The Anagnostakis Pocket Guide to Austrian, German and Swiss Antiquarian Bookdealers' Terminology

To Greet the New Year 2012

Our 2012 New Year's Book was an outgrowth of our work on Jerry Cinamon's book, E. R. Weiss: the typography of an artist. Wanting to reproduce a selection of illustrations that accurately conveyed the breadth Weiss's work, we ended up buying over 100 books that Weiss had a hand in designing, whether his Weiss typeface, an example of one of his typographic layouts,  one of his charming illustrations, or a patterned paper. Because Weiss was German and worked to a great extent with German publishers, many of these books came from German or Germanic book dealers whose grasp of English, particularly of a bibliographic sort, was occasionally only slightly better than our grasp of their language.
Many times our German dictionary was consulted in vain for particularly 'bookish' terminologies.  Our Friend Christopher Anagnostakis who speaks German and Swiss camed to our rescue, and in the Summer of 2011 he helped us put together this little joie d'esprit . Albeit small and charming, it is, as well, useful for buying antiquarian books from European dealers. Several of our customers have found it comes in handy, with friends from the Bodleian buying several copies for friends and wprk collegues.