The Blog

Let’s Burn Our Books… We Have the Internet

On Thursday, February 19, 2026, amid the relentless stream of articles that appear daily online, one headline caught my attention: “Let’s Burn Our Books: The Posturing of Those with the Biggest Libraries.” Published in El Mundo, a major Spanish center-right newspaper, the article is signed by Iñako Díaz-Guerra: journalist born in 1977, graduate in journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid, head of the paper’s Sports section, whose biographical note on the newspaper’s website specifies that he “spends quite a bit of time writing forewords for books written by others, because he feels a dreadful laziness about writing one himself.”

The subtitle sets the tone: “Why do we grant books a higher status than other cultural products? If your answer is anything other than ‘pure posturing,’ you are lying — or lying to yourself.”

Since those are the only two options, according to Don Iñako, I must confess that I have spent most of my life lying to myself. I grew up surrounded by books; I learned to think, to feel, and to express myself with them; and I made it my profession to gather as many as possible before dispersing them to other posturers like myself, who were probably just as unaware.

You will have understood by now that I am not a neutral observer. I do not accumulate books to match a shelf with the color of a wall. But rather than taking part in the debate about the supposed posturing of book lovers and library owners (whatever the size of their shelves), it is above all the invitation to “burn our books” that prompted me to react.

Such an invitation has, indeed, something slightly nauseating about it. For the bookseller that I am, in today’s world — which sometimes seems ready to assume (wrongly, I hasten to add) a future from which the book would have disappeared — the untroubled call to burn those that remain takes on the air of a rather sadistic persistence!

So, posturing and vanity? Please leave us your reflections. Without matches!

Travelers of History: When Napoleon Takes a Seat on Your Suitcase

Travel, travel... If there's one human activity that characterizes our century, it might just be that. Never before have so many people traveled, every month of the year and across all continents, travelers of all walks of life and all ages each pursuing their own adventure.

I travel quite a bit myself, for the management of the bookstore: buying old books, displaying them at international fairs, meeting clients, etc. And it is by traveling in this way with my books – like a modern-day peddler - that I've realized that the real travelers, in fact, are the books themselves!

It is generally impossible to trace the journey of a book from the time it left the press several centuries ago to the present day. But if we just follow their path since their addition to the bookstore's inventory, I can assure you that often their mileage counter could rival that of the most seasoned globetrotters. True, they mostly don't have a stamped passport. Still, there probably aren't many man-made objects (except for those whose very purpose is travel, like suitcases, right Mr. Vuitton?...) that can compete with their wanderings across our planet.

This will surely raise the eyebrows of more than one eco-conscious citizen: think about the carbon footprint of these venerable volumes doing intercontinental tourism from one book fair to another, like influencers jumping from one fine sandy beach to the next! But the defense attorney has pointed out the following:

The carbon footprint of these grandfathers is totally green since for most of their existence they have traveled only on the back of a man (your servant, the peddler), by horse, cart, or sailing ship.

They are entirely handmade from natural materials.

They are monuments of history, "eyewitnesses" to our past, the legacy of our civilization, messengers of the centuries, and iconic fetishes of our culture. Do you know many hand-made monuments from natural materials, often weighing less than a kilogram and fitting in the palm of your hand?

Anyway... imagine that I had a car breakdown last week. I was right in the heart of a magnificent French region, Lozère! And it was by train that I had to continue my journey with my gear, my suitcase, and my bags of books. They were the least stressed of the whole team! They had seen it all before... Look at how proud this precious document signed by Napoleon looks, patiently waiting for the train on the platform!

One train may hide another, so here is a subsidiary question: since books are made to travel, what do you think about laws that aim to limit their circulation under the pretext of heritage defense? Do books belong to a territory? Should they have a passport that might prevent them from crossing borders?

Have a great weekend, everyone!

August at Sotheran’s and Comellas Rare Books: an open-book operation

This summer, our bookshop is pleased to present an original initiative, born from friendly exchanges between two independent houses sharing the same taste for rare books: Henry Sotheran Ltd, in London, and Comellas Livres Rares, in Paris and Barcelona.

This is not a major event, but rather a mutual nod between booksellers: each has chosen a few titles from their own shelves to introduce to the other’s clientele.
The books do not change place (which is perhaps just as well, in these times of great summer migrations), but they travel differently — through words, images, and shared curiosity.

A natural meeting

This initiative was imagined by Chris Saunders, Director of Collections at Sotheran’s, whom we have the pleasure of knowing. Here is how he presents himself:

Henry Sotheran Ltd was founded in 1761 and is the oldest antiquarian bookseller in Europe. Over the years we've dealt with highlights such as Charles Dickens's library, the Warwick Castle Shakespeare Library for the Folger collection, and the world's most valuable binding, an Omar Khayyam that went down with the Titanic.

In our most modern iteration we operate from premises in the heart of London's rare book quarter and deal in a wide range of subjects but with special interests in literature, natural history, travel and the avant-garde.

Julien has been dealing mainly with Chris Saunders, Director of Collections at Sotheran's, whose twenty-one years of service are the blink of an eye in such an old company. His specialisms are science and natural history but, like everyone at Sotheran's, he finds his attention can be grabbed by anything rare and beautiful. There are always new discoveries to be made, which is why he began book dealing in the first place and hasn't been able to give it up.

A shared selection

At Comellas, we have therefore chosen to briefly highlight a handful of books from Sotheran’s shelves, which we found worthy of interest — for their content, their history, or their beauty.

And in turn, a few books from our own collection will be presented to their readers, in store or online, as a small sample of our work.

A modest but genuine exchange

This initiative does not aim to revolutionise bibliophily, but simply to remind us that bookshops are also places of dialogue and circulation. Showcasing the choices of a fellow bookseller, highlighting a book from elsewhere, is a discreet way of opening another door for curious readers.

We therefore invite you to discover below a short selection of titles chosen in London, and we hope that this collaboration, unpretentious but driven by a genuine pleasure in sharing, will spark your interest.

SOTHERAN'S & COMELLAS: A COLLABORATION

For any enquiry, please write to sotherans@livres-rares.com

On the Trail of the True Origin of Christopher Columbus...

Dear readers, faithful friends of this blog, prepare yourselves to dive into the twists and turns of history, to discover an enigma that has confronted and captivated historians for over five hundred years. Yes, you read that correctly, five hundred years! Tonight, a documentary broadcast for the first time on Spanish television promises to unveil one of the most fascinating mysteries in the history of exploration: the true origin of Christopher Columbus. Just that!

Imagine for a moment: it is 1795, a time of great turbulence and major political changes. The Treaty of Basel has just been signed, ceding the island of Hispaniola from Spain to France. It is in this context that the governor of Hispaniola, Joaquín García, decides to organize the repatriation of Columbus's ashes to Cuba, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the French.

The letter from García, of which a precious contemporary copy is offered for sale in our bookstore, informs his correspondent of the transfer of Columbus's remains, hitherto kept in the cathedral of Santo Domingo, to the Bay of Ocoa, from where they were shipped to Cuba. There, they found a new temporary home in the cathedral of Havana, until their final repatriation to Spain more than a century later, in 1898.

But the story does not end there. Tonight, on this October 12th, the anniversary of the discovery of America (which also became the Spanish national holiday), we might finally discover where this illustrious navigator truly came from. How? Well, through the study of the DNA of these mysterious remains that our letter mentions the transfer of. Was he really Genoese, as the official version claims, or was he Galician, Castilian, Basque, Catalan, or Portuguese, as others suggest? Or does the genetic study of his origins sweep away all the theories that have circulated until today? The answer from science to this centuries-old question will finally be revealed, and I don't know about you, but I am bursting with impatience!

What about you, dear readers, what do you think of all this? What are your beliefs regarding the origin of Christopher Columbus? Do you have any theories, any intuitions? Do not hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments. In a few hours, one of the greatest enigmas in history will be publicly unveiled! Prepare the popcorn, get comfortable, and join me in front of the TV. History, my friends, is about to be written!

Postscript (October 15): For those who are still unaware, the conclusions presented by this documentary categorically dismiss all existing theories about the origin of Christopher Columbus, except for one: that of Francesc Albardaner, former director of the Center for Columbian Studies in Barcelona, and author of a work titled "The Catalanity of Columbus," according to whom the great explorer was a Sephardic Jew originally from the Spanish Levant. The lack of scientific evidence (the scientific team has not released any technical data to date) and the presentation of the results in the form of a heavily staged documentary has already sparked numerous criticisms, and several internationally renowned geneticists have expressed their skepticism. The controversy is served! What does this inspire in you?

The 50 issues of L'Encyclopédie des Voyages

The "Encyclopédie des Voyages" by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur, initially published in issues and by subscription starting in 1792, represents a significant publishing venture and a unique cultural and historical testimony about the peoples of the world at the end of the 18th century. This work, illustrated with colorfully detailed engravings, stands out for its iconographic richness and the diversity of subjects covered, ranging from costumes to daily life, including religious traditions and the social practices of various peoples.

