An Executive Order posted on the White House website on March 14th announced the administration's intention to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a small branch of the federal government that acts as a clearing house and coordinator for federal grants and other library and museum services. The IMLS has an annual FY 2024 budget of $294.8 million according to information posted by the agency.
Other federal agencies targeted for elimination by the order are: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service; the United States Agency for Global Media; the Woodrow Wilson Inter...
University Archives will hold its next sale on April 23, 2025. 530+ lots of high-quality historical artifacts will be offered, including the Abraham Lincoln Collection, one of the largest, most imp...
March 20, 2025
It is with great sadness and disappointment that I am letting you know the Grolier Club decided to not honor my agreement with the Executor Director to have the most comprehensiv...
David Lesser, one of the Grand old Men of the ABAA recently made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It was smart, efficient and encouraging. He created a custom electronic catalogue-tte of 16 items rel...
15,000,000 is just a number but it’s a big one
Rare Book Hub continues to be on a tear adding both new and old auction records to our Rare Book Transaction History.
We have long obsessed ab...
These are strange times, which gives rise to this story of a library caught in the middle. It involves international borders, a famous author, and a most unusual library. The border is that between...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ella Hall Joins William Reese Company Ahead of Company’s Move to New York City and the New York Antiquarian Book Fair
Highlights on the Reese Stand at the Fair Include...
The Collectible Paper Experience: In NY April 3-6
A great space, a desirable time, smart people and did I mention exceptional material. As wealth has been concentrated, the value of association...
Saturday April 5: Two Book Fairs – Plan Ahead
If you are planning to visit the New York book fairs on Saturday, 5 April, please consider Robert Frost’s words:
Two roads diverged in a wood, ...
Fresh Perspectives on Collecting featured several panels of younger voices in the fields of collecting, library, special collections and bookselling. The event, held as a zoom symposia on March 18 ...
Old books are generally used for collecting, possibly reading if you handle them with great care. However, there are other uses, particularly if they aren't of significant value. Artists will cut t...
The history of collectible paper has been a story of false starts. Auction houses in the 19th century waxed and waned. How to describe and organize records were constantly a matter of dispute. What...
Vidocq. A former convict, who escaped from 20 prisons, turned police informer, and then head of the Paris Surete. A very bold man. The father of modern criminology, who inspired writers such as Vic...
Once upon a time, a skilled and obsessive collector decided to search for books by Hans Christian Anderson. The day and time is not known but the year – YES, we know it was 1994. The collector: Jus...
Do you know Mariana Soledad Magdalena Villa-Gilbert? Most likely not. She was an author and her publisher thought enough of her to publish 7 books, six novels and one collection of her short storie...
The Antiquarian Outlook - March 2025 Review
Before heading into April, see what happened in Rare Books through March with THE ANTIQUARIAN OUTLOOK.
WEEK 9 (Starting 02/24): https:...
The George and Anna Eliot Ticknor Collecting Prize
Entries are extended to May 15th. Sharpen your pencils!
Since 2019, The Ticknor Society has awarded an annual George and Anna ...
At least it wasn't a century overdue. Credit the apparent borrower Charles Tilton with that. Not that he personally returned it. Credit must go to his responsible granddaughter, Mary Cooper. She is...
This month we review six new bookseller catalogues. Shapero Rare Books will take us to far-off places with Travel 2025. One of those places you can visit is Korea, but it won't be like it was centu...
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Book of Hours.- Heures de nostre dame a l'usaige de Romme, Paris, Antoine Chappiel pour Germain Hardouin, [1504]. £6,000-8,000
Forum, May 28: Colonna (Francesco). La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, second edition, Venice, Sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545. £15,000-20,000
Forum, May 28:The Christ Child holding a crystal orb and surrounded by banderoles with devotional exhortations, on a leaf most probably from a Book of Hours, [Southern Netherlands, last decades of the fifteenth century]. £2,000-3,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Jackson (Shirley). The Haunting of Hill House, first English edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to Claude Fredericks, 1960. £2,000-3,000
Forum, May 28: Lennon (John). In His Own Write, first edition, first impression, signed by the author, 1964. £3,000-4,000
Forum, May 28: Doves Press.- Keats (John). [Poems], one of 200 copies on paper, Doves Press, 1914. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Rodrigues (João Barbosa). Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium, 2 vol., first and only edition, Brussels, 1903. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Newton (Sir Isaac). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica…editio ultima, auctior et emendatior, Amsterdam, Sumptibus Societatis, 1714. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Kepler (Johannes). Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, wuibus astronomiae pars optica traditur, first edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1604. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Tagliacozzi (Gaspare). De Curtorum Chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo, first edition, Venice, Gasparo Bindoni, 1597. £7,000-10,000
Forum, May 28: Lootsman (Jacobsz). The Lightning Colomne, or Sea-Mirrour, containing the Sea-Coasts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Navigation..., 1670. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Ribelles y Helip (José), Attributed to. An album comprising 33 finely executed watercolours of Spanish costume, bull-fighting scenes, and other genre subjects, [circa 1830]. £10,000-15,000
