SLAM articles
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Collecting Rare Books and First Editions: Poe and Rafinesque in Philadelphia
Published 24 Aug 2011It is not often that one discovers the work of an overlooked or forgotten genius, or a previously-unknown work of an established master. This is, of course, the hope which moves us to carefully examine all sorts of periodical publications and ephemera. So when Tom Congalton asked me to catalog two large folio volumes of the Philadelphia-based Saturday Evening Post, from 1827 and 1828, I was pleased to find the puzzle poem “Enigma” attributed to Edgar Allan Poe, and “Psalm 139th” by his brother Henry Poe. Perhaps the most interesting contributions to these volumes are not the Poeiana, but rather a whole series of botanical sketches and other contributions by an eccentric genius with the evocative name Rafinesque. -
Marie Curie - A Woman of Firsts
Published 23 Aug 2011Marie Sklodowska Curie, the chemist and physicist famous for her pioneering work on radioactivity, was the first person awarded two Nobel Prizes (for chemistry and physics); the first female professor at the Sorbonne; and the first woman to be entombed in the Paris Panthéon for herself. -
HISTORY OF THE SLAM : Second part (1934-1957)
René Cluzel Published 30 May 2011 -
History of the SLAM : First Part (1914-1934)
René Cluzel Published 23 May 2011 -
Le prix de Bibliographie du SLAM 2011
Published 05 May 2011Le prix de Bibliographie du SLAM 2011
Henri VIGNES – Bibliographie des Éditions de Minuit. Du Silence de la mer à L’Anti-Œdipe (20 février 1942 – 18 février 1972)
Une co-édition Librairie Henri Vignes – Éditions des Cendres. Paris, 2010.
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A TRIBUTE to J. Ch. BRUNET by Gérard Oberlé
Gérard Oberlé Published 28 Apr 2011 -
Salon International du Livre Ancien, Paris 2011
Published 21 Apr 2011From manuscripts to avant-garde, from a letter by François I to the drafts of Marcel Proust, from a 13th century psalm book to a futurist manifesto, dealers and collectors will browse the shelves of more than 150 antiquarian booksellers with thousands of stunningly diverse documents. Around 20.000 book fair visitors will meander through the Grand Palais and discover first editions, precious bindings, travel accounts, old and modern prints and photographies, handwritten letters and documents by artists, politicians and scientists, scores of famous musicians, treatises on medicine, astronomy, philosophy and other milestones in the history of science alongside with fine illustrated books, modern art and beautiful children’s books.
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Rare Books in the Press: The Death of the Book
Published 20 Apr 2011The book is dead, murdered by the internet and buried with a Kindle on its coffin … Or not? The death of the book is not a modern phenomenon, says Ben Ehrenreich in the Los Angeles Review of Books: “Nor is it new to point out that people have been diagnosing - and celebrating - the book’s imminent demise for generations.” As early as 1913 a futurist manifesto demanded “a typographic revolution directed against the idiotic and nauseating concepts of the outdated and conventional book”.
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Living With - And From - Books, Part 2
Published 12 Apr 2011This catalogue, consisting of 34 pages, printed on plain paper in June 1921, for us is just like a “Number One Dime”, a Disney’s good luck charm at the beginning of a long series of publications. The index of subjects is already quite significant: next to fine arts, philosophy, Italian literature and religions, we find, as a matter of fact, unusual entries, such as “anecdotes”, “curiosities”, “erotica” and “freemasonry”. Going through the pages of this family, but also historical, treasure, 90 years after its publication, is really touching. The delicate pages yellowed with dignity, its simple cover in light green wrappers, a little worn out and with a few brown spots, the border surrounding the title - that would have remained as the graphical design for some years to come - make this “elderly and distinguished gentleman” closer to the dust-jacket first editions of the beginning of the century, which are now for sale on the shelves of the bookshop, than to the modern and colourful recently published “colleagues”.
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Living With - And From - Books, Part 1
Published 12 Apr 2011We are rare book dealers and from the items we bought and sold over these decades, we had the opportunity to learn something about history, literature, art, life and the world (past and present). We realised that editing a text in English which should be read almost as an “historical tale” is a very hard job, something totally different from the usual bibliographic descriptions with our familiar technical terms. In any case, this pamphlet will be a much more comfortable way for you to share our history with us: let’s say that this text was guided by the same “Italian passion” that we have been putting in our works for a century...
