ABC’s of Book Collecting : Anonymous July 8, 2009

ANONYMOUS There is the formal anonymity of a book whose author, though his name is not on it, is known (e.g. Gulliver’s Travels, The Vicar of Wakefield or Sense and Sensibility). For the cataloguing of these and similar pseudonymous books (e.g. Alice in Wonderland or Jane Eyre), some booksellers use, and others dispense with, the conventional square (or equally common round) brackets.There is also, however, the real anonymity of ‘authorship unknown’. And once in a…

ABC’s of Book Collecting : Annuals July 6, 2009

ANNUALS Of books issued serially once a year two special classes have particularly interested collectors. (1) The anthologies of prose and/or verse, usually illustrated with steel engravings, which were a feature of late Regency and early Victorian publishing in England: copied originally from German and French models. Examples are The Keepsake, The Book of Beauty, Friendship’s Offering, The Literary Souvenir. These were the gift books or ‘table books’ of the day, and many of them…

ABC’s of Book Collecting : Ana July 2, 2009

ANA A collective noun meaning a compilation of sayings, table talk, anecdotes, etc. Southey described Boswell’s Johnson as ‘the Ana of all Anas’. Its most familiar use is, however, the original one (from which the noun was made) in the form of a Latin suffix meaning material related to as distinct from material by; e.g. Boswelliana, Railroadiana, Etoniana. Like other such suffixes it is not always easily attachable to English names, even assisted, as commonly,…

ABC’s of Book Collecting : Americana June 19, 2009

AMERICANA Books, etc., about, connected with or printed in America, often, but not exclusively, the United States of North America; or relating to individual Americans: as distinct (properly, though nowadays not invariably) from books by American writers. The Columbus Letter is a piece ofAmericana, as describing the discovery of the continent; the Bay Psalm Book, as the first known book printed in what is now U.S.A.; and Thomas Paine ’s Common Sense, as one of…

ABC’s of Book Collecting : American Book Prices Current June 16, 2009

AMERICAN BOOK PRICES CURRENT Published annually since 1895: first edited by Luther S. Livingston, for many years afterwards by Edward Lazare and now by Katharine Kyes and Daniel J. Leab. Now divided into two sections: (1) printed books, maps, charts and broadsides, (2) autograph letters and manuscripts. Each volume (published in January every year – ABPC is the most punctual, as well as accurate, of such records) contains an entry for every lot in all…