Boston Book Company Newsletter

Tokyo International Antiquarian Book Fair

2010-03-10T12:25:00.001-05:00

We are exhibiting at the Tokyo International Antiquarian Book Fair 2010, March 11 - 13, at Izumi Garden Gallery, Tokyo. Details at http://www.abaj.gr.jp/index_e.htm

Please stop by and visit if you are attending!

San Francisco and California (Los Angeles) Book Fairs

2010-02-05T11:54:00.001-05:00

We will be exhibiting at:

San Francisco Antiquarian Book, Print and Paper Fair
February 6 - 7, 2010, Booth 401
San Francisco Concourse, 7th & Brannan Streets at Showplace Square
http://www.sfbookandpaperfair.com/

and

43rd California International Antiquarian Book Fair
February 12 - 14, 2010, Booth 220
Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles
http://www.labookfair.com/home.php

Please stop by and visit us if you are attending!

New hours at Boston Book Annex - updated

2010-02-02T12:19:00.001-05:00

Beginning in February we have updated the hours our sister store the Boston Book Annex is open. New hours of operation are : 11 AM - 7 PM Monday - Thursday; 11 AM - 9 PM Friday and Saturday; Closed Sunday. This post updated 2/3/09.

New Year's hours

2009-12-30T12:05:00.000-05:00

New decade ahead! We will be closing early at both locations on December 31st (call ahead for time), and will be closed New Year's Day, January 1st, 2010. Regular hours resume January 2nd. Best wishes for a Happy New Year from all of us.

Holiday hours at both locations

2009-12-19T15:19:00.001-05:00

In Jamaica Plain at Boston Book Company we will be closing at 2pm on December 24th, and will be closed the 25th, 26th and 27th, re-opening with normal hours on Monday the 28th.

UPDATED: On Beacon Street at the Boston Book Annex we will be closing around 4 pm December 24th (call ahead to verify), and will be closed on the 25th and 26th, re-opening on Sunday December 27 with regular hours.

Happy holidays!

December Sale at the Book Annex on Beacon Street

2009-12-04T15:15:00.001-05:00

Just a heads up for our customers at our sister store, the Boston Book Annex, 906 Beacon Street in Boston: December 3rd - 24th, all Art and Poetry books will be 25% off. This offer applies to books purchased at the Annex only. We have a great selection at both locations; if you need to shop for the holidays, we'll be glad to help find the perfect gifts. See you soon!

Closing for Thanksgiving

2009-11-24T15:43:00.000-05:00

Both our Beacon Street shop, the Boston Book Annex, and our Jamaica Plain shop, Boston Book Company, will be closed on Thursday November 26 for the Thanksgiving holiday. We are open regular hours the rest of the week. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving - see you soon.

Catalogue 40A, Japan and East Asia, now online

2009-11-21T09:47:00.001-05:00

Announcing our newest Japan and East Asia Catalogue, no. 40A:

Here is a diverse collection of recently acquired material, running the gamut from useful 20th century reference works on the arts and languages of east Asia to woodblock-illustrated Japanese ehon and design books, prewar avant-garde and modernist fine art, posters and advertising art. From botanicals and birds to social satire and illustrated poetry with a bit of photography included, the visual feast goes on. Click here for the catalogue. Enjoy!

33rd Annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair

2009-11-11T12:18:00.001-05:00

We will be exhibiting at the 33rd Annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, November 13-15, 2009, at the Hynes Convention Center at 900 Boylston Street in Boston. We will be in booth number 407 - please stop by and visit if you are attending. Selections include books and ephemera in literature, science, economics, women's studies, children's collectibles and history; Japanese woodblock print books; Japanese design books, posters and advertising publications; and more. Both shops will be open during the fair, regular hours.

Website back online

2009-10-31T13:55:00.007-04:00

We have just restored the Boston Book Company website after some down time due to a server problem. All email to rarebook.com addresses and orders placed through our other listings (ABE, antiqbook, ILAB, ABAA) were received as usual during this time. Our apologies for any inconvenience.

New batch of October New Additions online

2009-10-15T15:54:00.012-04:00

We've just updated our New Additions page, and the new offerings include a fifty volume Wilkie Collins set, bound in half indigo morocco with marbled paper covered boards; Meehan's four volume THE NATIVE FLOWERS AND FERNS OF THE UNITED STATES, with 192 chromolithographs by Prang; Burritt's celestial ATLAS DESIGNED TO ILLUSTRATE THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS; lovely bindings of Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth, and more. Stop by and browse at www.rarebook.com.

New East Asian Art Reference list online

2009-10-07T14:48:00.003-04:00

We've been mining our shelves, organizing our backlist by subject area. This group of titles, mostly references to the art world of East Asia, includes books long out-of-print and sought-for. Take a look, please, and let us know if there is anything here that pleases you and if there are other works you are seeking in the field. Click here for the list.

New batch of September New Additions online

2009-09-18T15:17:00.003-04:00

We have just updated our September New Additions page. Featured items include first editions of Dickens' OUR MUTUAL FRIEND and THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, in parts; a first edition of Cooper's THE DEERSLAYER; a first edition of White's CHARLOTTE'S WEB and more. Stop by and browse at www.rarebook.com.

Labor Day weekend hours

2009-09-05T15:37:00.004-04:00

Our Jamaica Plain shop will be closed this Sunday (as usual) and Monday, September 7, but our Beacon Street location, Boston Book Annex, will be open Sunday and Monday.

New Additions for September online

2009-08-28T10:25:00.001-04:00

September New Additions include Schiaparelli's illustrated 1878 paper on Martian topography, an inscribed 1839 Memoir of Nathaniel Bowditch, some Yeats selections and more. Visit our webpage and click on New Additions to browse.

