- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (30 April 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 081099299X
- ISBN-13: 978-0810992993
- Product Dimensions: 27.4 x 25.1 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 316,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
 Trade In this Item for up to £5.45
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Miniature Books: 4, 000 Years of Tiny Treasures for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £5.45, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Miniature books, most of which are less than three inches (76.2mm) tall and some almost too small to see, have delighted readers for centuries. Popular because they were easily carried or concealed, these historic books range from tiny thumb bibles to illustrated nursery rhymes. They can be traced back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, before the invention of printing, when text was handwritten and pictures painted. With the development of the printing press, thinner paper and smaller typefaces, the number of miniature books published increased. Little books served very practical purposes: holding information in easily portable and compact spaces. Nobles, nuns, priests, students and lay persons found it easier to travel with miniature books tucked into pockets or attached to girdles and belts. Painters enjoyed the challenge of making them with extravagant bindings of tortoise shell, leather, sterling silver, embroidery and vellums. Napoleon had a miniature traveling set of Shakespeare's plays. The miniature books found with in this title are drawn from a private collection of over 15,000 books. It is published in association with the Grolier Club, New York.
About the Author
Anne C. Bromer is the owner of the prestigious Boston-based Bromer Booksellers, specialising in rare and miniature books. She writes on a variety of subject related to books and bookmaking. Julian I. Edison is a St. Louis industrialist and avid miniature book collector who recently endowed a reading room at Harvard University.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Miniature books, those tiny treasure measuring not over three inches in height, length or width, have fascinated for some 4,000 years. Some of these books as those exhibited recently in Toledo, Spain, are so small that they can only be seen through a magnifying glass. Current prices for these books vary, and some dealers specialize in them. Today, there is a miniature book society, an international non-profit organization, providing a forum for collectors and interested parties.
Now, everything you wanted to know and more is available in this compact, beautifully illustrated volume by rare book dealer Anne C. Bromer and collector Julian I. Edison. The book is dedicated to Stanley Marcus, an avid collector of miniature books and contains a foreword by him in which he said that miniature book collecting gave him the greatest pleasure. He also noted that these small volumes "enlarged my field of knowledge to a wide variety of subjects ranging from pornography to philosophy, religious topics to small books for children." And so it is for aficionados.
Richly illustrated, Miniature Books includes chapters devoted to illuminated manuscripts, religious topics, politics, children's literature, and more. In addition, there are listings of sources for miniature books as well as mention of those in libraries.
Author Bromer notes that she first laid eyes on miniature books some 35 years ago and has been entranced with them since them. So have many - enjoy!
- Gail Cooke
Now, everything you wanted to know and more is available in this compact, beautifully illustrated volume by rare book dealer Anne C. Bromer and collector Julian I. Edison. The book is dedicated to Stanley Marcus, an avid collector of miniature books and contains a foreword by him in which he said that miniature book collecting gave him the greatest pleasure. He also noted that these small volumes "enlarged my field of knowledge to a wide variety of subjects ranging from pornography to philosophy, religious topics to small books for children." And so it is for aficionados.
Richly illustrated, Miniature Books includes chapters devoted to illuminated manuscripts, religious topics, politics, children's literature, and more. In addition, there are listings of sources for miniature books as well as mention of those in libraries.
Author Bromer notes that she first laid eyes on miniature books some 35 years ago and has been entranced with them since them. So have many - enjoy!
- Gail Cooke
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
What I found delightful in this survey were the books from the recent past. Obviously the authors rightly cover historical items (and with beautiful photos, too) but books right up to the turn of the new century are included.
Some of these really look beautiful like the 1988 colourful polycarbonate covers from Maurice Dufrene's `Florilegium' or the wraparound cover to Frank Dobie's 1979 `White Mustang', created with several different leathers. Both books are only two and a half inches tall.
