AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Our most  expensive sales during November 2012 featured a book of paintings by Belgian artist  and botanist Pierre-Joseph Redouté, who was so famous for his watercolors of  roses, lilies and other flowers that he was dubbed the “The Raphael of  Flowers.”  A copy of his most famous publication Les Roses sold  for $28,000. The British  [...]

Christi, a member of our North American team recently travelled to our German office and visited this wonderful bookshop in Nuess, near Dusseldorf. The bookshop is called Neusser Antiquariat. They’ve been in business for over 30 years, and spcialize in rare and collectible volumes, especially illustrated and art books. As well as capturing some lovely [...]

A treat for the fine booklover, or anyone who enjoys the excellent artistry of bookbinding: The Kelliegram Binding. Kelliegram bindings often involved intricate leather work, such as leather inlays or onlays to create an image, a scene, or a mosaic effect. It was common for the Kelliegram binders to choose an engraving from the body [...]

Amazing story from Retronaut about a bible that stopped shrapnel from killing its German infantryman owner, Kurt Geiler, in Northeast France in 1917. “In the never-ending trench warfare in North-East France, the German infantryman was sleeping as usual with his Bible underneath his head. Without warning, a direct hit destroyed his dug-out almost completely, wounding [...]

In December 1812, two scholarly linguists published a collection of dark and sometimes violent folktales that would become a cornerstone of modern popular culture known as the Brothers Grimm. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm popularized the fairy tale with Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and many other famous stories. While the stories [...]

Great news for the University of Virginia where an $896,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has been awarded to the college’s Rare Book School. The Rare Book School is a non-profit organization that sponsors classes for academics, historians, book collectors and archivists interested in the history of books, manuscripts and the written word. [...]

Once again the top 10 most expensive sales on AbeBooks has produced a combination of antiquarian rarities and sought  after 20th century first editions  including one of the most contentious books  of the modern age, The Satanic Verses. A rare limited edition of Salman Rushdie’s  1988 novel sold for almost $13,000 during October. The book [...]

Recently I’ve come across several books with absolutely gorgeous art plates, and the name Edward Detmold kept coming up, so I decided to learn about him. Born in London, England in 1883, Edward Julius Detmold knew early on that he wanted to be an artist. He and his twin brother Charles Maurice (who went by [...]

Engraving is one of the oldest and most historically significant methods of illustrating a book, and refers to the impression of a pattern, design, text or image into a hard surface. The impressed surface becomes known as a printing plate, and can be used repeatedly to create multiple prints as required, with varying degrees of [...]

Interest in Jane Austen shows no sign of dimming, even after all these years. Authors rise and fall but Austen’s novels never go out of fashion. Her writing is studied in schools and universities, adapted for film, TV, radio and stage, and reimagined along unusual themes. You’ll find her books in leather, cloth and embroidery. [...]