A Page from the World of Rare Books

by Chris Hartman
Project Manager

The scholarly treatment of rare books has undergone significant changes since the advent of the internet. Having spent over a decade working with rare books and other written materials, I have seen reference books evolve from an almost exclusively print-based medium to a virtual one. But the canon of standard references that rare book librarians, book collectors and dealers use to evaluate their inventory is and has been firmly established. A comprehensive listing of these references can be found on the website of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA).

Though it has its own specific references, the business of the rare book field is conducted much like any other commercial enterprise, where a willing seller and a willing buyer converge. In pricing a book, the bookseller consults pertinent reference materials; reviews sales records (usually, though not always, through auctions); evaluates condition; and researches for provenance, which is the history of the book’s ownership. Establishing an association with a famous person or family can have great impact on a book’s desirability—above and beyond its intrinsic value as an object. Such books, particularly if they are inscribed or annotated by the previous celebrity owner or author, are of keen interest to librarians and other researchers seeking new insights and perspectives on the book’s subject matter, its author, or other literary questions.

For students of bibliography, An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students by Ronald B. McKerrow (1927) and its supplement, A New Introduction to Bibliography by Philip Gaskell (1972), are invaluable. These books emphasize, respectively, the development of the handpress and the machine press in book production. John Carter and Nicolas Barker’s ABC for Book Collectors (8th edition, 2004) is an alternately humorous and insightful look into the vocabulary used to describe the parts and conditions of books: dentelle (a lacy pattern, often gilded, on the cover of a book), cancel (a replacement section substituted into the original manufactured book), blind stamp (a colorless, ungilded impression on the cover of a book), and deckle edges (page edges that have not been trimmed evenly) are just a few terms explored. The book also wades into the vast frontier of online and web-based collecting.

With regard to rare book librarianship, the American Library Association’s Rare Book and Manuscript Section (RBMS) has taken great strides in recent years to codify the procedures for handling and cataloging rare materials, including books, manuscripts, prints and ephemera. One of RBMS’s most influential publications is Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books), which comprises the standards by which rare books and related items are catalogued and accessed in a research library setting.

Similarly, in the rare book trade, there are seemingly innumerable bibliographies designed for specific genres of books. To assess rare printed works on America (i.e., Americana), there is The Final Edition (Of U.S.iana) by Wright Howes (1994) or Gale Digital Collection’s Sabin Americana, 1500–1926, which was inspired by bibliographer Joseph Sabin. For American literature, there is the Bibliography of American Literature, compiled by Jacob Blanck for the Bibliographical Society of America in 1955. If researching a noted individual to determine provenance of a particular book or the author of a certain manuscript being evaluated, the Dictionary of American Biography (DAB) or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) (British) can both be very helpful. The National Union Catalog (NUC) “is a record of publications held in more than eleven hundred libraries in the United States and Canada, including the Library of Congress” and details the histories of many books. Lastly, American Book Prices Current, originally a reference printed each year and now available online, curates the sales records of major auction houses. With so many references available both in print and online, the secrets of the world of rare books are right at your fingertips!

Did You Know?

Rare Book School (RBS), located at the University of Virginia, offers a wide range of courses focused specifically on the history of written, printed and digital works. RBS students come from myriad backgrounds: some are booksellers and collectors; others are librarians; and a growing number are graduate, undergraduate and even high-school students. Each class, usually limited to 12 or fewer students, offers intensive training over the course of one full workweek. During this period, students attend class daily for a total of 28–30 hours by the end of the week. Course credits are not offered by RBS; however, on the final day of a class, students receive a certificate of completion.