Born in Montreal and having arrived in France around 1785, Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur quickly established himself as a notable figure in the publishing world of his time. His ambition was to offer his contemporaries an open window to the world, presenting them with as complete a vision as possible of the different cultures inhabiting it. The Encyclopedia of Travels, with its three hundred and one finely colored engraved plates and detailed descriptions, undoubtedly represents the pinnacle of this ambition.

The work, rare in its original complete version with its fifty installments and covers printed on ochre paper, is a treasure for bibliophiles and historians. It immerses us in a universe where travel and the discovery of the Other were experienced through stories and illustrations, at a time when means of transport and communication were limited. The plates, of exceptional quality, offer a precise glimpse into the costumes, as well as the rites and customs of peoples from around the world, drawn from nature.

The "Encyclopédie des Voyages" is more than just a collection of engravings and descriptions; it is a bridge between cultures, a testament to the curiosity and open-mindedness of the Age of Enlightenment. It highlights the importance of knowledge sharing and mutual discovery among peoples, values that, more than two centuries after its publication, remain more relevant than ever. In summary, this work is a gem of French publishing and cultural history, continuing to inspire and fascinate those interested in the diversity of the human world.

Eléonore's letters

But what is this bundle of handwritten letters, filled with spelling mistakes and all adorned with wax seals and their colored silk ribbons? What treasure do we have here? Imagine, ladies and gentlemen, a collection of 43 handwritten letters, just like that! And not just any letters, as these are the correspondences addressed to her father by a figure of the high French nobility from the North of France, the Maréchale d'Hocquincourt herself!

Who exactly was this Maréchale d'Hocquincourt? Well, my friends, let me introduce Éléonore d'Estampes de Valençay, a woman with a destiny as fascinating as it is tumultuous. The daughter of Jacques d'Estampes, lord of Valençay and Happlaincourt, governor of Calais, she married in 1628 Charles de Monchy, Marquis d'Hocquincourt, Marshal of France, and governor general of Péronne, Montdidier, and Roye. Here is a characteristic marriage of the grand unions of that time, traditionally linking two great aristocratic families with converging interests.

These letters addressed to her father by Éléonore, before and after her marriage, invite us to experience her world for nearly twenty years. We discover a young girl full of innocence and childlike obedience, residing in Boran-sur-Oise. Then, over the letters, we see Éléonore grow and tackle more serious subjects, especially when she resides in Plainville or Paris. She talks about political rumors she hears, troop movements she observes, visits she receives, conflicts with her husband who abuses her dowry (what a horror!)... Ah, the joys of marriage!

But Éléonore doesn't just spread political rumors to her father or talk about her marital difficulties, no! She also conveys to the patriarch news about her family, especially the women who composed it. Her mother Louise Blondel de Joigny, her "life mother" (an appellation that probably refers to her nurse), her sister Charlotte, nun then abbess, her aunt, or family friends, etc. And she also reports information that could be useful to him in managing his affairs. One feels the importance of the role she plays in her family. And, married or not, it is invariably under her maiden name ("E. d'Estampes") that she signs her letters to her father, who annotates them as he receives them, indicating after her marriage her married name: "My daughter d'Hocquincourt." Just to make sure not to mess things up.

We can say it: Éléonore's life was not a long, quiet river. She was the mother of eight children, among whom... seven boys! Several of whom followed in the footsteps of their father and grandfather in the military career. And imagine that one day her husband decided (to please other women, they say) to betray the court of the King of France and join the Spanish in 1655... Nothing less! He ended up being killed in 1658 during the defense of Dunkirk for the Spanish, who held the city at that time. Widowed, Éléonore also had the misfortune of seeing two of her sons die in military operations, in 1665 and 1675. But she did not lose courage and launched a legal action in 1667 against the houses of Nesle and Montcavrel, to claim a sum owed to her. The Parliament almost immediately ruled in her favor, but the procedure seems to have been relaunched after her death in 1679... A true saga!

But back to our letters. They not only constitute a precious testimony to family life and the social role of women in the high French nobility but are also beautiful to read and... to look at! The wax seals, the colored silk ribbons, the handling of the French language, the formality with which they are imbued, and the charm of the formulas that Éléonore uses to express her feelings... everything is there to immerse us in the atmosphere of the time. And the spelling of these missives, practically nonexistent, does not reflect any negligence on the part of Léonore but rather her lack of academic training. This was still the case in her time for many women, regardless of their rank and condition. It only makes more moving these lines written to her father in the greatest ignorance of "aurtaugrafic" rules (which does not fail to attract her father's wrath).

In conclusion, dear readers, this collection of letters from the Maréchale d'Hocquincourt is a true historical treasure. They allow us to delve into the intimacy of a family of French warlords in the 17th century and unveil some realities of the lives of women within the sword nobility of that time. If you enjoy diving headfirst into documents that transport you several centuries back, at the risk of having a hard time coming back, Éléonore d'Estampes de Valençay is waiting for you... Feel free to write to her, we will forward the message !

Artificial Intelligence and Rare Books

Dear readers, the silence of this blog has lasted too long!

Since our latest exchanges, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge (notwithstanding the current drought in Europe). Yes, the dramatic days of sanitary confinement are long gone and The Love of Books in the Time of Covid-19, a section of this blog designed to make my (and your) isolation less painful, is already an old memory. But there is also the unparalleled frenzy of the modern world, which quickly replaces one anguish with another and which, after having sounded the tocsin in the four corners of the globe, has already moved on to many other things.

"Tempus fugit". One can wonder if it is time that is running away , or if it is not rather us.

As I speak, it is the so-called "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) that is in the news. The most famous of them, whose slightly robotic name seems to be feared to become as immortal as Plato's, Shakespeare's or Einstein's, has just been declared persona non grata in Italy - after having been banned from four countries well known for their unparalleled role as Usual Suspects in international politics: China, North Korea, Iran and Russia. Italy must be credited with courage - bordering on temerity - for joining such league. But it is not alone, in our democracies, in worrying about the progress of artificial intelligence. Almost at the same time, some well-known billionaires, and others less well known, have just signed a petition to demand the "temporary suspension" of artificial intelligence developments, on the grounds that it would threaten the balance of the world. One can only dream when one thinks of the place these gentlemen have taken in the flood of technologies that have purely and simply revolutionized our lives (and not always for the better) over the last thirty years.

This blog is not intended to be a militant forum and I hope that those of you who have a different perception of what I am talking about in the previous paragraph will forgive me for not being able to be their champion on this subject. Fortunately, my purpose is not to be polemical: I'd rather like to address a question on which I have a little more experience: the place of artificial intelligence in our world of bibliophiles.

The history of bibliographic science is that of a slow blossoming, allowing the passage from an almost indiscriminate list of books to the elaboration of extremely well-documented directories covering, in a more or less specific manner, a thousand aspects of old and rare books. Authors, themes, places and dates of printing, printing workshops, print runs and papers, illustrators, translators, bindings, origins, etc. The list is long, so vast is the universe of printed books since their origin.
For example, are you familiar with the National Union Catalogue? It is an extraordinary publishing project that lists all the books printed before 1956 that are in public and university preservation libraries in the United States. I remember when we used to consult it in the bookstore with a bulky, prehistoric microfiche reader that reproduced the entire seven hundred and fifty-four folio volumes of the printed edition.

Computer technology has made an invaluable contribution to this Benedictine effort to classify books. Today, thanks to the development of the Internet, not only can we consult many national union catalogs, offering a broader perspective than the National Union Catalog, but we can often search the contents of the books themselves. And now the irruption of artificial intelligence is expanding the possibilities induced by computing exponentially, bringing extremely significant advances to these research tools.
Indeed, character recognition, the detection of complex linguistic patterns and the shuffling of gigantic amounts of information, allow us today to make sensational discoveries that would have been impossible only a few years ago.

Two months ago, it was announced that an anonymous manuscript play kept in the National Library of Madrid was attributed to the great Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. This result was obtained with the help of several artificial intelligence tools, which were able to decipher the manuscript and compare it to their database of linguistic models.

At my humble level, I can only be pleased to see that the knowledge of old and rare books is acquiring new dimensions that open new doors. What can the opponents of artificial intelligence say about this? I find it a great pity, for my part, to think that with our conventional bibliographic tools this manuscript of Lope de Vega would still be sleeping, ignored by all, at the bottom of a reserve.

I have a little personal anecdote on the subject.

A few months ago, the Syndicat de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne honored me with a "bookseller portrait". I was invited to describe my career path and my aspirations in the exciting world of rare book selling, and so I devoted a first paragraph to evoking my life with antiquarian books "since childhood".

