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In response to Andrew Benjamin Bricker's demonstration of the usefulness of printers' ornaments in the identification of the pseudonymous "A. Moore," this note suggests that printers' waste is another method. The Trade Sale Catalogues in the John Johnson Collection in the Bodleian Library show that booksellers preserved printed waste sheets of their own publications. There is no evidence that they retained such sheets of the publications of others. This strongly suggests that possession of waste is an indication of responsibility for publication. The note gives two examples of such methodology, one showing Thomas Warner having published as A. Moore, and the other showing John Baker publishing anonymously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that a cohort of London booksellers who visited colonial New England fashioned readers as unsophisticated provincials. It focuses on the English bookseller John Dunton, who visited Boston in the 1680s. on marginalia in colonial books, and on the circumstances which undermined the publication of Magnalia Christi Americana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to establish some preliminary numbers for the survival rates of some different kinds of cheap print, especially ballads and chapbooks, from the second half of the eighteenth century. The basic method is to compare contemporary booksellers' lists with modern records of surviving copies, especially ESTC. An important question is whether survival rates can be correlated with price and/or type of content, and whether the publications of certain booksellers have survived better than others. Methodological problems of such a study include variation in sample size, and especially the unreliability of results based on very small samples, and the critical role of collectors in ensuring that publications of this kind survived at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the eighteenth century transactions at The Boston Bookstore of bookseller Benjamin Guild in Massachusetts based on the manuscript daybook maintained by Guild. Topics explored include the sale of books on politics and religion to early American readers, observations on the pricing structure of the bookstore, and the non-book items sold by Guild which range from quills to ink powder.

In Turkey, the Tevhid-i Tedrisat Law (March 3, 1924), which came into force with the establishment of the Republic and aimed at bringing education completely under the control of the state within the framework of a common curriculum, and the process of transition from the Arabic to the Latin script, the so-called 'Letter Revolution" in 1928, led to radical changes in book printing and literacy. This paper analyzes the basic characteristics and changes in the practice of selling books in Arabic script from peddlers to booksellers. The study is limited to Diyarbakır. For the study, in-depth interviews were conducted with three booksellers in Diyarbakır, with people who worked in bookselling at different times, and with madrasa teachers who visited the bookstores. As places of religious and, to some extent, literary education, madrasas were one of the most important institutions that contributed to the formation of an literate community. Bookstores were one of the places where this community socialized. They served as a place where madrasa teachers could exchange ideas about books and, in case of disagreement, take the relevant books from the shelves and discuss them. For this reason, changes in the book trade will also make important contributions to the analysis of changes in the literacy tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 2021 Andreas Mytze died in London, where he had lived since the mid nineteen-eighties. Based on his extensive archive as well as his published material this paper offers an assessment of his contribution to Exile Literature and Exile Studies in the various areas in which he was active. As a seller of second-hand books, he sourced exile literature, completed, circulated and published lists of this stock, much of it rare and difficult to obtain. As a publisher he redressed this deficiency by re-publishing rare or forgotten works of exiled authors and offering contemporary authors, particularly those living in Great Britain, an opportunity to place material which held little attraction for conventional publishing houses. Finally, at a time when Exile Studies was in its infancy, as editor of the journal europäische ideen, he used his skills as an investigative journalist to source and publish documents and correspondence which provided scholars in the field with valuable source material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia ignited debates about the here-and-now of innovation driven by transnational flows of capital, commodities, immigration, and the exchange of ideas. In this article, I direct our attention to book exhibitions at this event. I demonstrate that the proper display and handling of American and German books occasioned reflections on the distinctive national German character of book history, advertised technologies that fostered book manufacture, and generated a space in which booksellers and readers could imagine the past, present, and future of books, precisely at a moment when