The Albert H. Small Collection goes on the block this Friday at Christie's New York. The collection of high spots from a man who has been collecting for sixty years is dazzling -- we have Audubon, Shakespeare (as in second, third, and fourth folios), a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, and a Kelmscott Chaucer, plus a large selection of presidential autographs, various Declaration of Independence editions, and a hand-colored engraving of Paul Revere's Bloody Massacre.

The selection of Humphry Repton manuscript books (one seen above) and other material are among the most "personal" items in the sale. In a special feature we ran on Mr. Small last autumn, he told us about his infatuation with the eighteenth-century British landscape artist:

He came across Repton's work at the antiquarian book fair in New York in the early days of his collecting. Tired from walking up and down the aisles, he asked a bookseller if he could rest a moment on a seat in her booth. "I was sitting there looking at landscape and gardening materials and was struck by this gorgeous book unlike anything I had ever seen before," he said. Small had in his hands a reproduction of one of Repton's famed "red books," one-of-a-kind volumes the designer presented to clients with descriptions and renderings of his proposed designs. "It was one of the most fascinating things I've ever see in my life," Small said. He bought the book and now proudly claims ownership of the second largest collection of original Repton volumes in the United States. He admitted with a laugh that the leading collector only has four; Small has three.

 As of Friday, perhaps the leading collector will have seven.

Josh Niesse, (second from left), who we profiled recently for our Bright Young Things series, runs Underground Books in Carrollton, Georgia.  His bookshop, where he also hosts events such as documentary screenings, is part of a larger building that went up for sale earlier this month.  Josh's landlord offered him a deal: if he could raise $8,000 in a narrow window for a down payment, he could stay in his space.  Instead of pursuing a traditional loan, Josh turned to "crowdfunding," a new and creative way to finance projects.  He launched a funding campaign with Indigogo and has so far received almost $3,500 for his bookshop.

Crowdfunding is accurately (and cumbersomely) described on Wikipedia as "the collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations."  The most prominent sites to facilitate crowdfunding are Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where a host of creative projects await your cash.  (It's difficult to browse either site without contributing to a project -- so have your credit card ready before clicking on those links).

While formerly the exclusive haunt of artists, crowdfunding sites have lately found themselves hosting a wide variety of projects, including citizen journalism drives, political campaigns, and small business launches.  And the sites have been increasingly used by bookshop proprietors to start their businesses, expand their activities, or to simply stay in operation.

Here are a few recent bookshop campaigns, both successful and not:

La Casa Azul, a bookshop in East Harlem.

Atlantis Books, on a Grecian island.

Boneshaker Books, a radical bookshop in Minneapolis.

The Bluebird Books Bus, a mobile bookshop in Florida.

And here's the link to Josh's campaign, in case you would like to help him purchase his bookshop space.

What do you think of crowdfunding and bookstores?  Is this the future of bookshop financing?

I'm always glad to have my attention drawn to novels with bookish themes (and here). Recently, another from this genre landed on my desk, The Best-Read Man in France, written by Peter Briscoe, a former academic library administrator at the University of California, Riverside. The main character is Michael Ashe, a Los Angeles-based rare bookseller and a bit of a Casanova, who travels the world buying and selling books, mainly in the area of Mexican-American history. When business begins to dry up, he faces his misgivings about the trade and finds solace in the story of French librarian and scholar, Gabriel Naude.  

Briscoe's fiction debut plays with the contemporary themes of the decline of reading, the death of the book, and increasing digitization in lieu of acquisition at research libraries. It is a breezy read for a summer afternoon, and for those of us in the trade -- librarians, booksellers, collectors -- you may well recognize yourself here, and smile. 

Catalogue Review: ZH Books, #2

Zhenya Dzhavgova, recently featured on our blog as a 'Bright Young Thing,' specializes in Eastern European literature and Slavic language material. She is based in California and released this second catalogue last month; it has been well received in the trade both for its content and its minimalist black-and-white design (appropriately evocative of the material).

ZH offers a fine selection of books on drama, linguistics, and literature, including the first Russian edition of Lolita ($2,800), as well as books of political interest. A 1949 history of the anti-Imperialism struggles of Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma, and the Philippines, published in Moscow, is a particularly interesting find ($80).

