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Interview with a Classic Bookman - By Karen Wright Ed Glaser of Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books. By Karen Wright Ed Glaser is the owner of Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books in Napa, California. Ed has held a well-respected place in the book business for more than forty years. If I had a question about the book business, Ed is one of the first booksellers I would call on for advice. Even if his eyes rolled back in his head in desperation, I know he'd answer with good advice. He's incredibly knowledgeable and fun to talk to; an old-fashioned gentleman, but not a bit stuffy, and he has a great sense of humor. He's not one of those crotchety old codgers who peers over a pair of half-spectacles when you walk into their shops, growls and then sticks his head back in a dusty tome. Ed has been in the rare and antiquarian book business since about 1964, but he had a couple of other careers before that. We asked Ed to tell us a bit about how he got into the business. "Bookselling is my third career," he related. "I started as a newspaper man and when that didn't work out, I went into the family business for a few years. That was manufacturing industrial fasteners - you know - nuts and bolts. I didn't like peddling nuts and bolts, so I said; what do I want to do? I want to be my own boss, I want to handle a commodity I like and respect...what is that? I said: Books. I didn't know which area of the book business I wanted to go into, so I joined American Bookseller's Association. In their packet, was a copy of A.B. Bookman's Weekly. I looked at that and the lights flashed, the bells clanged, and I said; this is what I want to do. This is great. I can go to the Salvation Army, the Goodwill and pick up books, what fun! So I started at that level in 1964 then graduated to a book shop that I ran part time while I still had my day job. This was on the Lower East Side, in New York, in the East Village, during the "hippie" thing. "I made pretty quick progress. I bought someone else's stock and so forth. But I soon decided that selling books for 75 cents a book didn't cut it so in 1969, I quit my day job. By that time I had become somewhat of a specialist in out-of-print scholarly books on the humanities. The business grew nicely until the mid-1970s, but because of a divorce and the need to maintain the ex-wife, two kids, their house, my shop, and my own residence, I gave up the shop and decided to specialize. I didn't know quite what I wanted to specialize in since I liked almost everything - literature, history, and so on, but by a stroke of good luck, I stumbled on a world class collection on the history of science and medicine. Of course, that was something in which I had the least background. My education was in the humanities, but the collection had belonged to two Viennese born and educated psychiatrists and contained all the invoices from whom the books were bought, what they paid for them, and all the bibliographic references for the books. I sequestered myself for three months and came out with quite a nice catalogue which was well received. Voilá, I was an instant specialist."
Interview with a Classic Bookman - By Karen Wright Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books. Since then, Ed has become an internationally known authority on rare and important books in science, technology, and medicine. In 1979, Ed relocated to Northern California and recently he and his wife, Lorraine, moved to the picture-perfect Carneros area at the southern end of the Napa Valley. Among his laurels are past National President of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America, previous chairman of the Middle Atlantic and Northern California chapters of the ABAA, and he has served on the Board of Governors. He has written for A.B. Bookman's Weekly and lectured before numerous groups on antiquarian books. He is the longest running member of the faculty of the Out-of-Print and Antiquarian Book Market Seminar in Colorado, having served since 1979. He is also a member of the Grolier and Roxburghe Clubs and the American Association for the History of Medicine. Ed noted that in pre-internet days it had been observed by a number of prominent bookmen that, "Dealers knew little about the workings and problems of libraries and that librarians had a hazy and sometimes erroneous view of the book trade. The Seminar was originally set up to bring these two groups together for some mutual enlightenment." I asked Ed to sum up his career for us. He laughed. "I've done just about everything there is to do in the book business. I started at the bottom buying books for twenty-five cents and selling them for seventy-five. I've had open shops and I've become a specialty dealer, I've been a catalogue dealer, and in the last decade, inescapably, an internet dealer." Ed said that when he started he put out several catalogues a year, now he does one or two; he used to do lots of book fairs each year, now he does one or two. He is, he says, "...winding down." He says that most of us who are book dealers are very self indulgent folks since we do what we love. "I love the book business. It's been very good to me, I'm attracted to the collegial nature of the business and to the friends I've made. And it still is a thrill to handle the books themselves."
Interview with a Classic Bookman - By Karen Wright "What direction do you see the book business taking?" I asked. "There will always be a book business. My crystal ball is a little cloudy as to direction. A few years back, the top people of my generation, who are still in the book trade, were saying they would never, never use computers. Most of them have come kicking and screaming onto the Net. When I was a catalogue dealer, I couldn't wait to get to the Post Office box in the morning; now I can't wait to turn on the computer. You've got to adapt to the situation or in Darwinian fashion, become obsolete and no longer able to compete. Despite the new transparency of values and easily findable books, there will always be a market for the best books." My thanks to Ed for taking his time to talk to me and for letting me make free with information from his website, www.glaserrarebooks.com. I'd also like to thank the folks at the Antiquarian Book Seminar for letting me use some of the information about Ed that appeared in his Faculty Biography from the seminar info booklet. You may contact Ed at Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books, P.O. Box 755, Napa, CA 94559, or give him a call at (707) 258-6281.