New Additions for August, new batch online

2009-08-15T12:01:00.004-04:00

We have updated our New Additions page for August at www.rarebook.com - we are featuring THE STORY OF THE HUTCHINSONS, 1896, 2 volumes - an abolitionist singing family, they also toured in support of temperance and suffrage. The set bears an inscription from the author John Wallace Hutchinson. Also this round, we have Eiffel's THE RESISTANCE OF THE AIR AND AVIATION: EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED AT THE CHAMP-DE-MARS LABORATORY, 1913, the second revised and expanded edition, with many charts and diagrams. And among other items, we have a set of Stephen Foster facsimile sheet music, and Reed's SPECIMENS OF PARCHMENT which includes a sample from a 16th century manuscript. Stop by our New Additions page to browse these and more.

East Asian Photography catalogue online

2009-08-10T16:54:00.003-04:00

http://www.rarebook.com/eastasianphotography.html
click for catalogue

We are back with a selection of a few items from the field of Japanese photography. As the Japanese were interested quite early on in the archival and then the artistic possibilities of photography, the collector may find worthy items dating from the 1860's to the present day. There are a few rarities within, but mostly a range of fun and interesting books expressive in yet another form of the Japanese aesthetic.

From the 19th century, among other items, there is a lovely album in beautiful condition and with perfect hand-coloring by the important photographer Kusakabe Kimbei. The prewar avant-garde is represented with an unusual photo book by the important artist Onchi Koshiro. The postwar era witnessed an enormous development of photography in Japan and we are presenting here a few representative examples of some interesting work - not the high spots which have exploded in value the last few years, rather works by lesser-known but intriguing artists or more modest works by the masters.

Photography is enormously enjoyable and we hope to be able to bring you more items on a regular basis.

Charles Vilnis

New Additions for August

2009-07-30T15:56:00.002-04:00

The first batch of our new items for August are online at www.rarebook.com - Virginia Woolf's biography of Roger Fry, a lovely angling memoir, Wilder's Our Town and more. Stop by and browse our New Additions page!

New - sign up for email announcements

2009-07-22T11:56:00.003-04:00

Now you can sign up for our email announcements - online catalogues, new additions and sales - simply by clicking on the Request Catalogues link and filling out the form. Please let us know what your interests are so that we can contact you about your specific wants. You can find the Request Catalogues link in the top menu on our home page at www.rarebook.com.

More New Additions for July

2009-07-18T14:10:00.005-04:00

We've just added items to our New Additions page for July - please visit at www.rarebook.com to browse. There are two different 19th century Massachusetts atlases, an oversized archaeology portfolio, a complete set of Lossing's A History of the Civil War 1861-65 with Mathew Brady photo reproductions, a unique collection of Robert Frost's personal Dartmouth College memorabilia, architecture and art monographs and more. The New Additions page is updated semimonthly, so stay tuned for the next batch August 1st!

July New Additions

2009-07-09T13:55:00.003-04:00

Don't forget to check out the July New Additions page at www.rarebook.com - some new local history and Americana, as well as a striking 19th century Richard Morris Hunt architectural photograph.

20th Century East Asian Books

2009-06-18T16:24:00.005-04:00

click here for catalogue

The creation of useful organizing elements in the field of Japanese illustration is often quite arbitrary. May we plead guilty to that fault in creating this list of Japanese illustrated books of the 20th century. Lumping together books created in various media, books deriving from sources as disparate as Ukiyo-e and the European avant-garde and many schools and traditions in between may confuse as much as it orders, but there it is - the 20th was a messy century. What unites the books is their essential Japanese aesthetic. They play well together, at least as we see them.

Charles Vilnis

A Textiles and Dyeing List

2009-06-12T13:07:00.002-04:00

We have compiled a selection of textile and dyeing sample cards and books, from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Many of these include dyed samples of cloth plain and patterned, thread or yarn, or even leather. Some of the materials provide the dyestuff "recipe" for each color. If you have an interest in the history of dyeing or textiles, please take a look: click here for the illustrated list.

New Additions for June

2009-06-06T12:42:00.004-04:00

We have updated our New Additions page for the first part of June. To visit, go to our website and click on New Additions in the upper left corner. Enjoy browsing, or use our search feature to locate more titles.

Classic Ehon, Illustrated Books and Maps

2009-05-26T15:39:00.004-04:00

Click for catalogue: http://www.rarebook.com/ehon1.html

Greetings,

Spring brings rain, flowers and, at the Boston Book Company, catalogues.

Following up on our design book list which we published a few weeks ago, we have created a catalogue of traditional ehon, and included maps, botanicals [birds and flowers], fairy tales and original paintings currently in our inventory. There are some true rarities and icons of the illustrated book genre, works we are all familiar with from their appearance in the wonderful books done by Jack Hillier, Roger Keyes and others - kyokabon such as the Utamaro insect book in an early, lovely edition, painting manuals such as the Taigado Gahô and pure picture books like the Sekien Gafu, the Sônan Gafu and the Kiyonaga Ehon Muchi Bukuro. There are Kabuki classics like the Nendaiki, fan and scroll paintings by Shijô school masters and a wonderful set of small sliding doors painted by Keibun. Besides the Edo era material, there is a large triptych painting of Sapporo in a Nihonga style, as well as transitional works by Seihô and others which round out the traditional aesthetic in its 20th century manifestation.

There is really too much to discuss in this brief introduction. Please enjoy the accompanying list, which is being issued as a web catalogue, as well as a printed text. We will be happy to provide more information or images, should you be interested in any of the items within.

We are off to London for the ILAB Book Fair at Olympia next week, so do get back to us as soon as you are able.

Best wishes,

Charles Vilnis