Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2017 Issue

Lillian Cole: a bookseller weathers changes and challenges

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By age 60 many dealers have lost a step and are on their second wind.  Lillian Cole was already 60 in 1985 when she stumbled into bookselling, driven by her love of books. Now, aged 92 and 32 years into her second career, she continues.  “It’s not now the way it was of course,” for she entered the trade before its transformation by the Internet. 

 

In time, she chose to specialize in books relating to jewelry, gems and gemology.

 

Coming into the book trade, although an experienced reader, she had to learn the trade and all the how-to’s: how to find, purchase, describe and sell books.  Her administrative assistant position at UCLA gave her both leeway and opportunity to begin to be active and low key in the field.  A week’s attendance at Jake Chernofsky’s Rare Book Seminar at the University of Denver in 1985 then helped her develop the knowledge and skills needed. Added was the advantage and privilege of working every Saturday with rare book dealer Harry Levinson, a friend and mentor.

 

In 1985 the great post-war bull market in rare and collectible books was beginning to settle.  As she entered the field, Harry Levinson advised her that book prices were still climbing at a 10% to 15% annual rate.  What few suspected however, was at that stage in the post WW2 collecting/retail cycle, bookselling would soon begin to transform into an online marketplace. 

 

But she was, in 1985, fresh-taught in the conventions of traditional bookselling and would employ that approach for much of the next three decades and get to know many of the luminaries in her specialty.  And as booksellers worth their salt issued catalogues, so would she.  Hers were annual affairs, each of them reaffirming her belief that close textual analysis and deep description would attract collectors to her carefully selected holdings.

 

Looking back she credits her father’s passion for books as the germinating spark for her love of books and reading.  Her brief, and very readable dealer memoir that is here attached, tells this story.

 

During her career, she never applied to the ABAA or IOBA and allows today that doing so might have been a good idea.  But in our conversations about her career it’s clear that she is, and seems to have always been, an independent optimist, both signal traits of the iconoclast in the book field.

 

So now settle back to read her story. She is still a fresh blossom at 92, and a living reminder of why this field attracts the best and brightest.  She is of them and her story well worth reading. Here it is:  click here.

 

Here is her contact information.  She would love to hear from you.

 

Lillian Cole

Twelfth Street Booksellers

Used, Out-of-Print and Rare Books

Santa Monica, CA 90403

Email: 12thstreetbooks@gmail.com

Tel: (310) 453-7816

Rare Book Monthly

  • <b>19th Century Shop’s Catalog 170 Great Books and Photos. Please inquire for a copy.</b>
    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> Exodus 10:10 to 16:15. Complete Biblical scroll sheet in Hebrew, a Torah scroll panel. Middle East, ca. 10th or 11th century.
    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> Copernicus Refuted. (Astronomy.). Scientific manuscript of a course of studies at Collège de la Trinité, Lyon. 1660s.
    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> Israel’s War of Independence and the Early Days of the IDF. 58 photographs presented to Israel Ber, IDF officer and later convicted spy.
    <b>19th Century Shop’s Catalog 170 Great Books and Photos. Please inquire for a copy.</b>
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    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> Classic Image of American Slavery. Kimball, M. H. <i>Emancipated Slaves</i>. New York: George Hanks, 1863.
    <b>19th Century Shop:</b> (Underground Railroad.) Scaggs, Isaac. Important Runaway Slave Poster: $500 Reward Ran away, or decoyed from the subscriber…
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    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Oct 17: Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books</b>
    <b>Swann Auction Galleries Oct 19:<br>Art & Storytelling: Photographs & Photobooks</b>
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  • <b>Announcing a new Books for Sale platform hosted by Biblio</b>
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