Antiquarian books have accompanied my life since childhood. If the bookshop initially founded by my parents in 1969 in Paris was a store located on rue Gay-Lussac, they soon afterwards made the choice to work at home, which filled our successive houses (my parents having moved many times) with old bindings, brochures, bundles of documents and manuscript jumble of all kinds. This did not make me a bibliophile in short pants, for I was first a reader and my curiosity towards old books was only awakened in adulthood, but their silent presence at my side from an early age had the effect of establishing a kind of natural familiarity between us. Continuing my life among books was neither a choice nor a vocation, but rather what I would call "a way of being".

So what does this have to do with artificial intelligence, you might ask? Well, here it is:

I was recently alerted by Google that a rare book kept at the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon was associated with my name in the Google Books records. As you know, this powerful company has undertaken to digitize a large number of books kept in public collections around the world, making their content available to the public. Thanks to a very advanced technology of character recognition, it also allows to index the content of these books, and even the handwritten inscriptions they contain.

The picture below was taken from Google Books, which spotted my signature on one of the endpapers of this book. Did the artificial intelligence of Google Books guess that I was just a child when I wrote my name in pencil on this ancient book? Does it have an imagination? Can it see me as I do? Sitting on the floor, sticking out my tongue and writing my name on an ancient book borrowed from my parents (sacrilege!), an ancient book that my parents would later sell, without realizing my misdeed, to the Lyon Municipal Library. Its curator at the time, Mr. Parguez, was one of their most faithful customers... Can artificial intelligence tell such a story? I can't help but doubt it.

What I can tell you without doubting it for a single second, in any case, (paraphrasing Guillaumet rescued from the Andes, for those who have read Saint-Exupéry), is that the emotion I felt while discovering this clumsily written line... no machine will ever be able to feel it.

And I can't help but smile when I think that being in my fifties, after more than thirty years in the business and thousands of rare books whose paths have passed through my hands, Google Books associates me with only one ancient book, the one on which I wrote my name when I was barely five years old! How ironic...

What about you? Artificial intelligence and rare books, what do you think?

A few links :

An anonymous manuscript theatre play ascribed to Lope de Vega

SLAM's bookseller portrait

The Google Books digitized copy of the Library of Lyon

Can rare books be an investment?

A few years ago, a customer of mine asked me if rare books could be an investment. Here are some extracts of the answer I wrote him at the time:

The idea of rare books seen as a financial placement tends to divide the community of professional booksellers. The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) (to which we are affiliated in two ways through the Spanish and French associations) has been including these last few years the recomendation for its members not to promote the rare book as an investment or financial product. Such a prudence is understandable when you think about certain adventures like Aristophil's!
Even so, the patrimonial dimension, in all the senses of the term, of rare books seems obvious and rare books buyers, in their immense majority, still nurture the hope that their latest purchase will increase its value in the future (or, at least, that it will not see its value decrease).

Let's remind ourselves of a few preliminary ideas:

Generally speaking, in the past the value of rare books used to increase over time, which responds to a certain logic if you think that rarity generally also increases with time.

Twenty years ago the rare book market, with the internet revolution, started to go global which put within anyone's reach millions of rare books worldwide.
Which effects have the development of internet had on the rare book market? They are obviously many, and the purpose of this quick overview is not to offer a complete survey but I'd like to underline two important effects: 1). Access to the virtual world has provided everyone with a specialised knowledge that was, until then, reserved to a sall number of scholars, professional librarians and experienced booksellers. 2). The redefinition of the concept of rarity taking into account the internet as a new essential tool for measuring the availability of a specific title in a specific moment, and its price. Before the internet, nothing could replace each individual's point of view and even the most experienced dealers could have an incomplete vision of the market.

As with all other markets (including financial products) the rare book market is subject to conjunctures and fashions that can be difficult to predict. It is consequently impossible to define it as a single entity moving in an orderly way.

Nowadays, to a certain extent, the rare book market is still in the assimilation process of the internet revolution. For example, rare books are sometimes available for sale in several copies around the world which generally influences their price downwards, but this tendency is probably temporary and after some time (maybe ten more years?) the price of these books will perhaps start to raise again because the few copies available today will not be on the market at the same time any more.

Despite the internet revolution, extremely rare and important books still fetch high prices at auctions and a quick glance at booksellers's catalogues and rare book fairs, shows that many high-end rare books still reach very high prices.

So, what must we think of the potential of rare books as an investment?

My answer is: yes, certain rare books can be a placement which can eventually produce a significant return after one or two decades (ten or twenty years). That being said, it is not a risk-free placement. In this perspective I would rate the risk to loose money from "moderate" to "relatively high", depending on various factors: who assists you, what subject you are willing to collect, etc.

A few words of advice:

Don't think only as an investor. Assign a value and be ready to pay a price for living your passion of collecting rare books. The idea should be to buy books which are worth the price you pay when you purchase them, and to maintain an ordered purchase policy aiming to lower the risk of seeing the value of your investment decrease significantly in the future. Obtaining a return on your investment should be the cherry on the cake, not the cake!

Be selective: try to define the perspective of your collection with a handful of words, then try to reduce these words to a combination that could make your collection unique and recognizable, but not out of reach.

Take the time to create and consolidate a personal relationship with a small number of experienced professional book dealers. ILAB professionals are usually extremely reliable and experienced, and if you are willing to invest your time and some money you will probably find a few good guides to assist you in your quest. https://www.ilab.org

And you? What do you think?

How did you become a bibliophile?

Among the great mysteries of Creation, one is often forgotten in the classical cosmogony: How does someone become a bibliophile?

Yet, I’m sure we all remember the first rare book we purchased! As far as I am concerned, it was an 18th century booklet in Italian, the description of an agricultural machine... a very handsome copy on blue large paper bound in contemporary gilt vellum. I was eighteen years old... and was born into a booksellers family where antiquarian books surrounded me everywhere.

Thirty years later, I’m still surrounded by antiquarian books and tens of thousands have also passed through my hands, modest and inexpensive or noble and costly, but my fascination remains the same - for the books as well as for the history of each copy and their previous owners.

Contribute and share your testimony, to show the incredible diversity of our bibliophile's world!

So... How did you become a bibliophile?

Do you like to show off your rare books?

In the middle of this confinement the question can seem a little bit perverse! But if your books ever begin to need fresh air, why not have a (virtual) walk with them?

Send us a picture of your favorite book, a couple of lines telling us why it’s favoured, and we will put it online for you.(You can also do it yourself in the blog, if your picture is already online, by inserting in your comment the corresponding tag and url of your picture).

As you already know, we love to show off our books and having renewed our showcase this morning we invite you to stop by for a visit, a browse, and see what takes your fancy!

We are waiting for your pictures! Take care of yourself and stay tuned.

An Easter egg hunt for book lovers

In this situation of full confinement, the traditional easter egg hunt would prove to be unpractical. Fortunately though, there is a book shop open behind your screen! We invite you to play with us by finding the Easter eggs hidden in our book descriptions on the bookshop's website.

You just have to click on the "Visit the book shop" link, at the top of the column to the right of this blog, to enter into the site.

There are 99 Easter eggs like the one below. Our reader who will find the most before next Tuesday, April 14 at noon (Barcelona time) will win a "bibliophilic basket" containing a selection of printed catalogues, a book of bibliography to be chosen from among a list of available works, and a 25% discount voucher to be used on our web site within the next 30 days.

To participate you just have to log in or register on our web site and answer to this blog with the number of eggs you have found (you wil leventually be asked the reference number of the books where you found an Easter egg). Beware! If the button "Live Support" lights up green, you can obtain 5 reference numbers... You just have to click the button to start a live conversation with us!

Good luck to all!

Do you read your rare books?

A profane question that often comes back to us rare books dealers, is whether our customers "read the books of their collection... "

According to an idea still widespread (and - we have to say - fed since the 19th century by portraits regularly drawn in literature), bibliophiles would be like "fetishists of the book", obsessed by all sorts of silly details meaningless for the rest of the world, and for whom the possession of a book would represent, in the end, the main part of their interest for the book in general.

As a bookseller I think that I am in a pretty good position to have an opinion on the question, (and the reading of the various comments left by our followers throughout this blog gives us, for sure, some clues for a response!). But before testifying... I would love to read your own reactions!

I will therefore limit myself to giving you just the first line of my own answer: "Yes, my clients can all read...".

It’s up to you to continue!

If you are already logged-in, you can leave a comment by clicking here

To log-in or to create a user account, please click here

Your books and you

So... Here we are, almost all of us confined in our homes because of this bloody virus...

For us bibliophiles the (numerous) hours that we now have to spend with our partner, our family or our loneliness, is also the occasion to get closer to the friends that follow us silently from the shelves of our libraries: the books of our collection!

Aiming at a dialogue between bibliophiles we have opened this new section of our blog: "Love (of books) in times of COVID-19".

