What we do

We specialize in printed books and ephemera from the hand-press period—those days when Western books were printed and bound entirely by hand. We take this period to begin with Gutenberg (ca. 1455) and end around 1830.

We offer a rotating selection of items we hope you’ll find interesting, relevant, or somehow worthy of your shelf space. While we’re dedicated generalists, we make a special effort to find compelling artifacts of book and print culture, as well as material that illuminates everyday life and the lives of those marginalized in the early modern West. Much of the latter is racist, sexist, or otherwise offensive. We are committed to properly contextualizing these items and handling them sensitively. If we’ve missed that mark, please let us know. Read more about our values.

As firm believers in the mutually beneficial and collaborative work between librarians, collectors, scholars, and booksellers, we maintain membership in multiple bibliophilic and bibliographical organizations, as well as the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries. We serve on the board of Boston’s Ticknor Society, and as treasurer for the Bibliographical Society of America. These groups have long worked together to build and maintain collections that today form a vital part of our cultural heritage. It is our privilege to participate in this work.

Who we are

Patrick Olson first joined the rare book trade in Chicago in 2003, during his junior year of college. Four years later, after receiving his MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he embarked upon a decade-long detour holding a variety of professional positions working with rare books: as a rare book cataloger at the University of Illinois and MIT, as a curator at the University of Iowa, and then as a curator and eventually Head of Special Collections at Michigan State University. For six years, he taught rare book cataloging for the University of Illinois’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

Patrick returned to the trade, under his own name, in 2018. We are proud members of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America, the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers.

Patrick feels odd speaking of himself in the third person, to say nothing of first person plural, but he does, and we do, look forward to working with you. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch, even if only to say hello.