narchival
narchival:
A Rare Book Podcast
an·ar·chi·val, adj. — of a book long at large.
Improbable survivals. Overdue introductions.
Some books never make it into the record, and some slip out of it. This is a podcast about those — the ones that stayed at large, and what they turn out to be when someone finally looks. One object an episode: what it is, how it got here, and the story its condition tells. Hosted by Maxim Crispin, antiquarian bookseller. Most of what’s discussed here is, or has been, for sale.
Vesalius, Andreas. Epitome (German). Folio, Basel: Oporinus, 1543. Contemporary boards.
A profoundly improbable find from a closing bookshop, now consigned to Christie’s at an estimate of £20,000–25,000. The second known copy in private hands in the world.
Audio forthcoming
Recorded and in edit; nothing published yet. Approx. 47 minutes.
Join the Prospectus below and you will hear when the first episode goes up.
Zenker, Wilhelm. Lehrbuch der Photochromie. 8vo, Berlin: for the author, 1868.
The first colour photograph ever issued in a printed book, and the only surviving, complete copy in private hands. How a forgotten physicist laid the theoretical foundation for the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physics…with this exact book.
Audio forthcoming
[Anon. — abbé Jean Roy?] Adoulzin. 12mo, “à Paris,” 1787.
What do Marie-Antoinette, a human baby nursed by a goat, a blackmail plot against the pope, and the man who popularized the foot fetish all have in common? They are all connected to this anonymous novel from the dawn of the French Revolution, the only known copy in private hands in the world. We found who wrote it.
Audio forthcoming
Baroja, Pío. Camino de Perfección. Madrid, 1902.
A first edition inscribed by the author to the real man behind one of its characters.
Audio forthcoming
[Missale Romanum.] Venice: Turrini, 1651.
An Alpine parish missal with over three hundred years of provenance, hiding nine leaves of a 1485 incunable inside — including the rubricated initial that became the mark of this show.
Audio forthcoming
Occasional dispatches. No. 1 forthcoming.
☞ Entered in the ledger. Confirm by the link we have just posted you, and No. 1 will follow.
That did not go through. Write to books@anarchival.com and we will enter you by hand.