Secondhand Book Trade Research Articles

Prices of English Books at Auction c. 1680

Abstract Scholars have noted the significance and spread of the second-hand book trade in seventeenth-century England, but so far little information about the books and their prices has been available. This essay examines the evidence from annotations to an early book auction catalogue relating to ten auctions that took place in London between 1676 and 1682, providing the prices for thousands of books. A comparison between the prices for which books sold at auction, and the prices of the same books new in the Term Catalogues in the decade prior to these auctions reveals that most of the relatively new books sold at auction for a considerable discount off their retail price. For older books, the prices primarily depended on condition and demand rather than the expense of producing the book or its age. This shows a turn towards a customer-driven pricing structure which has significant implications for how we understand the connection between book prices and readers in the late seventeenth century.

El expendio de libros de viejo en la ciudad de México (1886-1930) En busca de un lugar entre pájaros, fierros y armas

This article analyzes a topic which has attract the attention of historians, journalists, and librarians, but it has almost never been systematically researched: Secondhand book trade. The period of time between 1886 and 1930 is explored to criticize the romantic ways to approach this subject. Also, through the analysis of this 'street business', concepts like modernization, hygienic measures, and urban planning can be reviewed. For the purpose of writing this article, archives were consulted that are not specifically related to this topic, especially the Ramo Mercados of Archivo Historico de la Ciudad de Mexico. Finally, the article explores how secondhand books trade was linked to political, cultural and economic processes of the city.

Out-of-Print Microbiology

Copies of Penicillin, Its Practical Application, edited by Sir Alexander Fleming and published by Butterworth in 1946, sell for surprisingly high prices at the upper end of the second-hand book trade. Yet those written by Selman Waksman, from Principles of Soil Microbiology (Bailliere, Tindall and Cox, 1927) to The Actinomycetes (Chronica Botanica, 1950), hold very little value nowadays.

Out of Print and Into Profit: A History of the Rare and Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the Twentieth Century. Ed. by GILES MANDELBROTE.

Out of Print and Into Profit: A History of the Rare and Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the Twentieth Century. Ed. by GILES MANDELBROTE.

Out of Print and into Profit: A History of the Rare and Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the Twentieth Century. Giles Mandelbrote

Previous articleNext article No AccessBOOK REVIEWSOut of Print and into Profit: A History of the Rare and Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the Twentieth Century. Giles Mandelbrote John CrichtonJohn Crichton Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America Volume 102, Number 2JUNE 2008 Published for the Bibliographical Society of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/pbsa.102.2.24293741 Views: 2Total views on this site COPYRIGHT © 2008 THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICAPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

<i>Out of Print & Into Profit: A History of the Rare and Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the 20th Century</i> (review)

<i>Out of Print & Into Profit: A History of the Rare and Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the 20th Century</i> (review)

Out of Print and Into Profit: A History of the Rare and Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the Twentieth Century

Out of Print and Into Profit: A History of the Rare and Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the Twentieth Century

Book Reviews of "The Perilous Trade: Book Publishing in Canada, 1946–2006 New, updated edition", "Out of Print & Into Profit A History of the Rare & Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the 20th Century", and "The Trees Are All Young on Garrison Hill"

Book Reviews of "The Perilous Trade: Book Publishing in Canada, 1946–2006 New, updated edition", "Out of Print & Into Profit A History of the Rare & Secondhand Book Trade in Britain in the 20th Century", and "The Trees Are All Young on Garrison Hill"

The long life of the book: public book auctions in Leiden 1725-1805 and the second-hand book trade

AbstractIn the Dutch Republic the books that were sold in public auction were bound, which implied that they were second-hand. They came either from private collections or from booksellers' stock. For the eighteenth-century Leiden booksellers auctions were an important outlet for the second-hand trade. This is demonstrated on the basis of the auction ledgers of the firm of Luchtmans. In their auction catalogues booksellers often mixed their own stock in with private libraries. Of only 194 of the 1707 public auctions recorded for the period 1725-1805 catalogues are known, i.e. 11,4%. It is shown that these catalogues are not representative for public auctions in general and cannot be used as sources for developments in the book trade. The practice of mixing in and combining books makes their use as sources for the study of private ownership problematical. In an outline of the Leiden public auctions for the period 1725-1805 the number of auctions is given, as well as the turnovers per five-year period and the average annual turnovers. The fluctuations in the five-year turnovers for 1725-70 correspond with the general economic trends. A remarkable rise in the turnovers occurred between 1776 and 1785 - the more notable as the economic crisis of 1772-3 took a long time to overcome. Just in this period the position of the book and its cultural importance

The Used-Book Trade in the Roman World

IT IS COMMONLY ASSUMED that the Romans knew a much like that of today.' Most of the ancient sources cited by modern scholars to prove the existence of a in books, however, do not stand up to critical examination. In fact, although the Roman world appears to have had a small second-hand-book trade, that left almost no traces of itself in the surviving sources. It was probably restricted largely to school texts circulating outside the circles of aristocratic readers and writers who provide most of our surviving evidence. At most, a potentially affected a comparatively small group: those lucky enough to have had a literary education but not wealthy enough (or inclined) to own or employ their own copyists or to buy many new books (see below, 155-156). For the aristocracy, the was probably of very limited significance for the circulation of almost all literary texts.2 First, a word of definition: the phrases used-book trade and secondhand-book trade may seem at first to have a self-evident meaning, but that is deceptive. English distinguishes between or second-hand books and books, but scholars writing in German would speak of an antiquarischer book trade, which embraces what one might call antiquarian books or rare books as well as simply books. Different cultures place radically different values on items and on items of various types. In recent years, for instance, advertisements proclaim the virtues of previously owned luxury cars, wishing to avoid the negative associations called up by the phrase used cars. The status of a