There is a first edition of Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov's Muzhe ($3,000). Because Markov was banned and then assassinated in 1978, "first editions of his writings are virtually impossible to find."

In children's books, an edition of Hamlet translated by Boris Pasternak from 1956 and illustrated with in-line engravings ($90) is but one of several places where the Russian poet and novelist pops up in this catalogue. The "Reputed Feltrinelli First Russian Edition" of Doctor Zhivago from 1958 is here, too, with a description of its "exceedingly complicated" publishing history ($780).

If this area of collecting is of interest, request a catalogue directly from ZH via email: zhenya.dzhavgova@gmail.com.
 
Related articles

• Guest Blog: Book Scouting in Bulgaria (finebooksmagazine.com)

Our series profiling the next generation of antiquarian booksellers continues today with Amir Naghib, proprietor of Captain Ahab's Rare Books in Miami.


NP: How did you get started in rare books?

AN: I think the first time I realized that books were special and had value was in my grandfather's study as a child.  There were floor-to-ceiling shelves, all of them filled with books on every imaginable subject, and my grandfather was very specific about how important those books were.  I made my first rare book purchase while in college (an early jacketed set of The Lord of the Rings trilogy), and I was more or less hooked after that.  Regardless of where I lived around the country, I'd haunt bookshops, library sales, and just about anywhere else I could scout for books.  I became a collector and a periodic seller of books, selling off books I scouted up in order to purchase volumes I really cared about.  Most of my education took place in large open shops, the types of places you could easily spend a day getting lost in.  Thankfully I was fortunate enough to establish good relationships with several dealers who offered sound advice regarding condition, scarcity and the like, and a number of these people had a hand in shaping the bookseller I am today.

NP: When did you open Captain Ahab's and what do you specialize in?

AN: Between 2009 and 2010 I was working at a job I absolutely hated, and decided that working 60-70 hours a week and being miserable wasn't for me.  I left my job, and a few months later I found myself at the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, courtesy of a scholarship by Bibliopolis.  I figured setting up shop as "Amir Naghib Rare Books" would sound too self-involved, so in September of 2010 I started Captain Ahab's Rare Books.  My first year was successful in many ways, and this year has exceeded my expectations thus far.  I focus on offering the things that interest me: literature, the Beats and counterculture material, crime fiction, important pulps, and science fiction.  I find myself buying more and more literature in Spanish and French.  Mostly, an item has to interest me for me to buy it, so I will often purchase material outside my focus area if I find it engaging or significant in some way.   

NP: Favorite or most interesting book (or etc) that you've handled?

AN: Lately it's been a lot more 'etc.' that I've been handling.  Over the last six months I've handled some wonderful pieces of illustration art related to important books.  The cover paintings for Charles Willeford's Honey Gal and High Priest of California were both stunning, and it was a real treat to have those pass through my hands.  I recently purchased the original dustjacket artwork for the U.K. edition of Calvino's The Path to the Nest of Spiders, and a recent consignment has brought us the painting for James Avati's very first paperback cover (Worth Tuttle Hedden's The Other Room).  In addition to being a stunning painting, it's historically significant, as it's also the first interracial cover painting in American publishing history.

NP: What do you personally collect?

AN: I stopped collecting when I decided to do this full-force.  There are certain books I keep for myself that were given to me as gifts, or that I have a strong emotional attachment to.  Since I largely purchase the sort of material I would want to collect anyway, I don't really feel the need to hang on to things anymore.  I've also learned to be content with nice jacketed reprints of titles I want to keep; they're a fraction of the price a First would cost me, and I'm able to justify keeping it.

NP: What do you love about the book trade?

AN: I love that on a daily basis I am able to handle some of the coolest stuff on earth.  I'm interested in nearly everything that passes through my hands, and the research that goes into cataloging is always intellectually stimulating.  There's something gratifying about connecting with a customer who has overlapping interests, and being able to place something significant in proper and appreciative hands.  Mostly though, I'd say that my colleagues are the best part of the book trade.  Unlike nearly every other field I've worked in, I've found members of the trade to be a pleasant lot.  I'm constantly amazed at their willingness to lend a hand, whether it's sharing knowledge or their experiences, or connecting you with a particular item or customer.  

NP: I see on your "About" page that you are also an avid reader.  What are some of your favorite texts?