the status of the United States and Germany as industrial nations was far from settled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncovers the identity of one of the RASC's oldest images of Saturn, and discusses who might have produced it, and why. On 1892 October 18, Andrew Elvins (1823-1918), one of the Society's original founders, announced at a regular meeting of The Astronomical and Physical Society of Toronto (as the RASC then was), that fellow member Charles P. Sparling (1851-1934) had ***"...presented to the Society a large and handsomely bound album, suitably inscribed, and intended to receive the astronomical drawings, plates and views belonging to the Society. Mr. Elvins said he had inserted various plates and sketches and would be glad to receive others to be thus preserved. Mr. Sparling was heartily thanked for his timely and valuable donation." (Lumsden 1892). Sparling worked for an established Toronto firm, Rowsell & Hutchinson, that specialized in bookselling and publishing. He was well-placed to commission such a gift. The album survives to this day in the RASC Archives (Figure 1), and it is valued now as the largest repository of early observational art (astrosketches) by members. Some of its contents may go back to the earliest days of the Toronto Astronomical Club in 1868 (specifically, sketches by Elvins of the phases of Venus; www.rasc.ca/venus-phases-1868). Pasted in its leaves are watercolours of Saturn, one of which has presented something of a mystery, until now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the phenomenon of the gift enterprise bookstore in the mid-nineteenth-century United States. An early form of premium marketing, the gift-book enterprise promised to reward each book purchase with a surprise 'gift', ranging from pencils to dress patterns to cutlery to jewellery. A novel form of marketing books, the gift enterprise bookstore teetered on a thin line between sensation and sham. Although decried as form of illegal lottery gambling and beset by accusations of dishonesty, gift-book enterprises grew immensely popular. Drawing on extensive archival research on one of the most successful gift-book enterprises, the bookstores of G.G. and D.W. Evans--operating in urban centres from 1856-1861--this article examines gift enterprise bookselling in the context of mid-nineteenth-century American print cultures. As savvy entrepreneurs, the Evans' leveraged the national reach and perceived authority of the newspaper by engaging in debates over the morality and legality of the business in the columns of widely-circulating papers and capitalised on editorial and reprinting practices to endorse their business model and market their bookstores. In addition, in lengthy bookseller catalogues distributed across the nation, the Evans' created a bookstore in print and shaped inclusive imagined and real communities of readerbook buyers. Examining the print culture of Evans' gift-book enterprise offers new insights into nineteenth-century book marketing and the ways in which gift enterprise bookselling was intimately connected to and inseparable from contemporary print forms, networks, and practices. Taking the gift-book enterprise seriously expands the histories of American bookselling and decentres the dominant focus on large publishers. In addition, the gift-bookstore phenomenon highlights how bookselling is always entwined with larger cultural dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although protected by the law on fixed prices for books, independent bookshops in France have struggled to maintain their market share against bookselling giants such as Amazon and the chains. In trying to do so, they have developed a rhetoric based on the singularity of the experience in physical shops, stressing a sense of intimacy akin to that associated with the domestic sphere. Their being independent – no matter how slippery the notion – has also been a key argument. Using Pierre Bourdieu's theory of symbolic goods, this paper aims to show that this strategy has been effective in singling out something that 'only' independent retail can provide, something that proves particularly attractive to certain categories of customers. The article draws on semi-structured interviews carried out with owners of small and medium-sized independent bookshops, together with observation during events and debates, to provide some insight into a key element of physical bookshops' resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Scottish biographer John Boswell. Topics include a description of Boswell's journal in London, England for the period of April 21 to May 16, 1768 in the Yale editors "Catalogue," his final entry for May 16, 1768, his friendship with Edinburgh bookseller Alexander Donaldson, and a brief biographical background on covenanter Robert Trail.

The author reflects on Lisa Brinker's relationship with Gregory Corso, highlighting their unlikely pairing due to their age difference and contrasting personalities. Topics include their initial meeting in San Francisco's North Beach, Corso's parental responsibilities and erratic behavior, and the controversies surrounding allegations of theft at City Lights bookstore, which strained their time together despite moments of mutual affection and shared experiences in the Beat scene.

