AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Earlier this month I visited the ABAA New York Antiquarian Book Fair and the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Show. Each year AbeBooks attends a variety of book fairs in North America and Europe. Visiting the book fairs is a great opportunity to meet our booksellers face to face and see some of the beautiful [...]

Today’s interesting old-timey find on the site is The Good House-Wife Made a Doctor by Thomas Tryon, 1692. We only have one original copy, priced at just over three grand, so one would have to be very interested indeed to purchase it. But for those chiefly interested in its contents and text, there are several [...]

Last week I was in New York. The purpose of the visit was to attend two antiquarian book fairs, but I always try to make time to visit booksellers in their stores. Nothing can replace the touch and feel of a beautiful book and talking to someone that is passionate about what they do. Walking [...]

Today’s gorgeous and unusual find is this hand-illuminated book. Not much appears to be known about it, but it’s just stunning (An illuminated manuscript is any manuscript whose text is accompanied by decoration. It originally referred only to silver or gilt adornments, but came to be acceptable terminology for any manuscript with drawings, paintings or [...]

A great part about working in the AbeBooks marketing department is the high number of unique, strange, wonderful books and ephemera I get to see and learn about, that I would almost certainly not come across if I didn’t work here. Today’s find is a late 19th-century tulip catalog. It’s very simple, sure, but totally [...]

Louis Wain was a British artist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, best known for his whimsical and chaotic drawings of cats. If you’ve come across any of Wain’s art, you know it’s memorable. The cats and kittens are depicted with large, wide eyes, often with crazy, spiky fur, and with psychedelic patterns [...]

Happy birthday to Jules Verne, born 185 years ago today, on February 8th, 1828. Verne was a French science fiction author, most famous for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. His imagination ran just as deep, and throughout his career he contributed immeasurably to the genre of science fiction. He is often called the father [...]

Two hundred years ago today, on January 28th, 1813, Pride and Prejudice was published. The author, Jane Austen, was 38 when it was published, and 41 when she died, but had written the bulk of it in her early twenties. It was her second published work (first was Sense and Sensibility). Two centuries later, Pride [...]

Second Story Books in Rockville, Maryland is offering an excellent gift to those who wish it – Saturday, January 26th is Free Appraisal Day. From 11:00 am until 4:00 pm, senior member of the American Society of Appraisers Allan Stypeck (who also bought Second Story Books in 1973) will offer free appraisals. Eligible items include [...]

These are fantastic and I would like to own one. The images come from Antikamnia Skeleton Calendars, put out by the Antikamnia Chemical Company, St. Louis, MO. Antikamnia’s analgesic compound, which was never patented, was marketed as a ‘proudly ethical drug’ and used to treat headaches, fever, stomach aches, nervousness, insomnia and ‘the blues’. It [...]