The nine chapters, in words and images, give an overview of tiny tomes and it was nice to see that most of the books features are displayed actual size. Perhaps missing from the text was a brief description of how many of the books were printed. There is an interesting photo on page 106 of an uncut sheet from 1752 `London Almanack' showing twenty pages (and a gatefold of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Palace) which were no problem to print but the precision was in the binding such small items, if the craftsmen were a fraction out part of a page could easily be missing. Judging by the amount of commercially printed books included from the last hundred or so years binding machinery can easily handle small pages.
The last chapter covers oddities including a 1991 German medical companies little book with a dummy heart pacemaker as part of the package. A sidebar is devoted to hidden paintings, printed or individually artist painted, on the fanned out fore pages. `A Small Book of Flies' printed in 1983 includes actual fishing flies (under a piece of glass) in a book two and three quarter inches by one and three quarters.
It is this coverage of books besides the usual fine art ones that made the book come alive for me. Incidentally the production is first class, with gold blocking on three sides (when was the last time you saw that on a book?) printed in 175dpi screen and a handy silk bookmark.
Some of these really look beautiful like the 1988 colourful polycarbonate covers from Maurice Dufrene's `Florilegium' or the wraparound cover to Frank Dobie's 1979 `White Mustang', created with several different leathers. Both books are only two and a half inches tall.
The nine chapters, in words and images, give an overview of tiny tomes and it was nice to see that most of the books features are displayed actual size. Perhaps missing from the text was a brief description of how many of the books were printed. There is an interesting photo on page 106 of an uncut sheet from 1752 `London Almanack' showing twenty pages (and a gatefold of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Palace) which were no problem to print but the precision was in the binding such small items, if the craftsmen were a fraction out part of a page could easily be missing. Judging by the amount of commercially printed books included from the last hundred or so years binding machinery can easily handle small pages.
The last chapter covers oddities including a 1991 German medical companies little book with a dummy heart pacemaker as part of the package. A sidebar is devoted to hidden paintings, printed or individually artist painted, on the fanned out fore pages. `A Small Book of Flies' printed in 1983 includes actual fishing flies (under a piece of glass) in a book two and three quarter inches by one and three quarters.
It is this coverage of books besides the usual fine art ones that made the book come alive for me. Incidentally the production is first class, with gold blocking on three sides (when was the last time you saw that on a book?) printed in 175dpi screen and a handy silk bookmark.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
8 reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Wee wonders
19 Jun 2007
Format:Hardcover
What I found delightful in this survey were the books from the recent past. Obviously the authors rightly cover historical items (and with beautiful photos, too) but books right up to the turn of the new century are included.
Some of these really look beautiful like the 1988 colorful polycarbonate covers from Maurice Dufrene's `Florilegium' or the wraparound cover to Frank Dobie's 1979 `White Mustang', created with several different leathers. Both books are only two and a half inches tall.
The nine chapters, in words and images, give an overview of tiny tomes and it was nice to see that most of the books features are displayed actual size. Perhaps missing from the text was a brief description of how many of the books were printed. There is an interesting photo on page 106 of an uncut sheet from 1752 `London Almanack' showing twenty pages (and a gatefold of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Palace) which were no problem to print but the precision was in the binding such small items, if the craftsmen were a fraction out part of a page could easily be missing. Judging by the amount of commercially printed books included from the last hundred or so years binding machinery can handle small pages easily.
The last chapter covers oddities including a 1991 German medical companies little book with a dummy heart pacemaker as part of the package. A sidebar is devoted to hidden paintings, printed or individually artist painted, on the fanned out fore pages. `A Small Book of Flies' printed in 1983 includes actual fishing flies (under a piece of glass) in a book two and three quarter inches by one and three quarters.
It is this coverage of books besides the usual fine art ones that made the book come alive for me. Incidentally the production is first class, with gold blocking on three sides (when was the last time you saw that on a book?) printed in 175dpi screen and a handy silk bookmark.
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
Some of these really look beautiful like the 1988 colorful polycarbonate covers from Maurice Dufrene's `Florilegium' or the wraparound cover to Frank Dobie's 1979 `White Mustang', created with several different leathers. Both books are only two and a half inches tall.
