Bookseller Portraits

For the inaugural West Cork Rare Book Fair in August 2022 we are welcoming some of the world’s most influential antiquarian bookdealers; exhibiting some of the most remarkable Books, Maps, Ephemera & Manuscripts ever on display for purchase on the Emerald Isle. Here below are portraits of some of the sellers attending, a few selected images of rare items we can expect and special Fair-catalogues with highlights they are bringing.

Exhibitors portraits:

• Antiquariaat Forum / Asher Rare Books
• Geata Buidhe Books (Joe Doyle)
• Hinck & Wall Rare Books / viaLibri
• Inanna Rare Books
• ITHYS PRESS / HOUYHNHNM PRESS
• Jim Cooney Rare Books
• Maggs Bros. Ltd. Rare Books & Manuscripts
• Schull Books

---

Antiquariaat Forum / Asher Rare Books

It is our great pleasure to welcome Laurens Hesselink, easily one of the world’s most exciting bookdealers, to the West Cork Rare Book Fair. Laurens is running in second Generation one of the world’s leading enterprises in the World of Rare Books, Maps & Atlases and Hand-Coloured Plate Books. His stock consists of the utmost rarest publications in the fields of Travel & Exploration, Art & Architecture, Botany, Science & Technology, Natural History etc.

If you miss this event, your next chance to see items like those he is bringing to this Fair, you will need to travel to a Fair in London, New York or Dubai. Laurens is not simply continuing a business his father started five decades ago but he is passionate and driven and brings the Extraordinary Cultural History of his extremely valuable stock to Fairs all over the World. Don’t miss this !

We can assure you there will be Books on display by Laurens Hesselink and his Antiquariaat Forum, which you never knew existed beyond the walls of Museums.

About Antiquariaat Forum / Asher Rare Books:
https://www.forumrarebooks.com/about.html

PDF-Catalogue with Items selected by Laurens Hesselink
for the West Cork Rare Book Fair

Images on Antiquariaat Forum and their location in The Netherlands:

 

---

 

Geata Buidhe Books (Joe Doyle)

Joe Doyle’s dabbling in books goes back many years. Initially he collected books that had a bearing on the various research projects he was involved in. The advent of online purchasing prompted him to consider this as a means of disposing of books that he no longer required. This resulted in him, along with his late wife, Cáit signing up with AbeBooks in 2007 and also becoming involved in exhibiting at book fairs throughout the country.

The name they gave their business – Geata Buidhe Books – is not one with which everyone feels comfortable! Joe has lived practically all his life in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. In medieval times it was a walled town with five gates, none of which now survive. One of those gates, the site of which was just outside the house where the Doyle family lived, was known as the Geata Buidhe – or Yellow Gate. It seemed an obvious name for the business!

Geata Buidhe Books primarily stocks publications of Irish interest – second-hand, out of print and antiquarian, along with modern academic works. The subject matter is predominantly Irish history – political, military, cultural (including Irish language), social and religious.

One of Joe’s abiding interests is the history of Irish education. Based on research for an M.A. and Ph.D., he brought out a book in 2020 questioning the efficacy of teacher training in the country’s twenty-nine model schools during the nineteenth century.

Something for you, something for everyone!

Images of Items selected
for the West Cork Rare Book Fair

 

---

 

Hinck & Wall Rare Books

Ann Marie Wall and Jim Hinck have been booksellers for over 40 years. They opened a bookshop in Newport, Rhode Island (USA) in 1979. Their first and best known specialty was early and rare books on the history of gardens, landscape architecture and horticulture. Following later relocations to Washington, DC; and Paris France, they are now located in Cambridge, England, where they operate online and from private premises.

Ann Marie’s & Jim’s specialties now include a variety of subjects, mostly related, in one way or another, to design and applied arts. As a passport carrying descendant of Irish emigrants to America, Ann Marie has also slowly moved from being a collector of Irish books and Ephemera to a (sometimes reluctant) dealer.

You will find the website of Hinck & Wall under https://www.hinckandwall.com

PDF-Catalogue with Items selected
for the West Cork Rare Book Fair

Images from the catalogue of Hinck & Wall Rare Books:

viaLibri

Another related enterprise was begun by Jim Hinck in 2006 with the launch of viaLibri.net, an ecommerce website for Bibliophiles. By bringing together the online inventory of over 145 bookselling websites, large and small, it has now grown to be the world’s largest search engine for old, rare and collectible books.

Jim Hinck will be in attendance at this year’s West Cork Rare Book Fair with the special goal of demonstrating how not only bookdealers but also private collectors or even anyone who accidently inherits books, can use viaLibri.net, this powerful search tool, to find rare books and specialist bookdealers, learn about values, compare values and conditions and make informed decisions when buying and selling single books or building whole collections.

 

---

 

Inanna Rare Books

Inanna Rare Books from Skibbereen, is organizing this inaugural “West Cork Rare Book Fair” and hopes to turn it into an annual event for dealers and collectors alike.

Please visit our Reader’s Garden and Bookshop by appointment throughout the year and send us your email-address so we can inform you about Readings, Concerts and Talks in our Garden !

Inanna Rare Books is dedicated to source important publications, works of art, manuscripts & maps and bring them to a wider audience of collector’s, readers and simply everyone who appreciates the meaningfulness of cultural heritage.

Inanna Rare Books is not only buying and selling rare books, pamphlets, maps & manuscript material but also building bespoke libraries & special collections for every budget.

We invite our clients to let us help them finding rare books for their private collections as much as we would be happy to assist in finding an unforgettable gift for a special occasion or a special person.