Today is the turn of your collection to speak, just by answering 6 very simple questions.

Your participation is essential and much appreciated. Without it, such a project is meaningless!

- What subject?

- How many titles?

- The oldest?

- The newest?

- When was this collection started ?

- When was the latest addition to this collection?

If you are already logged-in, you can leave a comment by clicking here

To log-in or to create a user account, please click here

We can't wait to read your posts! See you soon online!

“Dear reader, may God protect you from bad books...”

As a tribute to the master satirist and virtuoso of language Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, born on this day in 1580, we present to you a copy of an utmost rare Sevilla printing of his famous “Sueños y Discursos”, a collection of misanthropic fantasies of the afterworld first published in Barcelona in 1627. This slightly expurgated version was edited by a friend of the author, with his agreement, and published with an alternative title in order to escape censorship.

“Estimado lector, que Dios lo proteja de los libros malos, la policía y las mujeres regañonas, con la cara lívida y el cabello rubio.”

On the Barricades of the July Revolution

After the storming of the Bastille, we could not resist the pleasure of presenting this suite of fine lithographs depicting the barricades of the Revolution of July 1830! This heroic vision is that of the painter Hyppolite Bellangé (1800-1866), a specialist in battle scenes famous for his paintings of the Napoleonic epic !

Libri Medullitus Delectant

A little over seven centuries ago today, the great Petrarch was born !
As a tribute to the founder of Humanism, we present to you this rare and beautiful Venice edition (Il Petrarcha, Venegia, Bernardino Bindoni Milanese, 1543), illustrated with 6 engraved figures and a portrait of the master, and dressed in its contemporary vellum !

"[L]ibri medullitus delectant, colloquuntur, consulunt et viva quadam nobis atque arguta familiaritate iunguntur, neque solum se se lectoribus quisque suis insinuat, sed et aliorum nomen ingerit et alter alterius desiderium facit. » (Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, III, 18)

The Beginning of the French Revolution according to Nicolas de Basseville

On the eve of Bastille Day, we invite you to discover a detailed chronicle of the events and debates that took place during the first months of the French Revolution, from the creation of the National Assembly until September 1789: “Mémoires historiques, critiques et politiques de la Révolution de France avec toutes les opérations de l'Assemblée Nationale” (Paris, chez l'Auteur, Bleuet, et Potier de Lille, 1790).
Its author, Nicolas de Basseville (1753-1793) was an editor at the Mercure National and then a diplomat in Italy; he died in Rome as a martyr of the young Republic, lynched by a mob raised by the papal clergy against the symbols of the French Revolution !

A beautiful copy in nice contemporary binding, illustrated with an engraving of the storming of the Bastille!

Claude Garamond, King of Typographers

If the name Garamond is known by almost everyone today, it is certainly due in part to the outstanding quality of the Greek typefaces (“grecs du roi ”) that he designed for the royally-ordered printing of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea (Paris, Robert Estienne, 1544), the first history of the Church ever printed !

A kingly book for sure !

Wurzelbau's Opera Geographico-Astronomica

Now that summertime’s here, don’t we all dream of a night spent watching the stars, far away from the city ? To celebrate the arrival of the favourite season for amateur astronomers, we present to you the works of an amateur so passionate and diligent in his observation that a crater of the Moon now bears his name: Johann Philipp von Wurzelbau (1651-1725) !

Has anybody seen my telescope ?

Otto van Veen's Emblems Printed by Anna Margaretha Blanckaert

As a tribute to the many women printers whose identity was often reduced to that of "wife of" or "widow of the printer", and on the occasion of tomorrow's International Widows Day, we present to this very beautiful edition of the famous book of emblems by Flemish painter Otto van Veen, printed by Anna Margaretha Blanckaert (1670-1750), widow of the printer Henrik Verdussen. Missing from the title pages of the works she edited, the name of this great woman printer is not even mentioned in most bibliographies...

Because "to name is to show” and because “one is not born, but rather becomes, *the widow of”, here is her name again : Anna Margaretha Blanckaert !

Fourcroy and the Annales de Chimie (1789-1815)

Born on June 15th, 1755, the chemist and revolutionary statesman Antoine-François de Fourcroy was one of the founders of the Annales de Chimie, a journal so fundamental to the emergence of the principles of modern chemistry.

In his honor, here is an utmost rare complete 50-volumes collection of the first series of publication (1789-1815), in charming contemporary binding.

A genuine monument, indeed !

Marine Lithographs by Explorer-Artist Lebreton

Today, World Oceans Day, let us all set sail with La Marine au XIXe siècle (Paris, Langlumé [c.1855]), a very rare suite of marine lithographs by Louis Lebreton (1818-1866), an artist from the charming port town of Douarnenez, in Brittany (as you may have guessed, judging from his surname!)

Praised for the accuracy of his representation of sailing life and boats, Lebreton mastered his trade as an artist on board the Astrolabe, the vessel commanded by the great navigator and explorer Dumont d'Urvil, his uncle.

Godspeed to you all, fellow booklovers, illustration lovers and ocean lovers!

Honouring Sadi Carnot

On this day in 1796, the great French engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot was born, a man whose only published work – Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres à développer cette puissance (Paris, 1824) – marked the very foundation of modern thermodynamics.
To celebrate this birth, his father the famous statesman Lazare Carnot had a song published, written by himself and his musician friend Prieur-Duvernois, a member of the revolutionary Comité de Salut Public like Lazare himself in 1793-1794.

Here’s an extremely rare piece of occasion, in honour of an exceptional being!

At the Museum with Visconti

In honour of International Museum Day, here is a superb copy of the Roman Iconography by Ennio Quirino Visconti (1751-1818), commissioned by Napoleon himself to the archaeologist and curator at the Louvre !
A sequel to the Greek Iconography published in 1808, this copy of the in-Folio Original Edition was printed on vellum paper by Didot and bound in half shagreen by Lajoux !

Freedom for Jean-Baptiste Robinet !

On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, celebrated yesterday, we present to you a curious esoteric treatise: Vue Philosophique de la Gradation Naturelle des Formes de l'Etre, ou les Essais de la Nature qui apprend à faire l'Homme (A Amsterdam, chez E. van Harrevelt, 1768) by Breton naturalist Jean Baptiste Robinet (1735-1820), the Parisian edition of which had been put on the Index, subsequently republished in Amsterdam the same year in order to escape the censors !

Much like the writings of this precursor in the history of evolutionary thought, the illustrating engravings included in the book are on their own a testament to freedom !

MENS SANA IN CORPORE SALTATUS

You and I know how important physical activity is to maintaining the vitality of the mind; because great results come with great effort, why not set the bar a little higher than the usual walk or yoga class ?

The work of the Italian acrobat Archangel Tuccaro [Trois Dialogues de l'Exercice de Sauter, et Voltiger en l'air. Avec les figures qui servent à la parfaicte demonstration et intelligence dudict Art. Dédié au Roy (A Paris, chez Claude de Monstr'œil, 1599)], a protégé of King Charles IX of France, we present to you the very first treatise on acrobatic gymnastics ! This exceptional work is illustrated with 87 woodcut figures representing gymnastic moves that you may even want to reproduce at home !

Come on ! (*)

(*) Librería Comellas denies responsibility for any injury suffered by book-lovers turned acrobatic gymnasts upon reading this blog entry.

Homage to Philipe Pinel

Born on April 20th, 1745, this great pioneer modern psychiatry was one of the very first champions of the humane treatment of the alienated: he developed the idea of the "moral treatment" of the insane in the book Traité Médico-Philosophique sur l'aliénation mentale ou la manie (Paris, 1801) of which we present to you today an attractive 1rst edition copy, in contemporary half-binding!

"Adversus Superstitiosas Artes"

May the occult powers forgive us for this title: it is not we who are opposed to the “arts of superstition”, it is Benito Pereira (1535-1610) !

Known for his works of theology and philosophy and for the courses he taught at the Jesuit Roman College, this immense scholar from Valencia published this treatise in 1591, in which he denounced the practices of magic, the interpretation of dreams, astrology and alchemy.

We originally planned to present the book to you tomorrow, but tomorrow is Friday the 13th, and you know what they say !...

Tableau Synoptique de Prévision Météorologique (1888)

On the occasion of World Meteorological Day, let us present to you a really exceptional object ! To the best of our knowledge, this 1888 Weather Forecast Synoptic Table could well be the first "instrument" designed for making weather forecasts !

With the two shortest branches of the moving arrow, the user was to indicate the
atmospheric pressure, direction of the prevailing winds and general weather tendency, which resulted with the main branch indicating the weather to come ! Of course !

Designed in Clermont-Ferrand by J.R. Plumandon, Meteorologist at the Observatoire du Puy-de-Dome, and A, Colomês, member of the Société Météorologique de France, this extremely rare object was the "result of the experience acquired during twelve years of making the daily weather forecast at the Observatoire du Puy-de-Dôme".