The nine chapters, in words and images, give an overview of tiny tomes and it was nice to see that most of the books features are displayed actual size. Perhaps missing from the text was a brief description of how many of the books were printed. There is an interesting photo on page 106 of an uncut sheet from 1752 `London Almanack' showing twenty pages (and a gatefold of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Palace) which were no problem to print but the precision was in the binding such small items, if the craftsmen were a fraction out part of a page could easily be missing. Judging by the amount of commercially printed books included from the last hundred or so years binding machinery can handle small pages easily.
The last chapter covers oddities including a 1991 German medical companies little book with a dummy heart pacemaker as part of the package. A sidebar is devoted to hidden paintings, printed or individually artist painted, on the fanned out fore pages. `A Small Book of Flies' printed in 1983 includes actual fishing flies (under a piece of glass) in a book two and three quarter inches by one and three quarters.
It is this coverage of books besides the usual fine art ones that made the book come alive for me. Incidentally the production is first class, with gold blocking on three sides (when was the last time you saw that on a book?) printed in 175dpi screen and a handy silk bookmark.
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
GOOD THINGS DO COME IN SMALL PACKAGES !
13 May 2007
Format:Hardcover
Miniature books, those tiny treasure measuring not over three inches in height, length or width, have fascinated for some 4,000 years. Some of these books as those exhibited recently in Toledo, Spain, are so small that they can only be seen through a magnifying glass. Current prices for these books vary, and some dealers specialize in them. Today, there is a miniature book society, an international non-profit organization, providing a forum for collectors and interested parties.
Now, everything you wanted to know and more is available in this compact, beautifully illustrated volume by rare book dealer Anne C. Bromer and collector Julian I. Edison. The book is dedicated to Stanley Marcus, an avid collector of miniature books and contains a foreword by him in which he said that miniature book collecting gave him the greatest pleasure. He also noted that these small volumes "enlarged my field of knowledge to a wide variety of subjects ranging from pornography to philosophy, religious topics to small books for children." And so it is for aficionados.
Richly illustrated, Miniature Books includes chapters devoted to illuminated manuscripts, religious topics, politics, children's literature, and more. In addition, there are listings of sources for miniature books as well as mention of those in libraries.
Author Bromer notes that she first laid eyes on miniature books some 35 years ago and has been entranced with them since them. So have many - enjoy!
- Gail Cooke
Now, everything you wanted to know and more is available in this compact, beautifully illustrated volume by rare book dealer Anne C. Bromer and collector Julian I. Edison. The book is dedicated to Stanley Marcus, an avid collector of miniature books and contains a foreword by him in which he said that miniature book collecting gave him the greatest pleasure. He also noted that these small volumes "enlarged my field of knowledge to a wide variety of subjects ranging from pornography to philosophy, religious topics to small books for children." And so it is for aficionados.
Richly illustrated, Miniature Books includes chapters devoted to illuminated manuscripts, religious topics, politics, children's literature, and more. In addition, there are listings of sources for miniature books as well as mention of those in libraries.
Author Bromer notes that she first laid eyes on miniature books some 35 years ago and has been entranced with them since them. So have many - enjoy!
- Gail Cooke
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
A work of impressive scholarship and research
3 Jun 2007
Format:Hardcover
Rare book dealer Anne C. Bromer teams up with scholarly bibliophile and book collector Julian I. Edison (who for more than 40 years has served as the editor of 'Miniature Book News') to present "Miniature Books: 4,000 Years Of Tiny Treasure". This is an elegantly illustrated, 216-page compendium showcasing tiny books showcased in an exhibition at The Grolier Club which, founded in 1884, is America's oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts. Featuring more than 260 full-color photographic illustrations of miniature books (being 3 inches or smaller in size) from around the world, the examples proffered range from Shakeseare's plays, to Christian bibles, to children's books, to all manner of fiction. Some of these are gemmed, tooled, locked, illuminated, and a few are illustrated by such legendary artists as Picasso, Miro, and Gorey. A work of impressive scholarship and research by Bromer and Edison, "Miniature Books" is a bibliophile's treat and would make a superb Memorial Fund acquisition selection for academic and community library collections.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
