What Is a Rare Book?

My title should perhaps be expanded to the slightly awkward but more inclusive "What (and of What Use) Is a Rare Book?," for I propose to offer here not only examples of rare books but also suggestions as to some of the ways in which rare books are useful to us. But, first, what is a rare book? A simple, obvious answer to the question would be a book that is in very short supply. And, indeed, Webster's unabridged New International Dictionary (second edition) confirms that such a book is one that is "Seldom met with or occurring; unusual; infrequently seen or appearing . . . ; as a rare event, quality, or book." But, like most simple and obvious answers, this one is wrong—or at least inadequate.

Let us consider, for example, what is probably the most famous rare book in all of English literary history—the First Folio, that is, the earliest collection of Shakespeare's plays ever printed. Shakespeare died in 1616. And in order to honor his memory his friends and former acting colleagues John Heminge and Henry Condell collected copies of thirty-six of his plays and published them in a large format (i.e. a folio) in 1623. Eighteen of the plays had been previously published in individual, small quarto editions, but the other eighteen, including Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest, had never been printed and, but for Heminge and Condell's volume, would have been forever lost. No one will deny that this is a book of inestimable value. And yet it is not in very short supply. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., alone has over eighty copies (many complete but some fragmentary), and the total known copies in the world today number 230. But, because of the First Folio's inherent value and its status as a major landmark in English literary history, its desirability far exceeds its availability, and hence it is unquestionably a rare book, one which carries a price of three million English pounds or more on the rare occasion when a copy is offered for sale.

Another book whose rarity will not be questioned is the renowned Gutenberg Bible, the world's first book printed by movable metal type and hence the celebrated harbinger of the age of printing—many would say of the modern age. Although acclaimed for its primacy, the Great Bible is also praiseworthy in and of itself, for it is a masterpiece of livresque beauty and efficiency. It too is rare without being particularly scarce. Of the approximately 180 copies (it is estimated) that were initially published, forty-seven more or less complete copies survive today. Few other books are as highly valued as copies of the Gutenberg Bible.

Rareness in a book then is more than mere paucity, nor can mere paucity make a book rare. Many books that survive in only a few copies are of no value because they are inherently worthless to begin with. An artless poetaster's doggerel published by a vanity press would have little appeal either to a book collector or to a book dealer, no matter how few copies survive. Yet it would be misleading to say that scarcity is wholly irrelevant in assessing the value of a rare book. A volume of signal importance in the history of dictionary-making in English is Robert Cawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall, conteyning and teaching the true writing, and vnderstanding of hard vsuall English Wordes. Published in 1604, it is the first English dictionary. For those concerned with the history of English culture and of the English language this inaugural volume is crucial and indispensable and would be so, whatever the number of copies in which it survives. It survives in but one solitary copy preserved today in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It would be naïve to think that this book's uniqueness does not affect its value. If Oxford should (inconceivably) offer it for sale, its desirability and price would be substantially enhanced by the fact that it is a unicum. But its scarcity does not establish its status as...