AN: Since the first time I read it, I've always felt that The Count of Monte Cristo is more or less the most perfect novel ever written.  Some of my more contemporary favorites are Bukowski's Post Office and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.  I recently finished Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo, and am currently working through Mickey Spillane's early novels.

NP: Thoughts on the future of the rare book trade?

AN: Generally optimistic.  Judging by the growing number of younger dealers, I'd say the trade is steadily solidifying it's future.  I've also been surprised by the growing number of younger collectors, and by what they choose to collect.  I think developing relationships with customers of all ages and being able to engage them and connect them with material they care about is a large part of what will continue to help our trade thrive.

NP: If you could live inside the pages of any rare book, which would you choose?

AN: Either The Hobbit by Tolkien or Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.  I've always love the epic sense of adventure in Tolkien's books, and since I have a three year old wild thing at home, I've developed a new-found appreciation for the wild rumpus.

NP: Do you have a catalogue coming up soon?  How does one get on your mailing list?  (Will you be exhibiting at any upcoming book fairs?)

AN: The St. Petersburg Antiquarian Book Fair this past March was the first fair I exhibited at, and while we don't have any other fair appearances planned for this year (wrapping up a Masters program and baby #2 on the way) we hope to exhibit more in the future.  I hope to have our first print catalogue out before the end of this year.  We do issue an E-List periodically, and anyone interested in receiving communication from us can contact us directly at captainahabsrarebooks@hotmail.com.  For anyone interested in specific subject areas, we have a Topic Notifier they can use through our website.

Book artist Richard Minsky has just announced his latest work, Pop Delusions, a house made out of his own credit cards, Chinese and American paper money, and gold leaf. Look inside and find two editions of Charles Mackay's Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, bound in credit cards. Yes, credit cards, which sounds like quite an impossible task. Minsky used eighty of his own cards, collected over twenty-five years. "It's certainly the least replaceable material I've ever used," he told me. "It was the right material for the book, so I had to."

He added, "All the materials for this work add to the layers of meaning...some of them nobody will see. The Chinese money that backs the credit cards isn't visible when the house is assembled and the back door is shut. You can see the engravings of the U.S. Treasury on the $10 bills that border the base, but the flip side of them is pasted down, so nobody sees Alexander Hamilton's portrait, the torch of Liberty, and 'We the People' in pink....In an earlier state the portrait side was face up, but in the end I decided it looked better with the greenbacks up, and the treasury building relating to the house of cards."

Minsky began construction on March 1, when he posted this image of his materials on his Facebook page. There you can click on each of the photos and read along as the house takes shape and also peek 'inside' the back door, where, Minsky points out, you can see that the building on the back of the 100 Yuan note is similar to the treasury building on our bills.

Pop Delusions makes its institutional debut in an exhibit titled Beaten & Bound at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City, IN, on May 26. A reception will be held on June 1, and the exhibit will run through August 26.

Photos courtesy of Richard Minsky. Related articles

• Richard Minsky Collects Thomas Watson Ball (finebooksmagazine.com)
• Interview with Minsky (finebooksmagazine.com)
  

A book of poetry written by Taliban fighters is about to released in Britain.  Entitled Poetry of the Taliban, the book is co-edited by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn and will be published by Hurst on May 17.  A U. S. edition from Colombia University Press will follow on September 25.

The book's pending publication has ignited some controversy in Britain -- controversy likely to be re-ignited with fervor when the book reaches U. S. shores later this year.  (Published, no less, by a university press in New York City).  The former commander for the British armed forces in Helmand was quoted on Friday in the Guardian, "What we need to remember is that these are fascist, murdering thugs who suppress women and kill people without mercy if they do not agree with them, and of course are killing our soldiers."  The commander continued, "It doesn't do anything but give the oxygen of publicity to an extremist group which is the enemy of this country."

Poetry of the Taliban features over 200 poems by Taliban fighters, mostly drawn from Pashtun backgrounds, a culture noted for its deep and vibrant poetic traditions.  While war and nationalism are the dominant themes, love and self-doubt are also present.