This article takes a look at the career of Moses Shapira, the notorious bookseller, antiquities dealer, and possible forger of 19th-century Jerusalem. Despite Shapira's fame among scholars, his career is little discussed beyond the episodes of the Deuteronomy strips and, to a much lesser extent, the 'Moabite pottery.' By surveying his career as a whole, I will put these episodes into a clearer context, shedding additional light on Shapira's methods and motivations. In addition, since we have more information by far on Shapira's career than on that of any other seller of antiquities in Late Ottoman Palestine, understanding his career provides important insights into how the antiquities trade in Palestine operated at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a transcript of a recently discovered booklist from a 1585 lawsuit at the Court of Common Pleas. This list describes a large book sale made on 3 May 1584 to two chapmen named John Herne and Thomas Jackson. It throws light on the Elizabethan book trade and the litigation practices of London booksellers, and it contains rare evidence on the trade prices of early modern books. It also records the earliest known purchase of Edmund Spenser's celebrated Shepheardes calendar (first published in 1579). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arnaud du Sarrat is known primarily as a bookseller and publisher based in Berlin, where he worked as Estienne Roger's official agent from 1706 at the latest. This article, however, focuses on his activity in Halle between 1694/5 and 1702, when he was bookseller and bookbinder to the university. An analysis of four catalogues presents insights into the printed music available in his stores in Halle and Leipzig at the turn of the 18th century. A study is made of du Sarrat's relationship with the Dutch book market, especially with booksellers from Amsterdam; and du Sarrat's correspondence with Theophilus Dorrington suggests how Pietist networks also allowed for the transmission of books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a personal essay about cultic misprision of a manuscript leaf holding on one side Keats's Sonnet to Sleep. Susan Wolfson tells a story of collecting, auctioning, and sales, from its composition in June 1820, a May 1829 auction, to news published in 1933, to eventual arrival in the Berg Collection in the New York Public Library. Various players include John Hamilton Reynolds, Sir John Bowring, wily bookseller William T. Spencer, the first and long-term curator of the Keats Memorial House in Hampstead, Fred Edgcumbe, and industrialist, diplomat, and bibliophile Owen D. Young. Although Wolfson is the principle author of this essay, it reflects considerable collaborative advice from Keats scholars John Barnard and Nicholas Roe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw significant growth in the trade in medieval manuscripts in North America and the creation of well-known libraries including the Huntington, Morgan and Walters collections. The men who gave their names to those institutions loom large in the history of collecting, but their libraries would not have been possible without the networks of booksellers who supplied them. The latter included the American George D. Smith and the Briton Bernard Alfred Quaritch. Both men have received some attention from scholars, although much of what is known about them has been based on sources created by those involved in the trade. This essay compares the lives of these two men to examine their actions, motivations and the consequences of these for the movement of medieval manuscripts and the development of collections in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversifying aquaculture in Saudi Arabia with the inclusion of finfish species already reared in the Mediterranean Sea requires a sufficient understanding of the preferences and limits of cultured fish under local conditions. Two trials involving European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax (L.) juveniles of 126 g and pre-adult fish of 313 g were carried out in Saudi Arabia. The trials tested four locally available commercial feeds for 84 and 80 days to determine the growth performance of fish in local high salinity 42-45‰ conditions. The average final weight in juveniles was not significantly different among treatments. The weight gain was smaller in Diet 3, while the specific growth rate was highest in Diet 1 and smallest in Diet 3. The feed conversion ratio was similar in all diets. The average final weight in pre-adult fish showed no significant differences in final body weight, weight gain, or feed intake. The growth results appear to be in line with related research. Improvement of nutritional characteristics of the feed is expected to improve the performance of the fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thomas Betterton has been described as 'the greatest English actor between Burbage and Garrick' as well 'the pre-eminent manager of his time' (ODNB) ; yet he began his career in the book trade, with an informal apprenticeship split between entirely different masters. The first was the ambitious John Holden who might have succeeded Humphrey Moseley as the most important literary publisher of the day, had he not died young. His second master was John Rhodes, who took a more pragmatic view of bookselling. Rhodes' heart was in the theatre—he briefly had his own company and purchased shares in a playhouse—but he understood that bookselling provided a more stable income. Rhodes would have kept the young Betterton busy in his bookshop, but he probably also gave Betterton his first stage experience. While Betterton went on to a brilliant acting and managing career, he continued his association with books, accumulating a large working library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The study examined the issues, strategies and prospects of book trade practitioners in Nigeria The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The study was carried out in five major markets, (one each) from all the states in the South-East Nigeria. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were all adopted in the approach. It was discovered that book trade helps in identifying budding talents (writers) and projecting them to the world. Also, it was revealed that it helps educate the generality of the Nigerian society as well as create employment and revenue. It was also discovered that ever expanding school population in Nigeria, increase in established institutions across educational levels and the policy of compulsory basic education are all potentials of bookselling. Moreso, the findings revealed that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) particularly the computer, telecommunication and Internet technologies as well poor reading culture including unfriendly government policy, poor access to low interest capital and ineffective antipiracy campaign contribute significantly against book trade in Nigeria. Provision of soft loans to booksellers, effective anti piracy campaign and prosecution of offenders, on-line/electronic selling took the pride of place as the strategies that can be adopted for enhancing bookselling in Nigeria. Book trade is channelled towards promoting learning and expanding knowledge. Based on this premise, the issue of bookselling must be taken more seriously than before. The stakeholders in the business should jointly come up with interesting solutions to those constraints that are ravaging the industry. It is high time for Nigerian government to borrow leaf from their foreign counterparts such as Britain and United States of America book policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first edition aimed to update and expand Carter into the twenty-first century, and also aimed to correct some of Carter's entries with Berger being critical of the failure to do so with the ninth edition. Since it was first published in 1952, John Carter's I ABC for Book Collectors i has been a mainstay for bibliophiles, booksellers and librarians. [Extracted from the article]