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| AE Monthly Archives -- August, 2004
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AE Monthly
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Back to Archives List
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Letters to the editors
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By Bruce McKinney
It can be difficult, in collecting printed material, to know what to collect. The printed universe is enormous. Whether to define collecting ambitions by subject, period, author, type, style, place, event(s), some other factor or a combination of factors is a potentially complex decision often informed by luck and frequently enhanced by suggestions and guidance from knowledgeable dealers. Certainly
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By Renee Roberts
This weekend I was, as usual, working, going over some boxes of books that had just arrived, and a slender volume caught my eye. It was bound in green silk, with the word “Music” in a stylized script encircled by a wreath of doves, a violin in the center with two horns to either side, and a flurry of ribbons ending in small hearts, in gilt. The title page was also pretty —printed in red and
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By Michael Stillman
There is a way to have your listings picked up by the world's most popular and powerful search engine, and shown on one of the most heavily trafficked websites in existence. They estimate that "millions" of people go there everyday. They will even pick up listings from your own website if you wish. So what does this site charge for providing this incredible level of visibility? 8%? 15%? 20%? Guess again.
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By Michael Stillman
One of the last, tenuous threads to America’s great Civil War was broken, or at least appeared to be broken, this past Memorial Day with the passing of Alberta Martin. At the time, she was believed to be the last surviving Civil War widow, an honor she had held since January 2003. That was when 93-year-old Gertrude Janeway, the last living Union widow, passed away. Mrs. Martin, naturally, was a Confederate
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By Bruce McKinneyIn the July issue of AE ( click here for a link to that story) we introduced online ratings of book related sites as a way to understand relative performance. In this, the second month, we are continuing to track these sites and to add others that have come to our attention. As we gain experience
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By Michael Stillman
James Cummins Bookseller has released their latest catalogue and it comes with the appropriate name ¡§Catalogue 89.¡¨ The name is appropriate as it¡¦s hard to be much more descriptive than that. A James Cummins catalogue tends to offer a wide variety of books and manuscripts, making it hard to pigeonhole. The same applies to Catalogue 89. So here are a few samples of what¡¦s inside.
Collectors of
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By Michael Stillman
James S. Jaffe Rare Books has issued a catalogue focused on literary first editions, illustrated books, fine printing, and poetry. This is their 74th catalogue, though it is their first we have reviewed. We will admit to having a little more familiarity with the books that fit under the heading of "literary firsts",
and it is a superb group that Jaffe offers. Many of these books come with author signatures
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By Michael Stillman
William Reese Company¡¦s 232nd catalogue is a collection of ¡§Western Americana.¡¨ The West was conquered a long time ago. You can cross from the Mississippi to the Pacific in a day or two via the interstate without ever being attacked by Indians or held up by outlaws, except maybe at the gas pump. Still, there was a time, and this catalogue will bring you back to those days when the West was young, an unknown
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By Michael Stillman
What do women, country houses and perspective have in common? For one, they are all topics of Charles Wood's latest catalogue (I must admit that I'm stumped as to what the second connection might be). This is a three part catalogue with the following headings: Part I ¡V Books By and About Women; Part II ¡V English Country Houses; and Part III ¡V Perspective. Parts II and III are clearly niche fields
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By Michael Stillman
We recently received a new catalogue of maps from Jonathan Potter Limited, called, logically enough, "A selection of Antique Maps from Jonathan Potter." While the catalogue may be new, the maps certainly are not. This is a collection of maps printed from the 16th through the 19th centuries, and there are few places on earth that are not covered. Potter is a London map and atlas specialist, so naturally there
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By Michael Stillman
David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books has released a new offering entitled "Rare Americana--A Catalogue of Significant and Unusual Imprints Relating to America (No. 80)". As always, a Lesser catalogue is not only a wonderful source of material for an Americana collection, but also an American history book, filled with glimpses of America in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In 1854, Caleb Barstow
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By Bruce McKinney
One of the great pleasures of summer is the opportunity to gorge on books. In the year between our last great business, which we sold in 1988 and the current great challenge, AE, there were ten straight years of reading, on average, 50 books a year, which in a few of those years amounted to almost 20,000 pages. I'm still a book person today, much preferring to absorb book length accounts rather than predigested
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By Michael Stillman
There was an article in the New York Times recently that raises interesting questions regarding the proper relationship between money and scholarship, history, and the institutions which house our collective memories. We like to be confronted by issues where there is a clear good and bad, right and wrong. Give me a dispute between a decent, honorable, freedom-loving people and a mass murderer any day.
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