So, it pays to attend publication parties like that, and if there is a bright side to a thousand dollar typo, it may even pay to be off a bit on the correct spelling of the author or title, as fine copies of such books will only appreciate in value. Blurbettes Is there a good book out there on the minor commercial art form of blurb writing? Or a dedicated website (Canada’s Alex Good bestowed awards called the Puffies on the worst examples not that long ago, but those lists don’t seem to be up any more). Maybe, but I didnt look too hard. Instead, I just dipped a minnow net into that flow of electrons called Google for a few minutes and pulled out a few wrigglers. -What a fantastic book! from the dust jacket of Peter Bernstein’s Capital Ideas, and This is a great book!” from William Bernstein’s The Intelligent Asset Allocator, both by popular blurber John C. Bogle. -Here are a few from A Distant Book Lifted, by Michael Stevens, which is a collection of blurbs, forewords, afterwards, introductions and prefaces written by William S. Burroughs. John Waters, Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters John Waters is the Pope of Trash and his taste in tacky is unexcelled.” Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange One of the few books I have been able to read in recent years.” Irving Rosenthal, Sheeper Rosenthal has brought back to writing the almost forgotten element of style. On each sentence he imposes his seal. Each word is transmuted by the alchemy of arrangement. Brightly colored beetles move and shift in a glittering mosaic of Mandarin complexity. A brilliant specialized performance.” [Note: This 2001 title with a Spicewood, TX imprint sounded interesting so I checked online and ordered the only one available for $45 (directly from the bookseller of course), one of 26 lettered copies signed by the compiler, in stapled wrappers, with a previously unpublished photo of Burroughs on the cover. If I could write a blurb for this one it would read, Engaging bon mots from the bow of Burroughs in a flattering vein, and a book that will surely double in value! Alas, though, it wont, as the familiar reply comes back, The book is no longer available. A Distant Book Lifted indeed!] -A U.K. edition of Mitch Cullin’s Tideland carried a Terry Gilliam blurb which read, F*ucking wonderful! Dust jackets are part and parcel of many of the books we handle. The blurbs they carry are often informative and interesting, often shameless and misleading, and often funny or unintentionally funny. Please consider sharing some good examples under this heading. For example, what happens when a blurber simply runs out of things to say? I am holding a plain light brown and white dust jacket for Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru. It’s Volume 35, from the second series, covering the period 9/1/1956 to 11/30/1956. On the rear panel, under From Reviews of Earlier Volumes,” we have the following. This (Volume 34) is an important volume because it is a trailer to a yet more important one that would follow next.” Book Blogs We will feature a verbatim excerpt from a different book blog each issue. IOBA does not necessarily support or endorse these blogs and their contents, but they do contain some good stuff or they wouldnt be here. Mutterings of a Mad Bookseller http://madbookseller.blogspot.com Posted 6/5/2006 How the Databases are Ruining the Book Business A quick story will illustrate. Last year I was buying books from one of my usual private sources, an ex-antiques dealer selling off her library. The last book she brought she laid proudly in front of me and proclaimed- I’ll bet you don’t know what this is worth!” I looked at the book, an uncommon and good silver title, and said As a matter of fact I do, because I just sold a copy. $750.” No, No,” she said smiling. It’s worth $5000!” Um, no,” I said, frowning, it’s not.” Upon returning to the office I found the source of the problem- a copy listed on a major database for $5000. Now let’s get real- I have been selling books in the very specialized field of the decorative arts for 25 years. We deal with major collectors, dealers and institutions. I know and monitor the other specialists in my field. That book was worth $750. Yet one ignorant idiot, with pretensions of grandeur almost spoiled my opportunity to buy a saleable book at a fair price (fortunately my seller had faith in me, and I got the book). But the plague continues. Just today I got a want-match on an out of print 1990s furniture book which is, possibly, on a good day, with a tailwind, worth $1000, and the price was $4500. I’ve sold 17th century decorative arts books for that price. That’s all fine and well- it’s a free country after all, except that other dealers use the databases to price. How much do you want to bet that a new copy comes up tomorrow for $3000, that dealer also being ignorant, and thinking to undercut the current price? I love dealers undercutting other dealers prices, except where the original price was hatched in a crack dream. And not long in the future I will have that price quoted to me by a collector looking to sell. What can be done? Not a damn thing that I can see. There have always been dealers, like this one, who simply add an extra digit to the highest number they can think of. The problem is that, with the internet, everyone else takes their cue from those fantasy prices. The other ethical problem is what if someone actually pays that price? I know, I know, a fair price” is determined by a willing seller and informed buyer, but the key here is informed. Everyone in the book business knows that many buyers are not informed. A certain Ebay seller has made a fortune taking advantage of uniformed and deep-pocketed buyers. Does that make it right? The greedy preying on the ignorant? I dunno. But it’s a problem. What’s