AbeBooks' Reading Copy

AbeBooks is all about the business of books, including book-related ephemera: in this case, art. Many authors have tried their hand at drawing or painting, and many artists and illustrators drew and painted long before they became successful or famous. To the lucky collector who finds one, nothing is more priceless or precious than a [...]

A fantastic profile on Collectors Weekly about Theodor Geisel’s AKA Dr. Seuss’s secret hat collection. It comes as little surprise, when one really stops to think about it, that Geisel might have a thing for hats. I remember reading The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (which just celebrated its 75th anniversary) as a child and [...]

If you’ve never heard the name Frank Frazetta, that doesn’t mean you’ve never seen his work. In the latter 20th century, Frazetta was a prolific artist in the fields of fantasy, science fiction and comic art. As comfortable with swords, sorcery and unnaturally curvaceous space heroines as he was with caricature and parody, his work [...]

I’m loving this idea over on kickstarter (and fortunately, it has already met its initial fundraising effort!): Literary Lots. It’s simple – find a city (in this case, Cleveland, OH). Gather artists and designers and volunteers and together, transform vacant city lots into beautiful, fun literary spaces for kids. Imagine making a Secret Garden, with [...]

I happened across this 1920 French edition of a Rudyard Kipling book of stories – Les plus beaux contes – which translates to “The Most Beautiful Tales” or similar. It could perhaps be Just So Stories. Either way, this edition is illustrated with 24 engravings by Dutch painter Kees van Dongen. I loved the ones [...]

It will be no surprise to regular readers of our blog that I am a big fan of Edward Gorey – I have written many a blog post about him, including the Edward Gorey Google doodle, The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer, and 11 Book Covers by Edward Gorey. You may notice [...]

Edith (E.) Nesbit was the queen of children’s literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her best-known work is The Railway Children (1906), a story of three children trying to prove the innocence of their father, who is falsely imprisoned for espionage. Nesbit’s writing went beyond children’s books to adult novels, political writing, [...]

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 [...]

This morning I found this blog post which has collected a series of 20 author self-portraits. They range from comically bad (which is about my skill level) to absolutely amazing. I believe my personal favorite is this Bukowski piece, which to me just looks like a Saturday morning comic from the paper…   On the [...]

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 [...]