click to enlargeIn nineteenth century America door-to-door bookselling was a big thing. As the country grew westward and new technologies provided cheaper production and transportation opportunities subscription bookselling became a major component of the publishing world. The book became a commodity. By some estimates by the end of the nineteenth century 70% of all books sold were sold by subscription.Agents Wanted : Subscription Publishing in America, an online exhibit at University of Pennsylvania, provides a great introduction to this part of publishing history. It features items from the seminal collection of canvassing books by Michael Zinman.From Lynne Farrington's introduction:Subscription publishers...
Fine Books and Collections
Ian Kahn of Lux Mentis today on his blog confirms what I had been hearing in the rumor mill: that Fine Books and Collections will cease publication of its print magazine. Apparently there are plans to continue it as a web-only venture. This will be a real loss.
New Book on Mysterious Map-Maker
Washington Post review of John Hessler's The Naming of America: Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 World Map and the Cosmographiae Introductio - How was it that a German priest writing in Latin and living in a French city far from the coast became the first person to tell the world that a vast ocean lay to the west of the American continents?That is one of the bigger mysteries in the history of the Renaissance.But it is not the only one involving Martin Waldseemueller, a map-making cleric whose own story is sufficiently obscure that his birth and death dates aren't known for certain.Waldseemueller...
Gems of the Private Press Movement
If you love the book arts and live anywhere near Portland, Oregon, you must come to the beautiful Collins Gallery in the equally lovely Multnomah County Library and linger over GEMS OF THE PRIVATE PRESS MOVEMENT: Kelmscott, Ashendene, Doves, Golden Cockerel. The exhibition, curated by John Wilson Room librarian Jim Carmin, artfully showcases both holdings from the libray's rare book collection and loans primarily from the collection of the estimable Jack Walsdorf who also gifted some of the remarkable rarities in this show to the library. Both were present for introductory remarks at this Saturday afternoons packed openning.What struck me...
Courting the Antiquarians
In spite of all the doom and gloom surrounding the life and future of the book the book business still rakes in around $90 billion a year worldwide.Two of the healthiest and fastest growing areas of the trade are online bookselling in general and the selling of used, out-of-print and antiquarian books in particular.In a recent blog post from the Frankfurt Book Fair Edward Nawotka, book columnist for Bloomberg News and Southern Correspondent for Publishers Weekly, had this to say about the future of books:"One immediate consequence of Obama's victory was the boost in sales for newspapers. So now we...