Veronica Lake have to do with all this? Nothing, I’m just a fan, and they were talking about her on Biblio the other day. Ye Olde Booksellers The True and Genuin Elegy of Matthew Gun Bookseller, Who Departed, &c. This is a one page sheet, probably printed in Dublin in 1724. The elegy itself rambles a bit, and starts off with puns about Guns last name. A couple of couplets are reproduced, along with his epitaph in its entirety. The early printers convention for the letter s is retained. In his own Books he might his Fate forefee, They felt the Teeth of Worms, and fo will He. and Fanatick Writers on his Shelves did rife, But now alas! Theyll fall to Tarts and Pies. EPITAPH Reader my Name was Matthew Gun, Ive loft my Stock and out Ive run; I hope it cannot be denied But that I livd, and that I died: My choiceft Books were never Read; Few Liftnd eer to what I faid; And So their Fate the fame with mine is, You Read their Title-Page and FINIS From my Death Bed, January 20th 1723-4. This is my true ELEGY and no other. Matthew Gun. Made in IOBA Are you an IOBA member who has authored some work, or who has unique services or products to offer? Let us highlight them here. Book Show Impressions Book shows range from flea markets and car boot sales to extremely high-end affairs. Aspiring booksellers can learn much from them. Visit a few first, and then start with a cheap outside space at an antiques show or festival. If this agrees with you, try a couple of tables at one of the better inside book shows. Most of your show colleagues will be glad to offer advice along the way, shortly after they raid your under-priced offerings and comment on your unfamiliarity with mylar. Losing money and losing face are two things that get ones attention, so you learn at a far quicker pace than through other methods of education. Some years ago I ventured into a very large community-wide yard sale in an old established development early one Saturday morning. These get panned out, there are more cars than ever, and you see lots of last year’s kiddie clothes and plastic junk. I went right to the very back first this time, where there is still a bit of woods. The driveway of the most remote home was a real hill. I walked up to the garage and there sat a large amount of rare titles on early firearms, shelved no less, and obviously someone’s lifetime collection. A woman was leaving with a couple cookbooks or something and I overheard the price as $1 each. I took pretty much every one before I noticed a round color sticker scheme. I inquired about this when checking out. I’m afraid I didn’t have a chance to tell you. Yellow is a dollar, but blue is $2 and red is $3. I suppose you’ll be putting most of those back?” One week later I was all set up at the Albany, NY Antiquarian Book Fair. A few minutes before the doors opened the line outside was pretty long. I always positioned myself in the back of this old armory, as my ephemera buckets took up many tables and may have looked a bit unseemly up among the more established tweedy types. One guy showed up almost immediately, following the same rear-first strategy I applied at the community sale. He let out a small gasp and bought nearly every one of these gun books, which as luck would have it was his specialty as a dealer. He thought they were all priced right (about $75 each on average) except for one, which he bought anyway. He told me he got up in the middle of the night and drove straight down from New Hampshire, not expecting to find much. A bulls-eye for both of us. Please consider sharing your own significant book show impressions under this heading. Book Store Lore IOBA would seem to be all about online bookmanship, but actual book stores are the stalwart backbone of the trade. Much has been said about the demise of the bricks and mortars, but in some cases this is exaggerated, and in others the signs are more hopeful. From the paperback exchange to musty old landmarks to smartly run gems, we all have the dedicated book store owner to thank for maintaining traditions and igniting new generations of book lovers in a way that Amazon and company could never accomplish. Many of them have utilized the internet, but they are not subservient to it. Support local independent book stores whenever possible. Book store owners, please consider sharing your own anecdotes under this heading. Solicitations The Standard can always use interesting, well-written articles on subjects of interest to the bookselling trade, in addition to smaller items for the regular columns above. Please query first, however, to editor@ioba.org. You will be supplied with submission guidelines, but to summarize, the material should be original, it is subject to editing, you retain copyright, and of course there is no payment other than most everyones satisfaction. You do not need to be a member of IOBA, except for the IOBA Bookseller Profiles section, though we would surely like you to join. We are very interested in the book trade outside the U.S. as well. Currently seeking a three to five page article on mega-listers that would explain how they ply their craft, the damage that they do, the benefits they provide (if any), and why the search services put up with them (we know but the readership might be informed). Booku Gangling Victorian pressed spider, perched above the first initial letter in a nice 1892 Athenaeum Emma all these years, long legs beautifully arranged, head up proud. Comic Books Scientists have just announced the discovery of two newly-spotted moons (named Nix and Hydra) in orbit around the planet Pluto. Although twice as far away as the known moon Charon, and many times more faint, close-up satellite photos from the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed surface features rich in color and complexity. They are reproduced here for the first time.