The website for the book strikes an odd balance between blatant promotion and elegant justification.  A gratuitous count-down clock, ticking away the days until the book's publication, meets the reader on the first page, but the carefully worded "About the Book" page provides a more nuanced backdrop:

"The contrast between the severity of their professed ideology and the license of the Taliban's aesthetic sensibilities - in which unrequited love, bloody vengeance and the thrill of battle, religion and nationalism, even a desire for non-violence, are expressed through images of wine, powerful women, song, legend and pastoral beauty - provide a fascinating insight into the minds and hearts of these deeply emotional people."

Regardless of opinion on its publication, Poetry of the Taliban will likely fill an empty space in a variety of personal and public collections around the U. S. when it arrives here this fall.

Just in case we biblio-folk needed some perspective: last week's sale of "The Scream" for $119.9 million was more than the totals realized over all the book auctions in 2011 for both Christie's and Sotheby's combined.

Before we get to May, some April sale notes:

- Doyle New York sold Rare Books, Autographs, and Maps on 23 April. The surprise top seller was a group of manuscript leaves, which fetched $86,500 over estimates of $2,000-3,000. was The first octavo edition of Audubon's Birds of America sold for $56,250.

- At Christie's Travel, Science and Natural History on 25 April, the total realized was £1,031,500. The 1794 W. & S. Jones orrery fetched £32,450, while the ~1705/15 German pocket globe sold for £18,750. The top lot was an Augustin Brunias oil painting, which made £87,650.

- The top lot at PBA Galleries' 26 April sale of Fine Americana, Travel & Exploration, and Cartography was a copy of the very rare American Bond Detector (1869), which sold for $5,700.

- Results for Bloomsbury's 27 April Bibliophile Sale are here.

And now, May:

- At Bloomsbury on 3 May, the Angling Collection of George Miskin sold, in 704 lots. The top lot was a copy of Frederic M. Halford's Floating Flies and How to Dress Them (1886), which fetched £6,000.

- At Sotheby's on 9 May, Travel, Atlases, Maps, & Natural History, in 212 lots. Top estimate goes to Linnaeus Tripe's Views of Burma, 120 albumen prints (£150,000-200,000).

- On 10 May, PBA Galleries will sell the Library of Michael Killigrew desTombe, in 233 lots. The top-estimated lot is John Dee's Monas hieroglyphica (1564), estimated at $50,000-80,000.

- Christie's Paris on 11 May has Importants Livres Anciens, Livres d'artiste et Manuscrits, in 227 lots. The top estimate goes to a ~1490 Tuscan Mahzor (est. 400,000-600,000 EUR).

- Bloomsbury sells Important Books and Manuscripts on 15 May, in 372 lots.

- At Swann on 15 May, Early Printed, Scientific, Medical, and Travel Books, in 400 lots. Lots include a Hebrew Bible signed by Increase Mather.

- Also on 15 May, Livres et Manuscrits at Sotheby's Paris, in 184 lots. A group of Guillaume Apollinaire letters rates the top estimate, at 150,000-250,000 EUR.

- At Christie's New York on 18 May, Important Printed Books and Americana from the Albert H. Small Collection, in 151 lots. Highlights include copies of the Second, Third, and Fourth Folios, a first edition of Audubon's Quadrupeds with great provenance, a first octavo of Audubon's Birds in the original wrappers, and a Kelmscott Chaucer, among other fantastic lots.

- Another angling library: Bonhams sells the Angling Library of Alan Jarvis on 22 May, in 489 lots.

- A neat one at Bonhams on 23 May: the Stuart B. Schimmel Forgery Collection, in 253 lots. They're all here: Chatterton, Ireland, Ossian, Forman, Wise ... I wish this one was in New York and not London, but I suppose it's probably a good thing I can't go! I'll have a more detailed rundown of this one as we get closer to the date.

- No previews yet for the following: PBA Galleries Fine Literature & Books in All Fields on 24 May; Music and Continental Books & Manuscripts at Sotheby's on 29 May.

Catalogue Review: Jeff Weber Rare Books, No. 168

California bookseller Jeff Weber is known to many as an expert on fore-edge painting, but his 12,000-book stock also covers bibliography, California, medicine, natural history, science & technology. His latest catalogue contains the library of Dr. Harry Friedman, a neurosurgeon and collector of military history. The offerings are extensive -- 281 items, ranging from $10 reprints to a 1555 second edition of De Humani Corporis for $95,000.

