Tag Archive: 0american

Many of the items in the Anglo-German Cultural Relations catalogue are rife with cross-cultural connections. One such item is the copy of John Frederick Lampe’s A plain and compendious Method of teaching Thorough Bass, after the most rational Manner … (London, J. Wilcox, 1737). This, the first (and only) edition was dedicated to Colonel John Blathwayt […]

‘We Three Kings of Orient are’ has always been a crowd-pleaser (and a magnet for children who enjoy changing the words). An American carol, it first appeared on p. 12 of John Henry Hopkins‘s Carols, Hymns, and Songs (New York, Church Book Depository, [1863]): ‘Hopkins was rector of Christ’s Church, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, when he published […]

I like this book: the first—and apparently only—edition in Russian of A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago (1922), one of the earliest books produced by the great screenwriter, Ben Hecht (1894–1964; Some like it hot, Gone with the Wind, Mutiny on the Bounty, etc.), himself the son of Russian–Jewish immigrants: ‘journalism extraordinary; journalism that invaded the realm […]

Sometimes a book ends up posing questions which you, as a bookseller, simply cannot answer.  I enjoy the research aspects of what I do, but I recognise that I cannot know everything, and also that the books I offer for sale must provide further possibilities for research for the customer, whether private collector or special collections library.  Here is an example: This binder’s stamp […]

This week I’m getting everything ready in preparation for the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, the weekend after Easter.  My books will go off on Thursday.  It’s always nice to take something new to a fair, so when the following came in recently I decided to keep it back for the booth in April: The title reads: […]

I’m always up for a challenge.  This book certainly proved to be one. The title reads: Emil Debo, “People of Gold.  An American Novel”.  But just who was Emil Debo?  And what was this book exactly?  The rendering of French in Russian always requires a bit of guesswork, but in the end I managed to […]