Congratulations to these pioneers, and fair winds to you !

Roch Le Baillif in New York City

We are now fully ready for the New York Antiquarian Bookfair 2018 ! Please come and say hello to Julien Comellas at Booth B24! Among the 101 fine books on display, this extremely rare collection of works by Roch Le Baillif (1540-1605), the French physician and alchemist of mythical fame! See you in the Big Apple!

Cabinet de Curiosités #1

And your Friday bibliographical curiosity today is... this 1784 clandestine defence of the Waldensian Christian movement ! A copy that may have belonged to the famous Geneva naturalist and philosopher Charles Bonnet !

Attributed by Quérard to scholar Jacques Maranda, the book contains very interesting information on the history of the Christian movement founded by the Lyon preacher Pierre Valdo (or Valdès), as well as fragments from "La Noble Leiçon" in the Vaud language, one of the fundamental texts of this long persecuted movement !

The Waldensians’ historical ties with Geneva invite us to formulate the hypothesis that the handwritten inscription "C. Bonnet" on the title page could come from the great Genevan scientist Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), a most erudite mind and the author of pioneering studies on parthenogenesis !

A sumptuous "Liber Amicorum" ?

We’re back ! And we’ve got something really beautiful to present to you !

Chances are one of you might help us solve the mystery that is this extraordinary copy of the doctoral thesis of Dutch lawyer Willem Wendilium van Berckel (1718-1799) !

This unique copy is remarkable in that it contains only the title page and the dedication leaves of the thesis : in lieu of the actual 50 pages text, 6 luxurious silk leaves ! What's more, the printed paper quires and silk leaves come in an astonishing green velvet binding decorated with gold thread embroidy !

The purpose for manufacturing this objet remains uncertain; yet, the inclusion of the dedication leaves following the title page and blank silk leaves seem to indicate that the blank leaves were meant to be filled by the student's friends and family.

The unusually magnificent character of the binding, which stands in contrast with the austerity of a legal thesis, invites us to think that this copy was meant to be a sumptuous "Liber Amicorum" !

Dear friends, please let us know what you think of this !

Flos Aetatis

The whole team of Librería Comellas wishes you a happy new year!

To celebrate the passage to 2018, we invite you to discover this very rare collection of treatises composed by French theologian Jacques Almain, a posthumous edition published in 1518!

Five hundred years old! The prime of life!

Madame de Pompadour's "bibliothèque"

As the year 2017 comes to an end, the time has come for us to thank you, as more and more of you follow us here!

In your honour, it is our pleasure to present to you a copy of the library catalogue of a great patroness of the arts and letters, who was born on December, 29th: Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, better known as Madame de Pompadour (29 Dec. 1721 - 15 Apr. 1764)!

Dear friends and bibliophiles, on behalf of the Librería Comellas team, I wish you a very happy end of the year!

Occitan Cuckold Anthems

What better day than today - as the intense political campaign has finally come to an end here in Catalonia - to present to you a charming little collection of… cuckold anthems!
Printed in Montpellier, this collection of songs in Occitan patois (including one in French) was published on the occasion of the 1832 carnival, during which, as tradition dictated, the young grooms celebrated their condition as new "cournards"!
Needless to say, such anthems to the inevitability of deception and unfulfilled promises could still resonate today!

"Pourtraits Divers"

As the finest connoisseurs of the history of French Renaissance engraving will know, there is no "typo" above, but the exact (“trait pour trait”, if I may say!) title of the fabulous collection of engravings published by the great Lyon printer Jan de Tournes in 1557!

The work of de Tournes' favourite engraver Bernard Solomon (known as "le Petit Bernard"), this amazing book does include portraits, but also scenes of everyday life, of hunting, as well as mythological scenes, allegories, etc.

The copy we present to you today is uncut, and contains 64 plates! (i.e. one plate more than the 63 in the most complete copies recorded).

An exceptional work, from the title to the last page!

Sign Language

On November, 24th, 1712, Charles-Michel de l'Epée, founder of the Institute for the Deaf and Mute and inventor of "sign language", was born: a century and a half before Saussure, the Abbé de l'Epée already invited us to conceive of any language - spoken or not - as a system of signs!
As a tribute to l’Epée, here is an "ex dono authoris" copy of the original edition of his main work, published in 1776 !
Should you want to know more about this work, please sign up to our webiste !

The Metric System

Today, as we celebrate both World Science Day for Peace and Development and the "Dia de las librerías" here in Barcelona, we invite you to discover this precious book from 1796, intended to publicize the metric system- the implementation of which was one of the most brilliant manifestations of the rational and universalist ideals of the French Revolution!
The 17 memoirs, plates and tables that make up this collection first appeared separately, before being bound here together under a collective title; the work also contains the text of the law of Germinal, 18th, Year III (1795) which established the metric system throughout the territory of the French Republic.

May peace and centimeters be upon you!

So British!

Next week, we will look forward to seeing you at INK Fair, in London! Julien Comellas has filled his suitcases with a hundred fantastic books! Among them, this precious collection of 38 original drawings of women’s hats, certainly the work of Parisian fashion designer from the 1920s!

"La théorie des chances"

Did you know that, on Friday, 13th, while many around the globe fear they might be hit by some bad luck, most French people hope to get lucky and win the traditional Friday 13th lottery?!
So if you feel like defying the odds of the lottery and taking your ultimate chance at fulfilling your secret dream of a scholarly retreat on a distant island, let me recommend you read Antoine Cournot's Exposition de la Théorie des Chances et des Probabilités (Paris, 1843), of which it is our pleasure to present to you a beautiful copy of the first edition!
I know that the odds of winning are about 1 out of 139000000, but there is absolutely no way I give in to "paraskevidekatriaphobia"!
You do as you please! I will send you postcards from my island!

"Liars Academy"

According to some commentators of the political spectacle, we would have entered a new era, that of the "post-truth", in which conspiracy theories , emotions and "fake news" would finally have prevailed over objectivity, reason and truth.

It seems to us, however, that some commentators seem to forget a little quickly that lying is old as the hills...old as politics!

The truth is, in these days, many a politician could easily graduate from the “Académie des menteurs”! (Paris, 1838)

Info

We're back !

The truth is we were never really gone, you know that! After a very intense summer here in Barcelona, we are ready for an autumn (*) which promises to be tempestuous!

All aboard! Captain's on the helm! The course is set! The crew is on deck, ready for reefing if necessary! This journey will not be a quiet one, but you can always come always come visit our quarters: the shelves are here filled with wonderful books for you to discover! Be our guests!

(*) For the uninitiated, an ancestral municipal ordinance stipulates that in Barcelona the summer lasts at least until October, 10th, with a minimum temperature of 25ºC at noon, four times a week, preferably on weekends.

Of Erudites and Marriage

Dear lovers of knowledge, of books and of shelves, is there any room for marriage
in your libraries? In your opinion, should maverick intellectuals, hermit scholars and collectomaniac bibliophiles take the oath of marriage?

Inspired, not by personal questioning (well, maybe a little bit...), but by a curious German work from the early eighteenth century, we are asking for your personal position on a delicate question of eternal relevance!

Published in 1715 under the pseudonym of Irénée Carpentier, Eruditorum Coelibum Centuria Singularis is a collection of short biographical notices of great minds who never married, by a certain Gottfried Wagener – whose marital status we may guess!... Curiously enough, the work also includes the first edition of the treatise on the marriage of scholars by the German poet Mellemann – according to which scholars should not flee from matrimonial union – as well as Daniel Heinsius’s letter on “the qualities of a woman suitable for a scholar”... It seems, then, that long before us, Mr. Wagener also had his own doubts!

Dear enlightened minds, do you think it reasonable to take the plunge ? For both parties? ...Dear spouses of bibliophiles, were you really aware of the phenomenon when the two of you exchanged wedding rings ? Or is it that you were seduced by his collection of incunabula?

The Story of the Devil’s Trial (1604)

For more information on the manuscript, click here.

"The true inventor of the lightning rod"

While yesterday, June, 15th , some mentioned the anniversary of the night that Benjamin Franklin braved the violent summer storm that struck Philadelphia in order to conduct the famous kite experience, our thoughts went to the French physicist Jacques de Romas (1718-1776), considered by many as the true inventor of the lightning rod!

The detailed account of his experiences and of the controversies related to the paternity of the discovery is to be found in this Mémoire sur les moyens de se garantir de la foudre dans les maisons; suivi d'une lettre sur l'invention du cerf-volant électrique, avec les pièces justificatives de cette même lettre which was printed in Bordeaux at the twilight of Romas’s life, and of which we’d like to present to you a very fine copy!

The "Recueil Léonard"

Once upon a time, on June, 9th, an incredible effervescence seized the little Basque town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz: the French Roi Soleil married the Infanta of Spain!

