Antiquarian Book News

100 years of Ladybird books

Those of us who are a certain age probably remember with fondness the Ladybird books about Peter and Jane. These books contained a small number of words which were learned so that each child could read a whole book. Sadly, these books have now been dismissed because they are too old fashioned and too simple. Now they seem to be full of TV characters.

As well as the Learning with Mother sets the Ladybird books included fairytales, biblical and historical stories, informative non-fiction, the classics re-imagined, dictionaries and animal stories. Now one hundred years later these books can still occasionally be found on Grandma’s shelf.

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Muybridge's Animal Locomotion

Offered for sale by the 19th Century Rare Book & Photograph Shop

Muybridge, Eadweard. Animal Locomotion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. Philadelphia: Photogravure Co., 1887. Folio (470 x 600 mm). Title printed in red and black. 100 collotypes, loose as issued.

This is a fine subscription copy of Eadweard Muybridge's masterpiece, a landmark in the history of art and technology. "British-born Muybridge, who emigrated to the United States in the 1850s, is one of the most influential photographers of all time. He pushed the limits of the camera's possibilities, creating world-famous images of animals and humans in motion" (Tate Britain).

Eadweard Muybridge was a leading photographer in California when the wealthy horse enthusiast Leland Stanford approached him in 1872 to settle the question of whether a horse lifts all of its feet off the ground while trotting. Stanford financed Muybridge's ingenious experiments in sequential photography using trip wires, advanced mechanical shutters, and unprecedented short exposure times. Muybridge confirmed Stanford's belief that all four feet leave the ground, but his work achieved much more. He became a sensation in Europe when he showed the photographs in rapid succession, creating the effect of a motion picture. In the 1880s at the University of Pennsylvania, he continued his photographic studies making tens of thousands of photographs of animals and humans in motion. Because his work in sequential photography laid the groundwork for motion pictures, Muybridge is regarded as the father of the motion picture. Muybridge's monumental achievement is documented in his Animal Locomotion.

A complete set of collotypes comprised 781 plates in 11 volumes, but the prohibitive $500 price resulted in the production of only 37 sets, almost all of which were sold to institutions. The present example is one of the sets of 100 plates sold by subscription. The original prospectus states that "each copy [is] to contain One Hundred Plates, as described in the prospectus" at a cost of $100, the plates to be selected by the subscriber after examining one of the complete sets deposited "in one of the Art Institutions or Libraries of Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Washington, and other large cities of the United States." Thus the subscribers' sets of Animal Locomotion differ in composition, depending on the interests and tastes of the buyers. Many of these subscription sets have been broken up, and few remain intact in private hands.

with the original prospectus

Muybridge, Eadweard. The Science of Animal Locomotion (Zoopraxography), An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. Philadelphia: the author, University of Pennsylvania, [August, 1891]. 24 pp. Original wrappers. Fine.

This rare publication includes a description of Muybridge's apparatus, results of the investigation, diagram, prospectus, and list of subscribers. One could subscribe for 100 plates for one hundred dollars or the complete series of 781 plates for five hundred dollars. The list of subscribers (which is heavily European) includes universities, libraries, museums, archaeologists, physiologists, anatomists, anthropologists, etc. Artists and architects include Peter Behrens, Charles Garnier, Holman Hunt, and Auguste Rodin. There were at least two prospectuses for Animal Locomotion; another was published in 1887. The original order blank is still laid in.

Price $150,000

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Doha International Book Fair

Some of the rarest and most valued books can be found at the 25th Doha International Book Fair at Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC) which is open until 17 January 2015. Rare book dealers Antiquariat Inlibris and Antiquariaat Forum are displaying various copies of ancient books, maps, drawings, atlases, prints and manuscripts. Among them is a 150-plate book on four-legged animals of North America by American artist John James Audubon.

Priced at €950,000, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America is the most expensive book at the fair. The author was also famous for The Birds of America which was sold at $11.5m at a Christie’s auction in 2000.

A first edition of The Middle East in Early Photographs by English photographer Francis Frith is another valuable book displayed at the Inlibris stand. With a price tag of €450,000, the first edition of Frith’s mammoth work is one of the most renowned 19th century photo books. Only twenty of these albums were made. The 19th century work contains twenty photos depicting some Middle Eastern cities.

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From the British Library

Roly Keating, Chief Executive of the British Library will today argue for renewed and sustained investment in the UK’s knowledge infrastructure, as he launches Living Knowledge, an ambitious vision of the Library’s future as it looks towards its 50th anniversary in 2023.

Living Knowledge sets out a vision of the British Library as an open, creative and innovative institution, committed to supporting research, culture and growth in the UK.  It defines the Library’s enduring public purposes – in custodianship, research, business, culture, learning and international relations – and makes the case for its growing importance at the heart of the UK’s national system of knowledge and innovation, at a time of transformation in technology and data science.

Roly Keating commented: " Living Knowledge argues that the British Library is a visionary idea whose full potential is only just beginning to be realised as we fully enter the digital age.  The UK’s continuing success in a globalised world depends upon the freest possible flow of ideas, inspiration and information, and libraries – not just the national library, but the whole, inter-connecting network of public and academic libraries across the UK – are the vital enabler of that."

The British Library will embark on a new generation of major projects, working with partners across the UK and internationally, that will support its mission to make our intellectual heritage accessible to everyone, for research, inspiration and enjoyment.  These projects include digitally preserving the nation’s 6.5 million sound recording, extending the successful Business & IP Centres to 20 UK city libraries, and growing the diversity of the Library’s cultural and learning programmes onsite and online in ways that reach more people across the UK.

Roly Keating added: “The genius of the British Library’s founders was to combine an Enlightenment heritage with a determination to keep pace with research and science in all its forms.  Now the Library has to adapt to enable people to use technology and data to create new things with our collections and drive knowledge and growth creation in the 21st century.”

“These are times of historic disruption in the whole global system of information and publication,” he concluded, “it therefore seems right that the great knowledge institutions – with their historic remit to think and act with a view far into the future – should play a full part in shaping the changes that lie ahead.”

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