We are on a path of rescuing, preserving, restoring, rebinding meaningful books, artefacts of paper, original materials on paper & ephemera.

Inanna Rare Books is cooperating with seasoned bookbinders, professional providers of archival materials, bookdealers, historians & collectors all over the world.

Catalogue with Items selected
for the West Cork Rare Book Fair

 

---

 

ITHYS PRESS / HOUYHNHNM PRESS

ITHYS PRESS was founded in 2011 by Stacey Herbert and Danis Rose with the aim of bringing together international book-artists, illustrators, and editors, to produce—in the tradition of livres d’art—unique editions of previously unknown works by outstanding modern wordsmiths. Each Ithys book represents the artistic, intellectual, and aesthetic collaboration of highly skilled and committed artisans. Our intention is to promote the fine art of printing by marrying texts of significant cultural value with original images and artistic expression through the medium of the book. We have had the tremendous privilege of working with: Michael Caine, book artist and letterpress printer of Atelier de la Cerisaie, Paris; Casey Sorrow, American cartoonist, illustrator and printmaker; Antonio Vélez Celemín, paper marbler, artist, and teacher at Madrid University; Chistopher Rowlett, bookbinder, marbler, teacher, and founder of the Presteigne Bindery, Wales; Tom Duffy, fourth-generation Dublin bookbinder; and the late Seamus Deane, poet, novelist, professor, and founding director of Field Day.

We are especially keen to work with literary scholars and literary estates desirous of seeing into print fine-press editions of newly discovered, previously unpublished, or newly edited works by modernist and contemporary writers. To such an end, we encourage scholars, archivists, and curators to contact us with ideas for new publications.

Houyhnhnm Press was founded in 1997 by Danis Rose, Antony Farrell, and Paul Kegan. Its impetus was the publication of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake in editions that unite critically edited texts with finely printed and designed volumes. Houyhnhnm is the publisher of landmark editions of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. In 2010, it produced the first critically emended and completely reset edition of Finnegans Wake since the work’s original publication in 1939. Edited by Danis Rose and John O’Hanlon, designed by Martino Mardersteig, set in the Dante Val typeface, and printed offset and bound by Stamperia Valdonega, Verona for Houyhnhnm Press, Dublin. This First Edition is limited to a Special Issue consisting of 26 Lettered, 150 Numbered and 24 Hors Commerce copies printed on Magnani Mould made paper and hardbound in black calfskin; and a Trade Issue of 800 copies printed on Arcoprint and hardbound in black Imitlin and presented in a grey card slipcase. The text of this edition, now the accepted standard text, has been reproduced by the Folio Society, with illustrations by John Vernon Lord, and by Penguin Classics.

Gallery of Items selected for the West Cork Rare Book Fair:

 

---

 

Jim Cooney Rare Books

If you ever actually stopped in the bustling market-town of Macroom on your way to Killarney, you get rewarded by a visit to Jim Cooney’s bookshop.

Impossible not to find something interesting and affordable and you always walk away with more books than you wanted to buy.

With a very interesting mix of second-hand and some very rare books, Jim, one of the true gentlemen of Irish bookselling, will be part of this year’s West Cork Rare Bookfair and we are grateful for his attendance.

PDF-Catalogue with Items selected
for the West Cork Rare Book Fair

Gallery of Items selected for the West Cork Rare Book Fair:

 

---

 

Maggs Bros. Ltd.
Rare Books & Manuscripts

Ed Maggs was the first professional bookdealer who followed our invitation to the inaugural West Cork Book Fair for which the organizers of the fair are extremely grateful. Two Generations of Maggs (Ed and his son Ben) will bring some very fine items from their stock (see below).

Maggs Bros. is not only one of the world’s oldest bookshops (established in 1853) still operating in London today but also one of the most trusted and finest addresses in the very ambiguous world of the words “Rare”, “Scarce” and “Valuable”. Show something you believe to be rare to Ed Maggs and a little while later you know it was not so rare after all. Ed’s more than 30 years of personal experience within the antiquarian trade, his specialist knowledge on T.E.Lawrence, the Fine Irish Literature, Rare Books & Manuscripts they offer, will be a delight to welcome on the weekend of the Book Fair.

About Maggs Bros. and their business today: https://www.maggs.com/about/

About the History of Maggs Bros.: https://www.maggs.com/media/2530515/history.pdf

PDF-Catalogue with Items selected
for the West Cork Rare Book Fair

The Watercolours of Louisa Tighe - Woodstock - County Kilkenny
(Original 19th century Album)

Gallery of Items selected for the West Cork Rare Book Fair & Images on Maggs Bros. and their location in London:

 

---

 

Schull Books

One of Ireland’s most beloved and important antiquarian bookdealer and Facsimile / Reprint – Publisher, is “Schull Books” from Ballydehob in West Cork.

Established in 1980 by Barbara O’Connell and her late husband, Jack O’Connell, Schull Books has been not only selling rare and out-of-print books in Ireland but Barbara and Jack alike are responsible for decades of professionally organized bookfairs in Ireland.

Their tireless efforts of organizing several monthly or annual gatherings of second-hand and rare book dealers, have given all members of this profession, from all over Ireland, a platform to showcase their stock and gain new clients.

It is therefore a great honour to welcome Barbara O’Connell to the inaugural West Cork Rare Bookfair and as you will see from the selection of books she is listing here, visitors to the Fair can look forward to some very rare and unusual publications.

PDF-Catalogue with Items selected
for the West Cork Rare Book Fair

Gallery of Items selected for the West Cork Rare Book Fair: