Out of Print and Into Profit

A history of the rare and second-hand book trade in Great Britain in the 20th Century.Out of Print & Into Profit is a fitting monument to the ABA. Most rare-book aficionados will find something of interest in this collection.The Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) celebrated its centennial in 2006 and published this dense and excellent collection of essays to commemorate the anniversary. Most of the authors belong to the organization, which counts among its members the most venerable dealers in the United Kingdom. Giles Mandelbrote, the editor and a curator at the British Library, wisely solicited essays from other librarians, auctioneers, scholars, and even a magazine editor or two, and their commentaries leaven the mix.In the introduction, Mandelbrote gives a nice overview of the socioeconomic forces that drove the English trade during its golden age in the nineteenth century. This serves as a prologue to the book's focus, which is the trade in the twentieth century. The Internet has not yet completely transformed British bookselling in the way it has revolutionized the business of books in the United States, so it is perhaps appropriate that this anthology deliberately keeps its focus on the pre-Internet era. That editorial decision, while understandable, makes Out of Print an elegy for the past more than an analysis of the present or a prediction of the future.As with all such collections, the quality of the essays-twenty-two in number-varies widely. A few are no more than annotated lists in narrative form recording the names of memorable bookstores or catalogers. The best essays, however, offer a balance of personal experience, well-researched history, and that ineffable quality of anecdotal reminiscence that falls under the mystical rubric of lore.