Catalogus Novus nundinarum Autumnalium Francofurti ad Moenum, anno M. D. XCV. celebratarum: eorum scilicet librorum, qui hoc semestri partim omnino novi, partim denuo vel forma, vel loco, à prioribus editionibus diversi, vel accessione aliqua locupletiores, in lucem prodierunt, & his Nundinis fuerunt expositi.
Typographical device on title. [12] (of 14) leaves, lacking the final two leaves. Small 4to, attractive antique calf-backed marbled boards. Frankfurt am Main: J. Saur, [1595].
An incomplete copy, lacking the final two leaves, of the autumn 1595 catalogue of the Frankfurt Book Fair issued by Portenbach; WorldCat locates no copy in North America. These fair catalogues created a revolution for the book trade. They were the best and, indeed, only source from which scholars and booksellers could discover when and by whom any particular book had been published.
The “catalogues represent the first international bibliographies of a periodic character, attempting to list every six months all new publications issued in Europe, and they can be considered the prototype of today’s Books in Print. The books are arranged by subject; for the first time, place, publisher, and date are always mentioned.”–Grolier Club, Bibliography, 24.
Georg Willer issued the first Frankfurt Book Fair catalogue in 1564. It enjoyed great success and soon attracted competitors. The first to issue rival fair catalogues were the Augsburg booksellers Portenbach and Lutz, who published a series from the spring of 1577 until the spring of 1590, when the two partners fell out. They went their separate ways, each continuing to publish Frankfurt book fair catalogues, still in competition with Willer.
Fine copy.
❧ Graham Pollard, The Distribution of Books by Catalogue (1965), Chapter III.
Price: $1,500.00
Item ID: 7442
