Book Sales Catalogues as Sources for Research

Book Sales Catalogues

of the Dutch Republic, 1599-1800

Catalogue numbers 1-3748 (Instalments 1-21)

Book Sales Catalogues as Sources for Research

Book sales catalogues are important sources for historical research. In the past, Dutch catalogues have scarcely been used as such because of their inaccessibility. Of the almost 1,900 recorded catalogues dating from before 1701 less than 12% can be found in Dutch libraries and archives. In the near future this drawback will cease to exist, for all known major collections of catalogues preserved in Dutch and foreign libraries will be available on microfiche.

Book sales catalogues are contemporary registrations. They contain many works or editions of works that have been lost in the past centuries, but nevertheless were sold and read at the time. However valuable and useful modern retrospective national and other bibliographies may be, they can only record books of which copies are preserved today.

Book sales catalogues are indispensable sources for research on the history of the book, of scholarship and science, of art, of language and literature and of ideas. For more details reference can be made to: Archer Taylor, Book catalogues: their varieties and uses (Chicago 1957; 2nd ed. rev. by W.P. Barlow, Winchester 1986); Bücherkataloge als buchgeschichtliche Quellen in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Reinhard Wittmann (Wiesbaden 1985); and B. van Selm, Een menighte treffelijcke boecken, Nederlandse boekhandelscatalogi in het begin van de zeventiende eeuw (Utrecht 1987).

Some possibilities for research offered by book sales catalogues may be indicated here.

	Book sales catalogues offer a survey of the sources used at the time when building a private or an institutional library.
	Classified subject catalogues can be used in searching for books on a particular topic, discipline or theme. The same applies to special catalogues of atlases and maps, music, medical books, and so on.
	Catalogues classified by language make it possible to determine which books were available in which language. The same applies to catalogues containing books in a single language.
	Auction catalogues of private libraries offer the opportunity to study the bookcases of university professors and private scholars, of professional groups as ministers, jurists, physicians and artists, and of bibliophile merchants and magistrates and of titled book collectors.
	Auction catalogues make it possible to discover the provenance of manuscripts and rare printed books. This applies especially to copies of catalogues annotated with buyers' names.
	Booksellers' or publishers' wholesale stock catalogues contain the books issued by these individuals or firms themselves as well as the books they obtained in large quantities from other booksellers or publishers by exchange, at auctions, and so on.
	Retail stock catalogues reflect the books that were for sale on a particular moment in a particular place. The same applies to auction catalogues of wholesale and retail stock.
	Wholesale and retail stock catalogues with printed or manuscript prices make it possible to determine what was the price of a particular book on a particular moment.

Wholesale and retail catalogues are usually found in the same collections or even the same composite volumes as auction catalogues, but they are, if anything, even rarer. There are also instances of retail and wholesale catalogues used afterwards as auction catalogues. In any case, the relationship between the earlier stock catalogue and the final auction catalogue is of the highest interest.

For filming, preference is given to a copy of a catalogue with manuscript annotations (e.g. names of purchasers, prices, added titles). If an annotated or more abundantly annotated copy of a catalogue already filmed happens to be found, an additional microfiche will be published.