I’m runnin’ down the road to the Houston Book Show, the morning traffic making me bleary-eyed. I’ve got seven book acquisitions on my mind, four I wanna own, two I’ll leave alone, one that is extremely fine. I ease into the parking lot with books and music filling much of the space in my head. The book show opens in thirty minutes, and I’m scheduled to do free appraisals from 10-12. I’ve…
Unbridled elation and bitter disappointment pretty much sum up the extremes of a book collector’s psyche. An instance of either is well-remembered. But when the two intertwine over the same book a story must be told, for that is my only relief. The elation came at a cost, naturally. The book involved was H.P. Kraus’ A Rare Book Saga (1978). This copy is inscribed to Arthur Houghton, Jr., “To…
Edward Eberstadt . TYPED LETTER SIGNED TO THOMAS STREETER. April 23, 1936. Letterhead of Edward Eberstadt, 55 West 42 nd Street, New York. 1 p. 4to. [with] Howard M. Ballou and George R. Carter “The History of the Hawaiian Mission Press, with a Bibliography of the Earlier Publications,” in Papers of the Hawaiian Historical Society No. 14, 1908, pp. [9]-42. 8vo. Printed wrappers. The bibliography…
Harrison Horblit's Annotated Copy The Rosenbach Company. THE SEA: BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS ON THE ART OF NAVIGATION, GEOGRAPHY, NAVAL HISTORY, SHIPBUILDING, VOYAGES, SHIPWRECKS, MATHEMATICS, INCLUDING ATLASES, MAPS AND CHARTS. Philadelphia: The Rosenbach Company, 1938. xi 224 p. 837 items offered. Large 8vo. Blue printed wrappers. Ownership signature of Harrison D. Horblit (1912-1988) with his…
It took me twenty-one years, three months, and eleven days to realize my wife Nicole doesn’t talk as much as I thought. This revelation occurred to me on a drive back from a trip to the Austin area. She is quietly reading the news on her phone while I expound about our most recent visit with book collector Kevin Mac Donnell and his wife Donna. I’ve known them for over thirty years. Nicole and I…
John Payne and Kurt Zimmerman in Payne's Library My mission has me breaking a sweat in a storage unit near Houston, Texas with air-conditioning set on survival, not comfort. I’m here to meet a university special collections librarian who has expressed interest in a unique biblio-archive, and I want to find it a home. I’ve rescued the archive from a highly probable shredder / recycle bin. The…
I recently had a conversation with a well-known book dealer who’d just sold a Kelmscott Chaucer to a collector. This put us both in a rather giddy mood. As it should. I didn’t ask the price, but I’m guessing William Morris’ monument to fine printing was in the high five-figure or possibly six-figure range. But what struck me the most was they had worked out a deal to finance the purchase over…
The sporting side of book collecting is like any other sport. Hot streaks, great plays, an amazing moment, all unpredictable, all driving an adrenaline rush. And I must say my 2024 book collecting season is off to a fine start. I may be topping the leaderboard in my league right now. However what really matters is simply being in the game. Participation trophies count in book collecting. In this…
Eddy Nix and Kurt Zimmerman loading up Z book cruiser I’m seated in an outhouse thinking fondly of antiquarian booksellers. The outhouse is complete with wood board butt rest, bucket of sawdust for odor control, and a guest book. Book hunting can certainly lead to unexpected situations. The outhouse is the inexplicable sole restroom for an otherwise fabulous, dodecagon (twelve-sided) home nestled…
Kurt Zimmerman and Russell Desmond Memorable. The Big Easy is. I am in the middle of Bourbon Street at night, leaning over, elbows on knees, head down. Lined up next to me are five other middle-aged white guys in a similar stance. The man beside me is groaning, saying his bad left knee isn’t going to hold up much longer. A lively crowd surrounds us including our disconcerted wives. The smell of…
A Rough and Ready Copy of Burton's THE BOOK-HUNTER (1863) Books are tough. Raging fire or lengthy submersion in water can do them in, but otherwise they often survive hard use, neglect, inquisitive children, pets, lack of climate control, insects, and with a little luck, many natural disasters. These rough and ready reading copies are found almost everywhere. But they are rarely encountered on the…
“Are you sure you want a beer guy to order the wine?” said friend and bookseller Jay Rohfritch, as I scanned the vast and mostly incomprehensible (to me) wine list at Sauvignon Wine Locker & American Trattoria in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is Sunday night, March 12th, and the 2023 Florida Antiquarian Book Fair has just finished. Celebration is in order. I’m sitting with Jay, Dennis Melhouse of…