A few months earlier, after long weeks of hard negotiations that took place in the famous Pheasant Island, Bourbons and Habsburgs - respectively represented by Mazarin and Luis de Haro - finally found common ground! The Treaty of the Pyrenees was finally concluded, and the contract for the marriage of Louis XIV and Maria Theresa of Austria was drawn up, a consecration of the rapprochement between the two main European powers of the time!

These two documents, along with all the treaties signed by France between 1435 and 1692, are to be found in the "Léonard collection", of which we’d like present to you a nice copy of the first edition, in its contemporary binding!

Compiled by the Brussels-born printer-librarian Frédéric Léonard, this precious collection contains all the international treaties signed by France since the Middle Ages, including agreements signed with the Maghreb countries, with Muscovy or Siam, and even... with the Iroquois Nation!

Quite a piece of diplomatic history, isn’t it?

Estienne

Today, we continue our series of tributes to some of the greatest printers in History by presenting one of the most emblematic works of the great humanist scholar Henri Estienne!

Born of a line of French scholarly printers, Estienne was one of the great artisans in the rediscovery of the Greek and Latin classics, in search of which he travelled all over Europe! His annotated edition of the Greek Anthology, of which we present to you a remarkable copy, remained for a long time one of the authoritative editions!

Printed in Geneva in 1566, this copy was bound in full morocco in the 19th century, and bears the ex-libris of the English magistrate – one of the first to refute Darwin's theories – Robert Mackenzie Beverley: here is a very nice and unique piece of European literary history!

Eikon Basilike

Perhaps frightened by the uncommonly low rainfall in Barcelona, few British works reach the shelves of the bookstore! The work we present to you today is therefore an exception, and not the least: here is a copy of the first edition of the first French translation of the legendary Eikon Basilike !

Published in 1649, a few weeks after the decapitation of King Charles I, this apocryphal autobiography of the late monarch was translated almost immediately into several languages, including this French translation by Norman writer Denis Cailloué, which was actually printed in London.

Our joy would not have been complete had we not been able to present to you the superb allegorical portal on the frontispiece, which is lacking in many copies: one is tempted to think that this fascinating depiction of Charles as a martyr perhaps contributed to the immense success of the work!

Many among you will of course have noted that we choose to bring a light to the king’s portrait on… the very anniversary day of the Proclamation of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England!
Here’s our tribute to our British friends’ legendary sense of humor!

Ibarra

As you know by now, our taste for bibliographical curiosities, atypical works and singular authors is inexhaustible; however, we also do appreciate the great value of the classics, the must-haves, the monuments of bibliophilia!

In more than one way, the work we’d like to present to you today is indeed one of those monuments: issued from the presses of master printer Joaquín Ibarra, one of the greatest printers of the 18th century, this edition of Juan de Mariana’s Historia general de España is considered by some "the most carefully crafted, with the most perfect text"! (Palau)

Printed by Ibarra in two volumes in-folio in 1780 (the same year as his famous edition of the Quixote, still considered by many the most beautiful ever made), Mariana's text is a true monument of the historiography of the country, here in its final Spanish version!

Like the 1780 Quixote, some copies of this edition directed by the Real Academia Española were destined for the libraries of some members of the royal family!

Why not adding it to yours?

Info

The Decimal Language

On the eve of the second round of the presidential elections in France, we would like to leave aside the antagonizing debates for a moment and draw a light on a book whose author, inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, tried hard "to bring people closer together by the sweet bond of brotherhood "… by means of a universal language!

Even we, fervent defenders of linguistic diversity, are fascinated by this extraordinary linguistic utopia by Jean Delormel: a universal language based on the decimal system and the rational principles of the philosophy of the Enlightenment!

Certainly, for languages lovers like you and I, the use of the decimal system as a linguistic principle does not seem very attractive… but is it not how our computers communicate with each other, and therefore, how I’m addressing to you right now?

00101001 100101 01001 0000 0101010 00110 ! (*)

[(*) We wish you a pleasant week-end!]

The Organic Telegraph

In this global village, and in the era of instant messaging services and blog posts read live around the world on our mobile phones (you are being watched indeed!), let us not forget that today’s latest tools are tomorrow’s antiques!

This proof is this book of another age, by the French-German physician and inventor Auguste-Guillaume Schwenger, published just 217 years ago, in which the author presented his own variant of the Chappe telegraph, variant based on the use of the human body to form print characters observable remotely through a telescope!

That, dear readers, is what you call a communication exercise!

"Bona diada de Sant Jordi" !

This Sunday, World Book Day, we will have the pleasure of strolling in a city of Barcelona in full effervescence on the occasion of the “Diada de Sant Jordi”: throughout the whole city, the inhabitants will celebrate Saint George, the saint patron of Catalonia, gifting books and red roses to their loved ones, in a great celebration of culture !
While our French friends will also certainly celebrate World Book Day, we know that they are occupied by matters of the highest importance, as they will be voting to elect their new head of state on Sunday !
On this occasion, let us present to you this very rare work by Antonio Pérez i Maxo, who between 1627 and 1632 was the Bishop of Urgell, a province of Catalonia that borders on the principality of Andorra. As such, and as some of you know for sure, the Bishop of Urgell was and still is one of the two co-princes of the Andorran throne, a position he holds along with... the head of the French State !
Let us hope then that, like Pérez i Maxo, a man of great erudition and a fertile writer, the next French president will also be a lover of books and culture !

Antonio Pérez i Maxo, "Constituciones Synodales del Obispado de Urgel, para los Parochos, y Clerigos", Barcelona: Pedro Lacavalleria, 1632. (Cf. Palau, 60332)

Info

A little bit more courtesy, please !

In these times of widespread political tension, let us remind our leaders (and those who aspire to become so !) of some basic rules of common courtesy !

De ars articulationem

Our most dedicated readers know about our very special interest in medicine and the works which have marked its advances; today being World Health Day, we could not miss the opportunity to present to you a very special work on the topic !

Published in the year 1802 and unrecorded by the authors of the top medical bibliographies which we have consulted, this work entitled Principes d’Arthrologie ou l'Art d'étudier méthodiquement les articulations du corps humain ("Principles of Arthrology, or the Art of studying the articulations of the human body methodically") is probably the first ever monograph on the topic and, as far as we know, its author Dr. Jean-François Seneaux from the University of Montpellier is to be credited with coining the term "arthrology" !

Synovist bibliophiles, articulators of knowledge, cartilaginous collectors, do not hesitate to light our lanterns if you know more about the topic ! But do not forget to warm up and stretch yourself before and after the effort !

Thank you, Senyor Subirá !

Today, the day of Saint Benjamin, I have arbitrarily decided to share with you one of the most striking works I have had the pleasure working on along the course of the recent months: a very unique piece, full of humor, tenderness... and catalanness !

The work of a certain Mr. L. Subirá, this superb manuscript of a comic strip is dated from 1927. Dedicated to the author's wife, it was nonetheless intended to be read by young hearts of all ages: the 55 colored pencil and ink drawings which compose it depict the tragicomic wanderings of a bleach merchant... and his donkey ! (The famous "ruc catalá", which perhaps inspired the donkey Benjamin of George Orwell...)

For hours, I tried to find out who exactly was the brilliant author of this beautiful tale, in vain, but had tremendous fun following the two anti-heroes on the roads of the Barcelona area, in the shopping streets of the Catalan villages of Sant Llorenç or Gelida, between the displays of pine nuts, garrofón bean or sobrasada. Yum !

So, whoever you are, thank you, Mr. Subirá !

Rousseau at an Irsihman's in Montpellier

You and I know about the legendary hospitality of the people whose members and friends will today be walking along the streets of all the great cities of the world, dressed in green for the occasion – the colour of the shamrock and the wild fields of the island of Éire ! That very hospitality led the author of the work we’d like to present to you today to have none other than Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a guest !

On this Saint Patrick's Day and as a tribute to all the Irish people of the world, we present to you a very rare medical thesis defended in 1749 by Thomas Fitz-Maurice in the prestigious Faculty of Medicine in Montpellier, a city where this Irishman had established in order to pursue his medical studies and where (perhaps seduced by the low rainfall of the Mediterranean climate ...) he would remain all his life.

A few years before presenting this thesis, M. Fils-de-Maurice had the honour of having Rousseau staying at his boarding-house – the philosopher was (wrongly) convinced he suffered from a heart polyp and meant to have it cured by the best specialists. It is unknown whether Rousseau’s case served as a basis for the study of the similarities between the hysterical and hypochondriac passions contained in the work, but the chapter on narcotic convulsions could turn out to be very topical this evening, with all that stout beer flowing !

A unique copy ?

At a time when our every movements are tracked by the biggest computers on the planet and when every one of us is on record, one way or another, we are somehow glad we can present to you a rare bird, a champion of discretion, a phenomenon seemingly unnoticed by the most sophisticated radars, and perhaps even by the passionate bibliophiles you are !