Interview with a Classic Bookman

- By Karen Wright

Ed Glaser of Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books.

By Karen Wright

Ed Glaser is the owner of Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books in Napa, California. Ed has held a well-respected place in the book business for more than forty years. If I had a question about the book business, Ed is one of the first booksellers I would call on for advice. Even if his eyes rolled back in his head in desperation, I know he'd answer with good advice. He's incredibly knowledgeable and fun to talk to; an old-fashioned gentleman, but not a bit stuffy, and he has a great sense of humor. He's not one of those crotchety old codgers who peers over a pair of half-spectacles when you walk into their shops, growls and then sticks his head back in a dusty tome. Ed has been in the rare and antiquarian book business since about 1964, but he had a couple of other careers before that. We asked Ed to tell us a bit about how he got into the business.

"Bookselling is my third career," he related. "I started as a newspaper man and when that didn't work out, I went into the family business for a few years. That was manufacturing industrial fasteners - you know - nuts and bolts. I didn't like peddling nuts and bolts, so I said; what do I want to do? I want to be my own boss, I want to handle a commodity I like and respect...what is that? I said: Books. I didn't know which area of the book business I wanted to go into, so I joined American Bookseller's Association. In their packet, was a copy of A.B. Bookman's Weekly. I looked at that and the lights flashed, the bells clanged, and I said; this is what I want to do. This is great. I can go to the Salvation Army, the Goodwill and pick up books, what fun! So I started at that level in 1964 then graduated to a book shop that I ran part time while I still had my day job. This was on the Lower East Side, in New York, in the East Village, during the "hippie" thing.

"I made pretty quick progress. I bought someone else's stock and so forth. But I soon decided that selling books for 75 cents a book didn't cut it so in 1969, I quit my day job. By that time I had become somewhat of a specialist in out-of-print scholarly books on the humanities. The business grew nicely until the mid-1970s, but because of a divorce and the need to maintain the ex-wife, two kids, their house, my shop, and my own residence, I gave up the shop and decided to specialize. I didn't know quite what I wanted to specialize in since I liked almost everything - literature, history, and so on, but by a stroke of good luck, I stumbled on a world class collection on the history of science and medicine. Of course, that was something in which I had the least background. My education was in the humanities, but the collection had belonged to two Viennese born and educated psychiatrists and contained all the invoices from whom the books were bought, what they paid for them, and all the bibliographic references for the books. I sequestered myself for three months and came out with quite a nice catalogue which was well received. Voilá, I was an instant specialist."

Interview with a Classic Bookman

- By Karen Wright

Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books.

Since then, Ed has become an internationally known authority on rare and important books in science, technology, and medicine. In 1979, Ed relocated to Northern California and recently he and his wife, Lorraine, moved to the picture-perfect Carneros area at the southern end of the Napa Valley. Among his laurels are past National President of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America, previous chairman of the Middle Atlantic and Northern California chapters of the ABAA, and he has served on the Board of Governors. He has written for A.B. Bookman's Weekly and lectured before numerous groups on antiquarian books. He is the longest running member of the faculty of the Out-of-Print and Antiquarian Book Market Seminar in Colorado, having served since 1979. He is also a member of the Grolier and Roxburghe Clubs and the American Association for the History of Medicine.

Ed noted that in pre-internet days it had been observed by a number of prominent bookmen that, "Dealers knew little about the workings and problems of libraries and that librarians had a hazy and sometimes erroneous view of the book trade. The Seminar was originally set up to bring these two groups together for some mutual enlightenment."

I asked Ed to sum up his career for us. He laughed. "I've done just about everything there is to do in the book business. I started at the bottom buying books for twenty-five cents and selling them for seventy-five. I've had open shops and I've become a specialty dealer, I've been a catalogue dealer, and in the last decade, inescapably, an internet dealer."

Ed said that when he started he put out several catalogues a year, now he does one or two; he used to do lots of book fairs each year, now he does one or two. He is, he says, "...winding down." He says that most of us who are book dealers are very self indulgent folks since we do what we love. "I love the book business. It's been very good to me, I'm attracted to the collegial nature of the business and to the friends I've made. And it still is a thrill to handle the books themselves."

Interview with a Classic Bookman

- By Karen Wright

"What direction do you see the book business taking?" I asked.

"There will always be a book business. My crystal ball is a little cloudy as to direction. A few years back, the top people of my generation, who are still in the book trade, were saying they would never, never use computers. Most of them have come kicking and screaming onto the Net. When I was a catalogue dealer, I couldn't wait to get to the Post Office box in the morning; now I can't wait to turn on the computer. You've got to adapt to the situation or in Darwinian fashion, become obsolete and no longer able to compete. Despite the new transparency of values and easily findable books, there will always be a market for the best books."

My thanks to Ed for taking his time to talk to me and for letting me make free with information from his website, www.glaserrarebooks.com. I'd also like to thank the folks at the Antiquarian Book Seminar for letting me use some of the information about Ed that appeared in his Faculty Biography from the seminar info booklet. You may contact Ed at Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books, P.O. Box 755, Napa, CA 94559, or give him a call at (707) 258-6281.