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A Book of Booksellers: Conversations with the Antiquarian Book Trade, with an Introduction by Nicolas Barker.

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First paperback edition of the first collection of Markham’s interviews with antiquarian booksellers.

The last resort of the English eccentric, the antiquarian book trade is rich in colourful and entertaining characters. Since 1991 Sheila Markham has been interviewing some of its most influential figures. Fifty of these conversations, in which leading dealers speak frankly about their life and work, are recorded here.

A significant contribution to the literature of book trade history, A Book of Booksellers will also appeal to the general reader with an interest in rare books and bookselling – perhaps the most humane, sociable, ill-organized, yet absorbing form of commerce to be found anywhere.

‘An invaluable mine of fact, anecdote, memoires, few lies and no statistics. Thank God for all the persons that Sheila Markham has immortalised, and all the rest that she has yet to reach.’ – Nicolas Barker, The Book Collector

‘This is the most instructive book about the antiquarian book trade that has appeared for years.’ – Frank Herrmann, Rare Book Review

The 2004 hardback, limited to five hundred copies, quickly sold out. A Second Book of Booksellers and A Third Book of Booksellers are also available.

ISBN 978-1-58456-207-8.

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