J. Frank Dobie I was a book greenhorn when I first encountered Elijah L. Shettles (1852-1940) and J. Frank Dobie (1888-1964), two legendary Texas bookmen and personalities. My early discovery of Shettles and Dobie did much to inspire my interest in the history of book collecting and rare bookselling. This momentous event happened while I was cataloging the Dudley R. Dobie collection of J. Frank…
Susan Halas, book dealer and writer, contacted me to do an interview for Rare Book Monthly, the online newsletter found on rarebookhub.com. It came out in December. I thought I'd share it on my blog for those who didn't see it. Happy New Year! I've already got a couple new essays in the works so stay tuned. Kurt Zimmerman, book blogger, shares memories of Dorothy Sloan
Sir Thomas Phillipps' idea of a family photo Extremism is trending nowadays -- weather, politics, sports, food portions. Even travel, an area with a historically wide latitude for adventure, is trending extreme. At least it appears so on those ubiquitous, addictive YouTube videos where an armchair traveler may lose themselves for hours. I’m readying for an actual trip to Colorado, real mountains,…
My American Book Collecting blog celebrates its eleventh anniversary on October 24. I almost missed it, but unlike a wedding anniversary, there would have been no harm, no foul. However, I just received two emails only a day apart that referenced my August 23, 2014 post on American literature collector extraordinaire Stephen H. Wakeman (1859-1924). This was certainly unusual, but also reminded me…
Thomas F. Staley, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Lean, hesitant Kurt Zimmerman came from the hallway that led to director Thomas F. Staley’s office. His bright white shorts and flip flops matched uneasily with a buttoned, brilliant blue shirt; for he was young, only twenty-two. “Hello. Come in, Kurt,” Staley summoned, springing forth from his chair. He robustly rounded his desk, dapper in…
The Book Fellows Bookplate I haven’t done this much clubbing since college. But that is a far different story involving an energetic redhead, the thumping bass of dance music, and my free-form dancing skills that generated much laughter. Thankfully, no videos exist. But I digress. My recent excursion into the history of the Quarto Club of the 1920s-30s involved no such risk of injury or…
Certainly, cigars and pipes after. But first a meal of better fare, then adjourn to the private library. Oh yes, and drinks, pick your fashion. But overwhelmingly books, a few brought for show, but the focus on talk—lively talk – nothing perfunctory or mundane, for these bibliophiles are most comfortable in the details, the aura of the book itself bringing whatever one’s pleasure. It is New York…
I am re-reading A. Edward Newton’s The Greatest Book in the World and Other Papers (1925) and the ghosts of bookmen past envelop me. Not only from the text of Newton’s biblio-essays, but also from the copy itself—held gently, read closely, and treasured by three ardent bibliophiles, each with their bookplate on the front free endpaper and their scattered jottings crowding the rear pastedown. I see…
It’s a pleasant thought, isn’t it? That the free-ranging, capitalistic mind, linchpin of our economy, pauses for a moment and rises to a larger cause. In this case, my book collection. Booksellers and book collectors share a symbiotic relationship. We are bound together with ecstatic moments and occasional torment, in the best of cases a fulfilling long-term union develops between us, in rare…
Bookseller and writer Anthony Marshall where art thou, kindred spirit? I recently discovered your two books by chance in an Austin, Texas used bookstore – Trafficking in Old Books (1998) and Fossicking in Old Books (2004), far from their place of publication in Australia. There may be copies in abundance in Australia, but they are pretty scarce here—my excuse for overlooking them these many years.…
A recent, unsuccessful bid on a group of Lincoln biblio-books from the collection of Louise Taper leads me here. That, and a rediscovery last week among a group of books I acquired shortly before moving my library three years ago. Both instances germinated an idea into an essay – the early collecting of printed material on the Great Emancipator. Works by and about Abraham Lincoln, called broadly…
KZ's Office / Cataloging Room. Wife afraid to enter. I’m cataloging a few of my recent acquisitions. They usually arrive one at a time and the backlog is manageable, but this last year has been a deluge. I’m way behind in bringing order to the chaos. Stacks of book everywhere in my office: desk, chairs, table. But with the big exception of pamphlets, I can find what I’m looking for as needed. My…
I gave a zoom talk recently to the Florida Bibliophile Society about antiquarian bookseller Dorothy Sloan (1943-2021). She was an important mentor in my youth. The focus is the acquisition of the core of her reference library and portions of her archive. Jerry Morris, president of the FBS, provides the introduction and the ending presentation. There were a couple of technical glitches, but all's…