Rare Book Monthly Articles - November - 2008 Issue

Wiki Bibliographies: The Way to the Future

By Bruce McKinney This month I write about a mostly forgotten place, Rondout, New York, once a transportation hub at the intersection of the Rondout Creek and Hudson River [map link] that rose on opportunity and fell with its withdrawal. It was alter-ego to a Kingston that was better known, a lucky place where many found work and a few made fortunes. I return to Rondout to suggest that its now forgotten history, relating maps, books, ephemera and pamphlets provide an exceptional opportunity to consider an alternative way for material to be organized and presented on the web. I'm spea...

Major Settlement Reached on Google Book Copyright Suit

By Michael Stillman A groundbreaking settlement was announced October 28 concerning the unauthorized digitization and viewing of copyrighted books by search giant Google. It promises a level of ...

An Extraordinary Americana Auction at Bloomsbury Nov. 19

By Bruce McKinney The upcoming November 19th single owner sale at Bloomsbury Auctions in New York of the Jay T. Snider collection of early and important Americana with a strong emphasis on Phila...

Alibris Offers Its Sellers Historic Pricing Tool

By Michael Stillman Alibris has announced that it will be offering its sellers a new and extremely useful tool for valuing inventory. Access to their large database of sales history will now be ...

Opening a New Bookstore with Tim Lohraff

By Karen Wright I looked up "meta" in the dictionary and it can mean "among" or "with" or "change." I love being 'among books' and so does Tim Lohraff. While studying my brains out at the Co...

Evidence of Interest when the Circumstances are Right

By Bruce McKinney At auction on October 19th at John McInnis Auctioneers in Amesbury, Massachusetts, four lots in the category of Books, Manuscripts and Ephemera, did well. The evidence suggest...

Barnum Museum Finds Key to Its Origins on eBay

By Carl Burnham No man of his time was better at promotion and entertaining crowds than P.T. Barnum. Barnum is attributed with the saying "Without promotion something terrible happens... Nothing...

<i>In The News:</i> Declining Newspapers, Digitizing Books, Abe's Top 10

By Michael Stillman There was more bad news for the printed word, at least in newspaper form, in reports for the past six months recently released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The ABC of...

Rosemary Sullivan Rare Books to Disperse at Auction

By Bruce McKinney "All my life I've been a book collector and, for four decades, a bookseller." Thus are you introduced to Rosemary Sullivan, who in her three score and ten, is about to dispens...

Stalin's Cartoonist Passes On

By Michael Stillman A prolific political cartoonist passed away last month. His story is one of the more remarkable ones you will hear. Boris Yefimov is not a name well known in the West, but he...

Bookselling in a Red and Blue World

By Renée Magriel Roberts I'm at the computer today and should be doing something for the bookstore: entering a quantity of Ben Franklin-related materials, or putting together our pretty amazing ...

Libraries and Book Theft: A Role Reversal

By Michael Stillman Two Ohio men were indicted on October 2 in connection with the theft of two rare and valuable books from the Rurtherford B. Hayes Presidential Library. Joshua McCarty and Zac...

AE Comet: Genealogy & Local History - A Passion

By Bruce McKinney Click here for the November AE Comet. Genealogy is the history of people and local history the history of places. There was a time when the history of people and places wer...

10 Catalogues Reviewed This Month

This month, we take a look at ten new bookseller catalogues in the Review section of AE Monthly. The William Reese Company offers a selection of early voyages, while Bernard J. Shapero Rare Books h...

Rare Book Monthly

  • Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: U.S. / European Shipping Archive 1800-1814. The Widow Bermingham & Sons Collection. €7,000 to €10,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Bunreacht na hÉireann. Constitution of Ireland. An important copy of the First Printing of De Valera’s new Constitution, approved in 1938. Signed by the Constitution Cabinet. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: A Rare Complete Run of the Cuala Press Broadsides. €7,000 to €9,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Grose (Francis). The Antiquities of Ireland, 2vols. folio London (for S. Hooper) 1791. Magnificent Hand-Coloured Copy - Only 25 Copies. €3,000 to €5,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Cantillon (Richard). Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en General, Traduit de l'Anglois, Sm. 8vo London (Fletcher Gyles) 1756. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Gregory, (Lady Augusta). Spreading the News: The Rising of the Moon: The Poorhouse (with Douglas Hyde). Being Vol. IX of the Abbey Theatre Series. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Lavery (Lady Hazel). A moving series of three A.L.S. and a Telegram to Gen. Eoin O'Duffy, July-August 1927, expressing her grief at the death of Kevin O'Higgins. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Dampier (Wm.) Nouveau Voyage Autour du Monde, ou l'on descrit en particulier l'Isthme de l'Amerique…, 2 vols. in one, Amsterdam, 1698. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Howell (James). Instructions for Forreine Travel Shewing by what Cours, and in what Compasse of Time…, London, 1642. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s
    Summer Rare Book
    & Collectors’ Sale
    July 30-31, 2024
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: Rowling (J.K.) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 8vo, L. (Bloomsbury) 1999, First Edn., First Printing of Deluxe Collectors Edn. Signed. €800 to €1,200.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: James (Wm.) A Full and Correct Account of the Military Occurrences of The Late War Between Great Britain and The United States of America. 2 vols. Lond. 1818. €650 to €900.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, July 30-31: The Laws of the United States, Published by Authority, 3 vols. Philadelphia (Richard Folwell) 1796. €600 to €800.

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions