Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - October - 2003 Issue
Unique New Catalogues from<br>Martayan Lan and Oak Knoll Books
Le Livre de Quatre Couleurs (Book of Four Colors).Oak Knoll#141
Oak Knoll Books Catalogue 249 doesn’t need a particular title because it fits the mould of other Oak Knoll catalogues. It features books about books, such as book collecting, selling, design, binding, and bibliography.
Item 687 is one of several by famed bookseller A.S.W. (Dr.) Rosenbach, Books and Bidders, the Adventures of a Bibliophile. This one is signed by the “Doctor.” $95. The catalogue has numerous other titles either by or about notable booksellers from many eras. For example, Item 845 is Jack Matthews Rare Book Lore, Selections from the Letters of Ernest J Wessen. Wessen was a famed Midwestern bookseller during the middle of the 20th century. $55. By the way, many of both Rosenbach’s and Wessens’s catalogue listings (the latter’s known as “Midland Notes”) are accessible to subscribers of the Americana Exchange Database.
For those who collect periodicals for book collectors, item 79 provides a complete file of The Book Collector’s Packet. This periodical, published off and on between 1932 and 1946, offered many articles on book related subject matter. There are 41 issues in all. $450.
There are several titles on bookbinding, including W. Salt Brassington’s 1894 History of the Art of Bookbinding… It covers both pre-printing book production and binding after the invention of the press. Item 84. $425. Also available is Edith Diehl’s important two-volume set Bookbinding, Its Background and Technique. Item 90. $235.
If this material is a bit “heavy” for you, and you’d like some comic relief, how about Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Man who created Tarzan? Item 130. $45. Here’s an unusual item: Diary of an Apple Tree. It features thirteen wood engravings of an apple tree as it progresses through the seasons, spring to winter, and back to spring again. Item 850. $150.
For those who collect music composers, there’s Hector Berlioz’s Memoires de Hector Berlioz… Printed in Paris in 1870, this is a first edition of his autobiography. Item 38. $300.
If you collect JFK, item 563 is An Address by John F. Kennedy delivered before the Massachusetts Legislature, January 9, 1961. A limited edition (1,500) printing by the Overbrook Press, this speech precedes Kennedy’s inauguration by less than two weeks. $30. For those who prefer unsuccessful presidential aspirants, there’s also Wendell Wilkie’s Occasional Addresses and Articles… Wilkie was President Roosevelt’s sacrificial lamb in 1940. Also from the Overbrook Press. Item 570. $35.
