By Bruce McKinney
Most books are read from front to back but I challenge you to try to do this with any of the five volumes of Frank Luther Mott's A History of American Magazines. Every page has references to other pages, to footnotes and to indexes and it simply isn't possible to read any of the volumes as a book unless you simply decide to ignore all the bibliographical tendrils. Each one is a door into something curious and interesting. I couldn't ignore them and in time simply surrendered to the logic of the material and have read volume one [848 pages] as an extraordinary refer...
By Michael Stillman
Abebooks recently announced that they would be automatically adding prepackaged descriptions and stock dust jacket photographs to their listings, at least those with ISBN nu...
Renee Magriel Roberts
It's summertime and it's hot and I'm looking for a quick read. The only things getting cooled around here are the books in my warehouse. I've got to get my mind off the...
By Bruce McKinney
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A man who touched the lives of almost all Americans over the past fifty years died on July 21st, at the age of 83. He probably lived that long in part because he ...
By Michael Stillman
Back in December 2004, the search engine company Google announced a massive project to digitize old books. The project, named "Google Print for Libraries," involved scanning...
By Bruce McKinney
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Those who appreciate a good story and some history, whether it is in book form or not, may wish to pause for a moment to remember the life of Allison "Tootie" Montana,...
By Michael Stillman
Over 30,000 books have disappeared from the French National Library. Somewhere between lost and stolen, these books have vanished. Between one and two thousand of them are c...
A review by Bruce McKinney
Ms. Brautigan, in her memoir You Can't Catch Death, tells the story of her larger-than-life father Richard Brautigan, the author and iconoclast, and her relationship...
By Bruce McKinney
Effective with the August issue of AEM we are beginning to selectively illustrate answers to appropriate questions with links to records in the AED. In this way we hope to pro...
ALDE, Apr. 8: GUEVARA (ANTONIO DE). Histoire de Marc-Aurèle, Empereur Romain, vray miroir et horloge des Princes. Paris, Pierre et Galliot du Pré, frères, 1565. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: HEURES DE LA VIERGE. Horæ in laudem beatissimæ virginis Mariæ ad usum Romanum. Paris, Charles L'Angelier, 1556. €4,000 to €5,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: MONTAIGNE (MICHEL DE). Les Essais. Édition nouvelle, trouvée après le deceds de l'autheur… Paris, Abel L'Angelier, 1595. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [ROJAS (FERNANDO DE)]. Celestina, tragicomedia di Calisto et Melibea, tradotta de lingua castigliana in italiano idioma… Venise, 1531. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CAMÕES (LUÍS DE). Os Lusiadas. Lisbonne, Pedro Crasbeeck, 1613. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Bruxelles, Roger Velpius & Huberto Antonio, 1611. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: LA FONTAINE (JEAN DE). Fables choisies, mises en vers. Paris, Denys Thierry et Claude Barbin, 1678-1694. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Madrid, Joaquin Ibarra, 1780. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: DIDEROT (DENIS) ET JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT. Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris, 1751-1765. €15,000 to €20,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. LAMARTINE (Alphonse de). Les Laboureurs. Poème tiré de Jocelyn… Lyon, J. A. Henry, 1883. €8,000 to €10,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. Livre de prières tissé d'après les enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVIe siècle. Lyon, [A. Roux], 1886. €5,000 to €6,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts & Objects from Three Important Collections Open for Bidding 2-17 April
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: [Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun]. Le Roman de la Rose, [Geneva or Lyons, c.1481], first printed edition of the most important medieval French vernacular poem. £200,000 to £300,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Castiglione. Il libro del cortegiano. [Venice], April 1528, first edition, in a magnificent binding by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Jacobus de Cessolis. Schachzabelbuch, Strasbourg, 1483, von der Lasa copy. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: World Championship, 1972. A collection of 84 press photographs of the famed match between Spassky and Fischer. £2,000 to £3,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Ben Franklin. Autograph letter signed, to Lord Shelburne, British Prime Minister, during peace negotiations, November 1782. £15,000 to £20,000.
![You Can't Catch Death by Ianthe Brautigan [<i>but you can understand it better</i>]](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/ArticleImages/brautigan1.jpg)