You read that right, folks. I’ve been too busy to think up some witty nonsense for a title, so I’m putting the burden on you. Go ahead and think up a good one. Got it? Just imagine it up at the top of the screen right now. Please note that those of you who thought of “Editor Too Lazy to Think of a Title” will have to try again: I’m not using that one. What have I been busy editing? A comprehensive list and detailed comparison of book listing sites, an extensive article on genealogical ephemera, bookselling lessons learned by the founder of Alibris, interviews with developers of bookselling software and an online bookselling site, and a write-up on the only print magazine devoted to fine books. When you add two bookseller biographies, a book care article, our informative Q&A, and an article on why our President belongs to the IOBA, the total is an informative issue that benefits our members and friends. Our redesigned http://www.ioba.org is now online in its new incarnation and IOBA members may list their books online at what is possibly the lowest rate charged in the trade. Considering that there is no commission on sales, it’s a tangible benefit that is available only to members of the Independent Online Booksellers Association. We’re fine-tuning and fixing the site as we go, but pleased with our progress and sales. More information will be in the next issue, so watch for it. We mourn one of our own, as Martha Kelly lost her fight with serious illness. Martha was a long-time IOBA member, author of three wonderful articles on womens’ sufferage (1, 2, 3), and owner of Gutenberg Books in Rochester NY, USA. IOBA members and friends are encouraged to donate directly to the American Red Cross to support relief for the victims of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Other charitable institutions supporting this cause may be found at Charity Navigator A note from Ken Lopez, President Emeritus of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA): The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Benevolent Fund is a nonprofit charitable organization established to help booksellers who have faced catastrophic circumstances whether as a result of natural disaster, sickness or some other unforeseen and uncontrollable series of events. We are appealing for information about booksellers who have been affected by Hurricane Katrina, and are also appealing for funds to support those booksellers. The ABBF was established and is administered by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) but the funds are available to all booksellers, whether ABAA members or not. In recent years, the majority of grants given out by the ABBF have gone to non-ABAA booksellers. Most recipients of grants from the Benevolent Fund do not even know of the fund’s existence, and have not applied for grants; in general, the ABBF is informed of their circumstances by their colleagues, and is able to provide modest grants, no strings attached, in a time of great hardship. Donations to the fund may be made by check, payable to “Antiquarian Booksellers Benevolent Fund” and addressed to: Antiquarian Booksellers Benevolent Fund c/o Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America 20 West 44th St. New York, NY 10036-6604 You may also call the Headquarters of the ABAA at 212-944-8291 or email at hq@abaa.org to contribute via credit card. As always, if you find this issue of the Standard useful, tell another bookseller: they might benefit. If you feel something is missing from this issue, suggest it for the next issue: an e-mail to editor@ioba.org will get things started. If you want to promote the stability of our trade through higher bookselling standards, then visit us at http://www.ioba.org or join us today at http://www.ioba.org/app.html Best regards. -Michael Watson, Editor, editor@ioba.org