📚 Rare Books

The antiquarian trade: auction records, condition vocabulary, and the collecting passions behind the prices.

Below are the 30 works carrying the subject rare books in the Open Library catalogue with the most editions in print. Author and first year are as the record states them; a missing year means the record does not carry one, not that the book is undated. Novels set in the subject are left out, because a list of historical fiction is not a list of history. Where one author dominates the reprint counts, no more than two of their titles appear.

Cover	Title	Author	First published	Editions
	Bookman's Price Index	Daniel F. McGrath	1964	47
	Travels to discover the source of the Nile	James Bruce	1790	42
	Bookman's Price Index	Anne F. McGrath	1993	35
	Rare books	Davis & Orioli (Firm)	1954	29
	Biblioteca italiana	Nicola Francesco Haym	1726	19
	Western manuscripts and miniatures	Sotheby & Co. (London, England)	1984	19
	Tetsugah u-mekhirah pumbit bi-Yerushalayim	Yudaʾiḳah Yerushalayim	1993	16
	Bibliotheca americana vetustissima	Henry Harrisse	1866	13
	The works of the late ingenious Mr. George Farquhar	George Farquhar	1711	12
	Continental books	Maggs Bros.	1995	11
	The laws of contrast of colour	M. E. Chevreul	1857	10
	Chronograms, 5000 and more in number	James Hilton	1882	10
	Rare and valuable books	E.P. Goldschmidt & Co.	1934	10
	Fine books and manuscripts	Sotheby's (Firm)	1983	10
	Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres	Brunet, Jacques-Charles	1814	9
	A bibliographical and critical account of the rarest books in the English language	John Payne Collier	1865	9
	Old science and medicine	E.P. Goldschmidt & Co.	1936	9
	Tetsugah u-mekhirah pumbit bi-Yerushalayim	Yudaʼiḳah Yerushalayim	1991	9
	Il corbaccio	Giovanni Boccaccio	1569	8
	Trésor de livres rares et précieux	Johann Georg Theodor Grässe	1859	8
	Bibliotheca Sunderlandiana	Sunderland, Charles Spencer Earl of	1881	8
	Manual del librero hispanoamericano	Antonio Palau y Dulcet	1923	8
	Wertvolle Bücher und Autographen des 15.-20. Jahrhunderts	Hauswedell & Nolte	1984	8
	International Rare Book Prices	Michael Cole	1988	8
	The history and fate of sacrilege	Spelman, Henry Sir	1698	7
	The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed	George Sale	1764	7
	Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres	Jacques-Charles Brunet	1814	7
	Catalogue of the London Library	London Library.	1847	7
	Bibliotheca geographica and historia, or, A catalogue of a nine days sale of rare and valuable ancient and modern books, maps, charts, manuscripts, autographical letters, etc	Henry Stevens	1872	7
	Is my old book valuable?	Edward L. Sterne	1958	7

List built from Open Library (CC0 metadata) · retrieved 03 Nov 2026 UTC · capped at 30 works per subject.

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Want the ideas behind these books explained rather than listed? Try Study for short explainers, Academy for deeper tracks, and the periodic table or the night sky when the book is about matter or stars.