A mixed bag of memories

2 December 2006

Out of Print And into Profit: A History of the Rare and Second-Hand Book Trade in Britain in the Twentieth Century

edited by Giles Mandelbrote
British Library/Oak Knoll Press, 414pp, £30

In 1958, half way through the century here recorded, the late and much lamented National Book League put on the first ever antiquarian book fair, with 24 members of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association exhibiting. ‘We hope,’ wrote The Book Collector, ‘that the ABA will be encouraged to make this an annual event.’ It did, and in the process transformed the way old books were bought and sold (a fact unnoticed here). It became the custom for some celebrity (or what passed for one) formally to open the fair. One year it fell to my turn. I had noticed that all previous openers had always said, sententiously, how much they owed to the booksellers they knew. I thought I would go one better; I too, I said, owed much to the booksellers I knew, and I read out the names and the sums outstanding.