A brief essay on what the ABAA is. We are a trade association of over 450 members located throughout the United States. Our members specialize in fine and rare books, maps, documents, autographs, illuminated manuscripts, ephemera and prints which span the economic spectrum.

Proof copies, if you follow your nose and are willing to take small risks, can be great investments--because even if the author doesn't "hit" and the monetary values don't go sky-high, you've still got a scarce, unusual, often textually significant version of the author's work.

Like other forms of mass-produced ephemera, cards of all types proliferated with the new technologies of the mid-1800s, allowing for increased social interaction and the regulation of social standards which characterized the Victorian era.

The last 10 years have seen a renaissance in vintage poster collecting in the United States. The last time that posters were so avidly collected, they weren't "vintage" at all.

For more than twenty-five years, Valentines have been a passion for me - and I have constantly sought examples of virtually every kind that exists! Each acquisition seemed to lead to another, and each was a piece of the puzzle that I was assembling.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the most remarkable figures in colonial America. His accomplishments were considerable even before he represented the American colonies

I am not your average collector as I collect a very wide range of items. My interest in collecting antique papers and postcards postcards dates back to my childhood. My mother was interest

"Personal libraries have always been a biopsy of power" says Harriet Rubin in her New York Times piece C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success.

Genealogical research reveals that the ancestor of today's paper dolls were pantins, first popular in France during the mid-1700s.

A. W. Coysh in his work Collecting bookmarkers, a history of English bookmarks, states: The need for some device to mark the place in a book was recognized at an early date. "The need for some device to mark the place in a book was recognized at an early date. Without boo

Please visit Oak Knoll to view them.

Nearly everyone interested in John Steinbeck can reel off a string of his books that have been made into films. But The Pastures of Heaven, you ask?

It is the middle of World War II. Soldiers are on their way to the front lines of both the Pacific and European Theaters. Other soldiers are already there. Still others have bee

Scarcity often makes a book desirable, and it plays an important part in the definition of an entire class of collectible books: private-press or fine-press books, limited editions, livres d'artiste, and artists' books.

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The ABAA publishes a quarterly Newsletter aimed at Members, Collectors, and Booksellers. To subscribe or see what's happening in the world of rare books, click here.

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Book collectors start as readers. This may seem obvious but is important to keep in mind, for the majority of book collectors collect authors or subjects that they are currently reading or have read and enjoyed.

When we talk about "John Henry," we may be referring to a ballad, a work song, a folk hero, or a legend. Most familiar is the character John Henry, the man who drove steel on the C & O Road and died with his hammer in his hand. His feat(s) have been memorialized in the ballad.

Individuals with old books or manuscripts in their possession often wonder how to ascertain the value of such material.

Very few of us will contest the role of the book in the history of Western culture, yet it is surprising that very few people actually own any antiquarian books at all.

This year marks the 350th anniversary of printing in what is now the United States

An address delivered to the ABAA annual meeting by Larry McMurtry

In first edition collecting, "the earlier the better" is the rule.

This is the best of times. A worst there isn't, not if you are lucky enough to earn your living by dealing in books.

The modern women's rights movement arose in a time of revolution and culminated in the winning of suffrage in a world shaken by war.

To medieval Europe, the East was the source of silks, spices, and other exotica. It was the environs of Paradise, the place of the original Garden but also of the original Sin. It was the horizon from whence the sun rose, the point from which humankind dispersed throughout the inhabited earth, and the subject of much philosophical speculation.

The world of collectible children's books has come of age.

Few people realize that a decent size literature on Blues has accrued over the last century and that many of the books are quite collectible and intensely sought after.

Many of the stories being played out on movie screens were not written specifically for movies but based on books-usually novels. These stories are movie source books.

Rideout defined the radical novel as "one which demonstrates, either explicitly or implicitly, that its author objects to the human suffering imposed by some socioeconomic system and advocates that the system be fundamentally changed."

"No army on earth can hold back an idea whose time has come," Victor Hugo is supposed to have said, and he ought to have been speaking of the Modern Library.

1991 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Herman Melville. Numerous observances were held to commemorate the work of that remarkable American writer, so widely forgotten a century ago and so widely celebrated today.

Collecting Mark Twain; A History and Three New Paths Mark Twain's world-wide appeal endures because his writings appeal to very different people in very different ways. Many of his contemporary readers saw him as a sort of genial corn-pone clown, a grandfatherly figure with a benign wit, and for better or worse, this is the image that persists in the popular mind today. By Kevin MacDonnell

Read Ian's musings about rare books, fine books and fun books, book collecting, book buying and bibliomania...

Links to various blogs on the book trade.

An article about Priscilla Lowry-Gregor and David Gregor, two ABAA members in Washington state.

One of the most unusual types of book decoration is fore-edge paintings.

Snippets from a NY Times article regarding "Bookends" - the play about Madeleine B. Stern and Leona Rostenberg.

Snippets from Madeleine Stern's Obiturary

Snippets from the NY Times article about Heritage closing.

Snippets from the Village Voice: How the literary landmark came tumbling down—and its hopes to live again

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker on William S. Burroughs Collecting