Would you believe that this philosophical work on Physics by Antoine Chamerlat – a professor of philosophy at the Collège de Clermont and a contemporary of Blaise Pascal (whom is referred to in the book) – is not listed in any of the databases and catalogues we have consulted ?! What if its author’s name solely appears in an obscure collection of poems on the Velay region of France ?!

A complete stranger, I tell you ! Even Big Brothers Google and Amazon have never heard of it !

Not even listed by the famous WorldCat, the world's largest bibliographical catalogue !

...Had you ever come across such an obscure celebrity ?

Didot

As a inaugural post for our series on great printers, here is a FABULOUS little volume !

Regarded as “essential in a typographic collection” by some, this collection of fables by Pierre Didot was printed on vellum paper (an invention just imported to France from England by Didot), and notably includes the famous Epître sur les progrès de l’imprimerie, a topic on which the various members of the Didot dynasty had more or less won their spurs: among other crucial developments, they are credited with the invention of the one-strike press, with developing the most popular unit of measurement of fonts ever (the “ Didot point”), or with creating the popular Didone typographical characters - which still make the front cover of magazines, like that of the American fashion magazine Vogue, for example !

Is there a Didot in your library ? If not, this exquisite little volume might be your chance !

Charles of Habsburg, February, 24th, and the number 5

When one looks into history, there are details and coincidences which defy belief, but which we know you are fond of ! And so are we !
Today, we are especially addressing those of you who have a taste for astrology, numerology, arithmancy... or for the history of the Spanish Golden Age!
This 24th of February, 55th day of the year, marks the anniversary of Charles of Habsburg, better known as Charles V, born in 1500.
Most interestingly, the latter was crowned Emperor Charles, 5th of the name, in the year 1530... on February, 24th ! And what do you say about the fact that the monarch withdrew in favour of his younger brother Ferdinand on... Take a guess... February, 24th, 1558 !
In honour of this extraordinary man, and in order to help you solve the mysteries of these fascinating coincidences, we are pleased to present to you De Statu Religionis et Reipublicae, Carolo Quinto Cesare, Commentarij , a biography of Charles V in the context of the Reform by the historian and diplomat Johannes Sleidanus.

Friends of letters, friends of numbers, please share with us other synchronies and concordances of the sort !

I beg your pardon ?

D'Holbach in Madrid or The Return of Enigma Bibliographica !

You and I know that the Librairie Comellas is a unique place, but we have to admit that we are not the first booksellers whose hearts are split between the two sides of the Pyrénées mountains...

A proof of this is this book published in 1819, commissioned by one of our predecessors who had also fell in love with the Iberian Peninsula: a rare Spanish edition of “La Morale Universelle” by Baron d'Holbach, commissioned by Guillaume Denné, a Parisian librarian who settled in Madrid at the beginning of the 19th century. Printed by the famous typographer Jean-Baptiste Pinard in... Bordeaux [in french, “pinard” is slang for cheap wine], it is a counterfeit edition of a translation initially published in the Spanish capital, dated 1812.

The nephew of a Parisian bookseller who had been imprisoned at the Bastille because of his illegal publications, our bookseller had specialized in the importation of French works censored in Spain. Obviously, the dissemination of the book was not easy: the injured translator denounced the fraudulent edition, and the Spanish authorities not only ordered its destruction, but the translation itself was put on the Index by the Spanish Inquisition !

We certainly donnot condone the fraudulent activities of the French bookseller, yet one is forced to admit that his was a genuine love for books, a love which knew neither boundaries nor limits !

The most faithful of our readers may remember the “Enigma Bibliographica” which we published a long time ago, and which we have decided to revive ! We will regularly ask for your help with the mysteries we sometimes cannot resolve... If only you are willing to take the challenge !

In this case, it seems to us the Spanish publication of D’Holbach’s materialist breviary may not have revealed all of its secrets: indeed, why does the venerable Palau make no mention of the first edition dated 1812 (of which many copies have been conserved), and why does he quote our Bordeaux edition as the first Spanish translation of this text ? What’s more: if this translation was first published in 1812, why did it take until 1821 for the Inquisition to examine and condemn it ?

Book lovers, bibliographers extraordinaire, scholars of all trades, here’s your challenge !

"Next Stop: Lesseps !"

Let us evoke this week one of our most illustrious compatriots who lived here in Barcelona, the diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894). While many inhabitants of Barcelona may only have a vague idea of the personality of the founder of the Suez Canal enterprise, the Lesseps name is known here to everyone: many have passed through the Plaça Lesseps, served by a metro stop of the same name, and the most Francophiles of course know the prestigious Ecole Française Ferdinand de Lesseps, founded by the former Consul-General of France who had won the hearts of the Barcelonese during the popular uprising of 1842.

In 1849, at the height of his diplomatic career, the emissary had been entrusted with a mission of conciliation between the Republicans in power in Rome and the Vatican. Finally disavowed by Napoleon III, in the tumultuous context of Italy's Wars of Unification, he was accused of collusion with the enemy and called to appear before the Assembly and the Council of State. Ferdinand de Lesseps published several writings in response to these accusations. The last of them was this rare memoir, of which we are pleased to present this remarkable copy, bound at the time in ornamented calf. The book constitutes, to some extent, the diplomatic will of the man who, deeply wounded by the injustice he considered himself a victim of, would put an end to a diplomatic career for which his name is now known to all the Barcelonese.

From One Inauguration to Another...

As the whole world is watching the ceremony in Washington, D.C., on a day which incidentally is the anniversary of the birth of King Charles III of Spain (January 20, 1716 - December 14, 1788), we have decided to evoke another inauguration.
It is our pleasure to present to you a fine copy of El Triumpho Mayor de Alcides (1760), a work that Grenadian poet Francisco Scotti Fernández de Córdoba (1704-1770) composed for the coronation celebrations of the Spanish monarch, and which was printed by Spanish master typographer Joaquín Ibarra.
Scotti’s work is a theatrical play of classical inspiration, which features such great figures of Greek mythology as Theseus or the Amazons, and which ends in an apotheosis of songs and dances, dedicated to the glory of the king and queen, Marie-Amelie of Saxony. Most interestingly, the introductory loa features allegorical incarnations of virtues such as Loyalty, Justice, Courage, Merit, Liberality, Genius or Goodness.
One can only wish that these virtues also accompany the 45th President of the United States of America, the independance of which was facilitated by the action of Carlos III himself.

Zola's Campaigns

« J’accuse ! »… Everybody knows about Zola’s famous open letter, which was published in the French daily L’Aurore on January 13th, in 1898...and which is 119 old today.
As we celebrate its anniversary, let us quote the journalist turned novelist, who was always eager to reconcile literature and journalism: « One returns to [the press] as to old loves. It is life, it is action, exhilarating and triumphant. Whenever one leaves it, one can never swear that it will be forever... ».
A reputed writer, Zola would continue to give great importance to the press, by means of which he led his numerous public campaigns.
« Une Campagne » is precisely the title he gave to one of the collections of press articles he published. Dealing wih the current political and literary issues of his time, the articles were originally published in the French daily Le Figaro between 1880 and 1881. The « polemical articles » were published in a single volume in 1882, and we are pleased to present to you an exceptional copy of its first edition, one of the ten copies printed on China paper.

A king's present

While many here are about celebrate Three Kings, let us remember that not all kings were as benevolent, especially with regards to the object of our passion: the book !
This new year marks the 300 anniversary of the publication of this royal ordinance, with which the prohibition of the printing and sale of books without prior authorization was renewed. As if reading was evil !
Three centuries later, let us hope that the Kings will be more generous to us book lovers of all ages…
The entire Librairie Comellas team wishes you a year full of enlightening reads and freedom !

A special guest

Of all the treasures that we receive every week, some attract one’s attention at first glance: an elegant vellum binding, a massive title that instantly evokes the famous errings of an ingenious Hidalgo... You do see who I'm talking about, don’t you ?
Our renowned visitor is none other than the 1671 reprint of the first illustrated Spanish edition of Don Quixote ! It contains the same 16 plates usually credited to the Anvers engraver Frederick Bouttats, copied from the plates drawn by Jacques Savary for the very first illustrated edition of Cervantes’s masterpiece, the 1657 Dutch edition. It also displays two completely new frontispieces, engraved by Launers.

Needless to say we’re pampering him !

Comellas stands out as one of the best bookstores in Barcelona

Among all the unique bookstores in the Catalan capital, Comellas has become a must. Located in the very heart of the city, its shelves display all kinds of rare and ancient books, on a variety of topics and themes. And we are not claiming it, but Jorge Carrión, a Catalan writer and professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona whose words were reported by The Guardian journalist Christian House in an article translated and published in the Buenos Aires daily Clarín .

