Great Catalogues by Master Booksellers

The author has selected one hundred and forty catalogues from amongst tens of thousands viewed during his time at the Lilly Library at Indiana University, The Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin, New York’s Grolier Club, and the Huntington Library in San Marino. The individuals and firms represented include the giants of the last one hundred and fifty years of bookselling, names such as Breslauer, Eberstadt, Ex Libris, Les Enluminures, Fleming, Goldschmidt, Goodspeed, Kraus, Maggs, Quaritch, Reese, Rosenbach, and Rostenberg & Stern, as well as more contemporary booksellers who will be seen in retrospect, if they are not already, as giants themselves. An introduction by Kurt Zimmerman briefly outlines the impact booksellers’ catalogues has had on the formation of collecting fields including Western Americana (Eberstadt), Victorian Fiction (Pickering & Chatto), and the History of Science (Scribners under John Carter and David Randall). And while Zimmerman touches on the shift away from printed catalogues in the digital era, the work shows more recent generations of booksellers blazing new paths in collecting and scholarship.