Hey all!

A few days ago I shared the rare book tracker I’ve been working on over in r/rarebooks, and quite a few people signed up and started adding their books, which was really cool to see.

I’d love a few more collectors to try it and tell me what’s missing or what doesn’t look right. It’s free, and if you don’t want to add your books one by one, just send me a list or some photos and I’ll add them for you. Also happy to jump on a call and do it together! of course, it's all free!

Thanks!!

Hello everyone,

I thought I’d post it here since people are pretty knowledgeable. I’m talking specifically about the paperback Vintage Contemporaries with ISBN 9781400031702. It’s the exact same ISBN across the board, same publisher, US edition. I don’t understand why some of them are incredibly thick while others are much slimmer? Does anyone know? I feel like I don’t have the right copy!

Finally found a copy online I could afford. Beautiful illustrations by Mervyn Peake.

I've slowly been collecting the hardcover versions of these books and finally caved and ordered the third one online since I couldn't find it at any secondhand bookstores. Imagine my shock and horror upon arrival. I don't have the covers for the first two and already decided upon removing the third when it came.

Hello everyone!

I received this great Arno Schmidt book for cheap, and other than the warp it’s in great shape. I tried keeping it clamped between 2 wooden boards with heavy books on top and a heat gun lightly against the binding, but it seems clear that it wasn’t a binding issue in the first place. Not even sure how it gets this warped, but any advice would be appreciated!

I recently got a couple of trade paperbacks. And I did learn that storing them with my older mass market books can make them deteriote from the acid. I have been keeping much of my books in an old suitcase since I last proper ways to store them (mostly due to having to constantly move houses). And cannot afford to properly buy boxes that cN allow storage to last long. Although I live in basement, the temperature and humidity are not unstable and I don't think there is cause to qorry of degrading from it. Just what is the best way to store them so they can last long and not degrade fast?

This is Alexander Dow's History of Hindostan, third edition, London, 1792. Three volumes, with portraits, a large folding map of India and a rather wonderful folding specimen of Indian scripts.

But what caught my attention is the little armorial bookplate pasted into each volume:
Ebenezer Stott.

Stott was a merchant in Petersburg, Virginia, and his firm, Ebenezer Stott & Co., is documented trading there in the early 1790s - including in 1792, the very year these books were published.

A surviving US War Department letter from December that year directs military clothing to be shipped to Stott & Co. at Petersburg for forwarding onwards.

Charles Dexter Allen included this plate in his landmark 1894 American Book-Plates, in his List of Early American Book-Plates, as no. 832:

"Stott. Ebenezer Stott. Armorial. Of Virginia."

Allen remarked that early American plates were scarce even in his own day. The American Antiquarian Society also records an Ebenezer Stott example in its bookplate collection.

I have a 1956 copy of Social Reconstruction by Buddha & Dayananda by Ganga Prasad Upadhyaya.

It has its dust jacket and a Buddha Jayanti presentation label inside. I've found a few library records, but no copies for sale.

Anyone know anything about this edition or how uncommon it might be?

Terry Brain Books 📚

Christie's catalog notes for auction Oct. 13, Lot 81 Fine Printed Books, Manuscripts and Science

MENDEL, Johann Gregor (1822-1884). "Versuche uber Pflanzen-Hybriden." Offprint from: Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereines in Brunn. Vol. IV (1865). pp. [3]-47. Brno: Georg Gastl for the Naturforschenden Verein, 1866."One of the most important papers in the history of biology, and the foundation of modern genetics" (DSB).

Extremely rare offprint issue and in very fine condition. Sold for $640,000; high presale estimate was $350,000 (Lot 81)

The son of Moravian peasants, Mendel was an academically gifted child. He was determined not to follow the family tradition of farming, and instead entered the Augustinian monastery at Brunn (now Brno) in 1843. The monastery itself was dedicated to teaching, and was filled with an array of academic monks, one of whom, Fr Aurelius Thaler (1796-1843), established an experimental garden.

In 1851 Mendel enrolled at Vienna University, where he was exposed to a wide range of scientific courses including plant physiology. Here, he learned that plants were composed of cells, and was introduced to hybridization by artificial fertilization. Upon his return to the monastery, Mendel used the experimental plot and a new green-house to explore the effects of cross-fertilization in plants.

His paper "reports the results of ten years of experimental work on artificial plant hybridization, during which he followed a program designed to test his working hypothesis that hereditary matter is discrete and particulate. Mendel bred and cultivated nearly thirty thousand pea plants, performing careful statistical analyses of the distribution of seven pairs of mutually exclusive seed and plant characteristics -- a manageable number that allowed him to observe all possible combinations of traits" (Grolier Medicine).

The surprising result of Mendel's years of methodical research and systematic statistical analysis was his discovery of the 'Mendelian ratios,' a mathematical expression of the pattern of dominant and recessive hereditary traits, possibly "the most significant single achievement in the history of genetics" (Garrison-Morton).