I like medical books as an area of collecting. Pick a malady, any area of medicine, or a particular doctor, and a collection can be created that spans centuries, languages, and formats. For Dr. Friedman, head injuries are of particular interest. For example, Dr. Harlow's Case of Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar Through the Head...from 1850 ($750).

Bridging both his interest in neurology and the military, he also has several Army/Navy manuals pertaining to his subjects of interest, such as Manual of Neuro-Surgery from the U.S. Army, 1919 ($75). The rare first edition of the first American book on naval medicine is offered here: Edward Cutbush's Observations on the Means of Preserving the Health of Soldiers and Sailors...from 1808 ($4,000).

The works of Dominique Jean Larrey and Harvey Cushing are well represented in the collection, and, as for a surprise, how about Frederick Law Olmstead (designer of Central Park) compiling a book titled Hospital Transports: A Memoir of the Embarkation of the Sick and Wounded from the Peninsula of Virginia in the Summer of 1862 ($395).

For printed catalogues, contact the bookseller at his website: weberbooks.com. Mail-order clients get priority of selection.

Our series profiling the next generation of antiquarian booksellers continues today with Erin Barry-Dutro of Royal Books in Baltimore.

NP: What is your role at Royal?

EBD: Kevin calls me his shortstop. I was hired to do cataloging and book fair administration, but, as Royal Books has a pretty small crew, I also fill in for all the other positions as needed: running the front desk, shipping packages, and on special occasions helping out in the bindery.

NP: How did you get started in rare books?

EBD: My dad tells a mostly-apocryphal story about me growing up in which, while driving across country together in an RV, my parents had to continually tell me to stop reading and look around. I was one of those kids. I later received my BFA in Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University, where as a student I worked repairing books in their Library Preservation department. I moved to Baltimore and found similar work at Johns Hopkins, until a particularly lucky Craigslist ad brought me to Royal Books.

NP: Favorite or most interesting book you've handled?

EBD: I was especially excited to have had the opportunity to handle Peter Harrington's first edition copy of The Great Gatsby in an exceptional example of that iconic jacket, but there are lots of things from our own stock that I love as well. We had a copy of Rita Hayworth's calling card from when she was married to Orson Welles, and we currently have a particularly gorgeous copy of the paperback true first of One Hundred Years Of Solitude, A Computer Perspective signed by Charles and Ray Eames, and a handful of really awesome concert posters.

NP: What do you personally collect?

EBD: My dirty little secret is that I like to collect crummy paperbacks, including books that I term very loosely "Magical Realist," cheesy Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Fairy Tales, and Young Adult fiction (which as a genre I think becomes increasingly exciting). I can't help it, I think paperbacks look really good on a shelf together. I also collect vintage sewing patterns, earrings, blue and white china, feathers, and by default my own artwork.

NP: What do you love about the book trade?

EBD: I like the freedom existent in the rare book world that encourages a bookseller to dig deeply, do research on things, and collect what you love. I like the moment when you sell something you're excited about to somebody who's at least as excited about it as you are. I like that it doesn't often require dressing fancy. I like that it feels like a big global community.

NP: Do you want to open up your own shop someday?  (And if so what would you like to specialize in?)

EBD: Who knows? The appeal of my own bookshop is certainly a siren call, but I have yet a lot of things to do in this world, many of which (I know this is blasphemous) probably have nothing to do with books at all. Were I to do so, it would probably include artist's books, limited editions, and modern fiction both for adults and otherwise.

NP: Thoughts on the future of the book trade?

EBD: I think that in some respects it's inevitable that the economy will shift and degrade further, however I don't think that this should be considered wholly negative. I think that there will always be a place for books and other works on paper; human beings love to use their sense of touch. I also believe that multiples and works on paper are especially culturally relevant right now. What remains for booksellers (and honestly, everyone) to figure out is how to navigate this territory. How I feel we best do this is what rare bookselling seems to me to always have had as its essence: sharing enthusiasm and knowledge of beautiful things with others who feel similarly.

NP: If you could live inside the pages of any rare book, what would it be?

EBD: The slightly absurdist nature of this question seriously appeals to me, but as a result it's the one I've had to think hardest about. The fattest? You'd have lots of space to move around. One with lots and lots of pictures? Also a good choice. I think probably a collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales, or Calvino's Italian Folktales, would work nicely to keep things exciting, though.