An Antiquarian Obsession

"Book collectors are a curious lot." So begins a story in the Economist about book collectors and the London Antiquarian Book Fair.

From the piece...

Rarely can one touch or gawp at exceedingly rare treasures like a second folio of Shakespeare; Dickens’s own marked-up copy of “Mrs Gamp”, which he read from on his last American tour; or 15^th-century books from the presses of Anton Koberer and Aldus Manutius, which sell for tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds. At the other end of the spectrum, vintage children’s books, autographs and postcards can be picked up at numerous stands for £50 or less.

Most interesting, perhaps, is the air of optimism—there is not the slightest whiff of gloom at the state of the book world. The internet, paradoxically, has made books “à la mode”, says Claude Blaizot of the Librarie August Blaizot in Paris, purveyor of first editions of "Tintin" and fantastically bound livres d’artiste. “It has brought people to books, and shown them booksellers they never would have known existed before,” he says. Clive Farahar, the Antiques Roadshow’s book specialist, agrees that technology has opened up the book trade, and made the world of books much more accessible to all. “It’s not just the dim little shop on the high street anymore,” he said. “We can learn so much now we never would have known before.”

It is the peculiar enthusiasms of book collectors to which we owe many great library collections. Now, as the internet allows major libraries to digitise their holdings, duplicates and other surplus volumes are being released back into the market. The result is more remarkable volumes for non-specialists to admire and, yes, touch.