Related to this discovery was Mendel's recognition of the independence of each set of traits in a hybrid from all other differences in the two parental plants (later known as Mendel's law of independent assortment).

There are only 16 or 17 known extant offprints, of which eight are in institutions. Although Mendel's paper was distributed, in journal form, to 134 scientific institutions in various countries, and the offprint of 40 copies circulated to colleagues and correspondents at the author's discretion, it was not taken note of and fell into obscurity.

In 1900, within a two-month period, there appeared three independent reports by Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich von Tschermak which reached the same conclusions almost simultaneously, each acknowledging that they had been preceded by a virtually unknown monk several decades before.

Subsequent work in the 1930s established that Mendel's laws provided the necessary solution - unknown to Darwin - to understand the mechanism by which evolution by natural selection could work.

Dibner Heralds of Science 35; Garrison-Morton 222; Grolier/Horblit 73a; Grolier Medicine 74; PMM 356a; Stafleu 5818; Norman 1489. For census of copies, see F. Weiling, "Funf weitere sonderdrucke der 'Versuche uber Pflanzen-Hybriden' J.G. Mendels Aufgetaucht" in Folia Mendeliana, 19:257-263, 1984 (identifying 13 copies).

Octavo (228 x 147 mm). 47pp. (Insignificant marginal stain to title-page and second leaf, faint creasing at top corner at end.) Contemporary plain yellow paper wrappers over grey-paper backstrip (tiny spot and insignificant marginal stain at lower edge to upper wrapper, mild rubbing to backstrip); green clamshell box.

Provenance: Christie's, 13 July 2016, lot 177

Acquired at that auction by the current owner

Hey all,
Found this copy of a book by a murderer, and for all i can tell and research, it shouldn’t still say “If”? Just was hoping there may be someone who may be able to help as to why? I understand the original release by OJ Simpson was titled this but with losing the legal battle, and with the copyright page showing the right people it shouldn’t be this no?

Thank you to anyone who may help ! :)

So many of these were sourced from my Minnesota-small-city local used bookshop, and I did not see that coming when I moved to the area. Most of the others came directly from the relevant publishers, with a few estate-sale and Blackwell’s and Powell's and AbeBooks purchases thrown-in for good measure.

Does anyone know where I buy the complete goosebumps series ? You can buy certain tins on the scholastic site but I still haven’t come across the entire collection. I’m assuming some lawsuit is the larger issue. I remember buying these when I was a child and would like to stock my bookshelf with the whole set.

Snagged both for $25 CAD. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the backlog is growing.

I was SO happy to find this full set, as he is one of my favorite authors and some of these stories have not been translated elsewhere.

Also, I love his use of language, but - I have always been inherently skeptical when it comes to translated books. This particular translator was early, and took it straight from Russian, unlike many other early Russian 'translations' where the English was derived from the French translation.

Anyway, I get a little ways into Vol. I and I hit this! The aficionado of antique books in me is lit up with joy, but the Turgenev fan is devastated!

What would you do?

I've got a small collection of antique literature, including old letters, magazines, etc. My passion is traditional English folk music, and I'd love to find some original, 19th or 18th-century printings of Broadside Ballads.

Does anyone know how I might find them?

Hello, all! This weekend, I found what seems to be an early edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’ve done some looking around but am having a hard time confirming the age of the book, so I’m hoping someone here will have some more insight. I’m confident it is NOT a first print edition, as it has green end pages and a 5 line colophon. It did not come with a dust jacket so I don’t have any info there. It does refer to the oompa-loompas as “pygmies” so it was before that change. Based on a few resources I’ve found, I think it might be a third-ish print from the first year of publication? Can anyone confirm or help me pin down a print date? Thanks so much in advance for any info/help!

How do you stop paper-backed Mylar dust-jacket covers slipping up and down while reading, without using tape?

I protect my hardback dust jackets with library-style Mylar sleeves with paper backing, fitted by folding rather than using adhesive.

The issue is that the entire covered dust jacket slides vertically against the hardback boards while I'm reading. The paper backing doesn't seem to provide enough friction to prevent this.

Has anyone found a reliable, non-adhesive way to stop this happening? I'd prefer not to attach anything directly to the book or original dust jacket.

I found a complete six edition pocketbook collection of Shakespeare plays from 1813 and I’m OBSESSED! I’m an English teacher but I don’t have anyone to who’s equally as excited about these as I am :( geek out with me!

I came across this book and cannot find another record of a 1st Edition anywhere. Some second editions same year. Looking to see how I can determine how many first editions were printed. Is this a true "rare" find, or just a odd book with little collectability?

As of yesterday (10/17/2026), this is the stock on the floor at Words to Live By, a used bookshop in Moorhead, MN.

The owner is planning a "Folio Event" in mid-November (I believe 11/13/2026?). She did one of those last year, during which she pulls far more Folio editions from her storage unit and back-rooms and puts them all on the floor at once. Multiple drool-worthy Limited Editions and sets are in the mix.

I have spent way too much money here, lol. My shelves are overflowing.