Our New December Catalog-

The Book Elves love decorating for Christmas, and they love seeing the big, 80-foot maples out front strung with brightly colored lights. But after last year's unfortunate 'incident' with the rented cherry picker and the power lines, they knew they had to come up with an alternate method of stringing them.

The Book Elves are nothing if not resourceful (or ever-so-slightly addled) and so they trundled on down to our local Radio Shack and bought a radio-controlled airplane and two-dozen boxes of new light strings. It was a simple enough idea- a radio-controlled airplane flies as high as the trees and is, by definition, “controllable”. It is also quite powerful enough to attach a few strands of Christmas lights to, and so they did, and away the plane went, round and round the tree.

Personally, I have always found it a pity that some of the Book Elves more unusual and interesting ideas usually turn out to have completely unexpected consequences, especially for unsuspecting bystanders...

But before they hog-tied the neighborhood carolers (and their dog) to a tree with sixteen strands of “Merry Christmas Blinking Frosty Lights”(tm), the Book Elves finished our latest catalog-

Catalog #309: RECENT ACQUISITIONS & OTHER INTERESTING BOOKS ON ANTIQUES & THE ARTS, DECEMBER, 2007, features 217 books and catalogs on antique furniture, silver, ceramics, glass, textiles, folk art, and many related topics.

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE-

-Barber's scarce 1893 catalog of American ceramics

-Several nice early 19th century miniaturist's manuals

-A nice 1873 Elkington Silver & Electroplate catalog

-A very scarce Henry Wood Erving pamphlet

-A superlative copy of French's 1879 'Art and Artists in Connecticut'

-The book issued at the 1925 opening of the American Wing, limited to 500 copies

-A scarce 1884 book on electric lighting in the home

-A copy of Isham's 1928 'Early American Houses', one of 35 copies on rag paper

-A scarce 1816 pamphlet describing the Piccadilly exhibition of Napoelon's captured personal carriage and its luxurious contents

-An 1898 monograph on woollen fabrics of the Oudh provice of India

-A unique court exhibition of old British sherry labels, used in the noted 1967 case of Vine Products v. Mackenzie

-An important 1925 pictorial survey of Art Deco in France by Henry Van de Velde

and much more!

The catalog is posted online.

We also have printed copies available. Please send us your address if you would like a free copy.