Rare Books 101
Rare Books 101: Caring for Your Rare Books
Caring for rare books is mostly common sense: keep them in a dry, climate-controlled room away from sunlight, store them upright on coated or finished-wood shelves, dust them gently, and… Read more
Follow us @baumanrarebooks
Rare Books 101
Collecting Rare Science Fiction: The Golden Age
Isaac Asimov said, “Science fiction stories are extraordinary voyages into any of the infinite supply of conceivable futures.” During the Golden Age of science fiction (sf), roughly the 1930s-1950s, those futures… Read More
Literature, Moderns, Rare Books 101
Collecting Rare Science Fiction: Genesis of a Genre
I’ll let you in on a secret. We sell more than rare books. We sell time travel. Sure, scientists will tell you time travel can’t happen. But bibliophiles know better…. Read More
Illustrated - Art, Photography, Architecture, Rare Books
The Weird and the Wonderful:
Isaac Titsingh’s Illustrations of Japan
Today, it’s hard to imagine an inaccessible land–a place entirely removed from trade, travel, illustration, photography, and film. In the early 1800s, it was easy to imagine such a place…. Read More
Rare Books
The Weird and the Wonderful:
Lysons’ An Account Of Roman Antiquities Discovered At Woodchester In The County Of Gloucester
Samuel Lysons’ An Account of Roman Antiquities Discovered at Woodchester in the County of Gloucester suffers from an unusual problem: excessive specificity of title. The excitement of Roman antiquities gets… Read More
Rare Books
Babbitt: The Single Book that Explains American Life
In the midst of a stultified seminar, a somewhat exasperated professor posited the following question to me and my weary-eyed cohorts. “If you had to pick a single book to… Read More
Rare Books
The Weird and The Wonderful:
Romeyn Hough’s American Woods
Romeyn Hough’s plan was ambitious: a 15-volume set featuring veneers from every American tree (or, as even his prospectus admitted, “at least the most important”)… Read More
Illustrated - Art, Photography, Architecture, Videos
Illustrating the Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare by John Boydell
Watch a short film narrated by Laura Minor on the 1803 elephant folio issue of this work, which features key scenes from the plays created by the most eminent English… Read More
Rare Books 101
The Secret Language of Rare Books: Cosway-Style Bindings
Does the specialized vocabulary of rare book descriptions read like a secret language to you? In this series we will unveil the meanings behind a few of the more unusual and interesting… Read More
American Revolution
Books the Founders Read: Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England
“In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine declared in Common Sense. The Founding Fathers’ most important and widely-owned law book was William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. John… Read More
Illustrated - Art, Photography, Architecture, Science/Natural History, Videos
A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way by Edward Emerson Barnard
Watch this short film featuring Rebecca Romney discussing the groundbreaking photography involved in the creation of this inspiring work. Read More