Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2004 Issue

Ken Leach Reflects On Over<br>35 Years Of Bookselling

Ken Leach has been selling books since the 1960s.

Ken Leach has been selling books since the 1960s.


by Michael Stillman

If you ever have a chance to see one of Ken Leach's catalogues, it will quickly transport you back to an earlier era of book collecting. Ken Leach has been publishing his catalogues for thirty-five years now, and while the book trade today has little resemblance to what it was in 1970, his catalogues are virtually unchanged. They are not flashy. While one of Leach’s specialties over the years has been fine bindings, these catalogues are bound with paper and staples. His descriptions aren’t novels, but are straight to the point and often contain anecdotes gathered from his many years of experience. And while prices are no longer quite 1970, Ken Leach does not price his books for the 22nd century either. They represent solid values.

Bookselling is one of those livelihoods that people tend to stumble into, rather than prepare for. Ken Leach's first career was in the food business. By the 1960’s, he had risen to supervisor for a chain of A & W Root Beer stands in western New England, running from his home state of Vermont through Massachusetts and Connecticut. Summers are mild in this part of the country, but anyone who has lived here knows that root beer floats are a hard sell in winter. The stands would close down when the weather turned cold. Ken Leach had time on his hands, and looked for something that could provide some side income until spring returned. He began buying and selling various items, books, broadsides, and stamps, in his spare time.

Meanwhile, the competitive environment became more challenging for A & W. McDonalds moved into his territory and with better pay and shorter hours, Leach found it difficult to hold onto good store managers. And so, with $3,000 in cash and three boxes of books, he made the break to become a full-time bookseller in July of 1968. This has been his profession ever since, and at 77-years of age, Ken Leach has absolutely no thoughts of retirement.

There are two things you need to be able to do to be a successful bookseller: locate books to sell and find customers to buy them. Traversing the back roads of New England to locate stock became a full-time job. Leach worked seven days a week, putting in 80 hours through the 1970s, until marriage forced him to cut back. “I slowed down a little and just worked 60,” Leach comments. In those days, supply was plentiful, competitors few. He would hit the flea markets, antique shops, and country auctions looking for books. The antique shops would always have a few books but never knew how to sell them. “I’d go in and clean them out,” he noted. Often he would be the only bidder for books at auctions and would walk off with everything they had. Despite the long hours, Leach thoroughly enjoyed his new profession. “I didn’t have to put up with bosses,” he points out.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Buzz Aldrin's FLOWN Apollo 11 Crew-Signed NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Cover. $15,000 to $20,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Lunar Surface Flown Mission Emblem Presented to Tom Stafford by John Young. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Albert Einstein. Typed Letter Signed ("A. Einstein."), to Ann Morrisett, Affirming a Pacifist's Right to Self-Defense, March 21, 1952. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC Binary Automatic Computer Built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation. Philadelphia, 1949. $30,000 to $50,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Extensive Chronology of Spacecraft From Apollo to Skylab, Signed by a Member of Every Crewed Apollo Flight and the Commanders of Each Skylab Mission. $5,000 to $8,000.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800

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