Selection 24/06/2013

Like every week the bookstore has published a new selection of books on the Best Deals section. Discounts can go up to 40 % but hurry up, they will only last one week…

- ARNAUD D'ANDILLY (Robert). De Vita Christi Carmen e gallico latine redditum.
- CATALOGO de la Real Armeria, mandado formar por S.M. siendo director general de Reales Caballerizas, Armeria y Yeguada, el Excmo. Señor Don José Maria Marchesi.
- CHEVALIER (Michel). CHEVALIER (Michel).
- ESPIARD (Abbé F.-I. d'). L'Esprit des Nations. Nouvelle édition revue et corrigée.
- FILLEUL DE PETIGNY (Cl.). Voyages en Suisse. Description des Curiosités Naturelles.
- GUICHARD (Jean-François). Fables et autres Poésies suivies de quelques Morceaux de Prose.
- MARTIN (Barthelemy). Traité du Lait et de l'usage qu'on en doit faire et de la manière d'en user.
- MEMOIRE sur les Travaux d'Amélioration exécutés aux Embouchures du Danube par la Commission Européenne instituée en vertu de l'article 16 du Traité de Paris du 30 mars 1856.
- PERINT (C.). Compiègne, la Forêt, et Pierrefonds.
- THIEURY (Jules). Bibliographie Italico-Normande contenant: 1). un essai historique sur les relations entre l'Italie et la Normandie; 2). une Bibliothèque des ouvrages relatifs aux relations des deux pays; 3). une Bibliothèque des Ouvrages relatifs à l'Italie, composés par des auteurs normands.

Thank-you note to Zanzu Design

From the first draft we received from Zanzu Design Studio some months ago to the present it has been a long while. We have exchanged many hours on the phone, dozens of emails and a long parade of prototype buttons that came and went back and forth. It has been a long way that led us to a website that, preserving the simplicity of the former, intended to integrate many new tools while adding a touch of freshness and closeness.

A month after the launching of the website and with a number of users already seduced by its evolutions we do want to use this opportunity to express our gratitude to our designer Irantzu Cordón, for her professionalism, engagement and good humour.

Thank you Irantzu and see you soon.

Selection 17/06/2013

Like every Monday the bookstore has published a new selection of books on the Best Deals section. Discounts can go up to 40 % but hurry up, they will only last one week…

- AYMERICH (Nicolas). Le Manuel des Inquisiteurs à l'usage des Inquisitions d'Espagne et de Portugal ou Abrégé de l'Ouvrage intitulé: Directorium Inquisitorum, composé vers 1358 par Nicolas Eymeric,
[ BELLOY (Pierre de) ]. Moyens d'Abus, entreprises et nullitez du referit et bulle du Pape Sixte Ve.
- CERVANTES (Miguel de). L'Ingénieux Chevalier Don Quixote de la Manche. Nouvelle traduction orne d'une Carte des voyages de Don Quixote, avec l'indication des divers lieux où sont arrivées ses aventures.
- DEHAITRE (Fernand). Machines et Appareils pour Etablissements Hospitaliers, Religieux, Militaires, Maritimes. Etablissements d'Instruction, Lycées, Collèges...
- GOIFFON (Joseph). Harmonie des Deux Sphères Céleste et Terrestre, ou la correspondance des Etoiles aux parties de la Terre.
- HARTMAN (Franz Xaver Ritter von). Prima Lineae Institutionum Botanicarum.
- MAGU. Poésies Nouvelles. Précédées de la Biographie de l'auteur, et d'un Fac-simile.
- [ QUESTION ROMAINE ].
- THUMMEL (de). Wilhelmine, Poème héroï-comique traduit de l’allemand par M. Huber.
- YANGUAS Y MIRANDA (José). Diccionarios de los Fueros del Reino de Navarra, y de las leyes vigentes promulgadas hasta las córtes de los años 1817 y 18 inclusive.

Selection 10/06/2013

Like every Monday the bookstore has published a new selection of books on the Best Deals section. Discounts can go up to 40 % but hurry up, they will only last one week...

- BITAUBE (P. J.). Joseph. En Neuf Chants.
- [ BRIDEL (Philippe Syrach) ]. Les Muses Helvétiennes, ou Recueil de Pièces Fugitives de l'Helvétie, en vers et en prose.
- COWLEY (Abraham). Select Works in two volumes: with a preface and notes by the editor. The third edition.
- HUME (D.). Exposé succint de la Contestation qui s'est élevée entre M. Hume et M. Rousseau, avec les pièces justificatives. A Londres, 1766.
- [ MEHEGAN (Guillaume Alexandre, chevalier de) ]. Considérations sur les Révolutions des Arts, dédiées à Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans, premier Prince du Sang.
- MENGS (Raphael). Œuvres de M. Mengs, Premier peintre du Roi d'Espagne et du Roi de Pologne, Professeur à l'Académie Capitoline de Rome...
- MIRABEAU (Louis de Riqueti, Vicomte de). La Morale des Sens ou l'Homme du Siècle. Extrait des Mémoires de Mr. le Chevalier de Bar... Rédigés par Mr. M... D.M.
- MOTTIN DE LA BALME. Essais sur l'Equitation ou Principes raisonnés sur l'Art de monter et de dresser les Chevaux.
- PANIGAROLA (Francesco). Dichiaratione de i Salmi di David… Alla Serenissima Infante, la Signora Duchessa di Savoia.
- PASCAL DE LA COURT (Louys).). Tableau des Gaules, en forme de colloque entre des Hommes des principalles nations de l'Europe, divisé en deux parties.

The Catalogue "Eurêka"

This week the bookstore has launched a new thematic catalogue. In this occasion by the title “Eureka” we have grouped a selection of 117 antiquarian books and documents related to scientific discoveries and technical inventions, published between 1516 and 1911. Among them we can highlight some books of importance for their bibliographic rarity and the scientific relevance of their content:

- the first monograph on an invertebrate (Malpighi, 1669)
- the only edition of the first description of the “graphometer”, carried out by its inventor (Danfrie, 1597)
- the brochure where for the first time a theoretical solution for colour photography is exposed (Cros, 1869)
- an important illustrated book on microscopy applied to natural science (Buonanni, 1703)

We invite you to learn more about our selection in the catalogue Eurêka

Comellas Book Shop on TV

During the festivity of Saint Jordi the tv show Barcelona Connection from BTV broadcast an interview in Comellas Bookstore.

Journalist Bea Rodriguez talks to Julien Comellas about different aspects of the antiquarian book business while she offers a guided tour around the lovely apartment where the store is located.

Something is Moving on Comellas Bookstore

Comellas Bookstore is ready for a makeover. This could make us think that the team is planning to refurbish the lovely apartment the bookstore occupies in the historic centre of Barcelona. But that is not the case. Modernism and art deco lovers should not be afraid: mouldings, floors, arches and ceilings are still intact around our ancient books.

The changes are at work on our website. Keeping the structure and essence of the former site we have pursued a more updated and accessible look. In that sense we have increased the number of images, both of the place and of the team, so that the audience could feel like a real visitor inside the bookstore.

However the changes go further than the mere visual. We must evolve with times and Comellas Bookstore has decided to implement two innovative tools which will make even closer our relationship with our virtual clients. The first one is the possibility to chat online with a member of the team, who will advise and even redirect the client to a given web page to illustrate a particular recommendation. The second is the possibility to examine a book online through a webcam before purchasing it.

Another of the innovations worth highlighting is the start-up of this blog as a means to communicate news and curiosities of bibliophily in general and the life of our bookstore in particular. Each article intends to be only an excuse to foster dialogue through your contributions and comments. We start this project with thrill but we depend upon you if we want it to become really interesting and dynamic. Our address in facebook and twitter complete our presence on social networks. See you there!

To conclude, the last innovation we will point out is the free registration system. The user who registers has unlimited access to all the contents of the website (full descriptions, prices, new acquisitions catalogues in preview, best deals, etc) as well as all the new tools (online chat, webcam service, access to comments on the blog, etc)

So now you know it, if you register under the name of your favourite author this could be the chance for your first comment…

The Day of Sant Jordi

On April the 23rd, with spring still fresh on the trees and on the spirit of the people of Barcelona, the city blossomed with roses one more time. But not all the petals were red on the streets. Many of them were sheets of books that once every year leave the confinement of bookstores and see the sun.

Most of them are new releases printed for this special day when people traditionally give books for a present. However in a corner of Rambla de Catalunya a stand full of antiquarian books drew the attention of passers-by, tired of so many new books. For them Comellas Bookstore was an interesting contrast, a relief for eyes and hands that reviewed old covers and faded pages with a sensitivity perhaps strange to them in any other day. More than anything we would like to remark and even thank the interest and curiosity we found on the faces of the youngest ones, those who stopped by to look, touch and even smell some books that we, from the other side of the stand, simply love. Thank you.

We would like to share with you some images of our Day of Sant Jordi