NINETEENTH-CENTURY DIRECTORIES FOR THE BOOK TRADE

University Library Amsterdam, Library of the Netherlands Book Trade Association

on microfiche

1. German Directories

Adressbuch für den deutschen Buchhandel und verwandt Geschäftszeige, 1839-1900

Founded by Otto August Schulz in Leipzig in 1839, this annual publication is a fundamental source for information about many aspects of book publishing and bookselling in the Germanspeaking countries during the nineteenth century. In a series of sections whose format changed little over the century, the yearbook presents:

• first a thorough alphabetical list of book-, music-, and art dealers in Germany and the surrounding areas, with their addresses, date of foundation and specializations.
• then follows information on booksellers according to their branch of trade ranging from antiquarian book dealers trough those concentrating on music, cartography, school books an d many other subjects. Included as well are entries for firms dealing in musical instruments and gut strings for instruments, writing and drawing materials and stationary, and on reading clubs for books an journals.

Further information can be found on:

• local and regional associations of booksellers,
• agents handling German books in other countries, like France, Italy, Poland or the Baltic lands,
• firms that had gone bankrupt or ceased activities in the past year.

Other items of interest include:

• memorials to prominent deceased members of the trade, often with a photographic portrait
• a great variety of advertisements and supplements of different kinds providing rich material for tracing the development of printing technology, photographic techniques and many other specialized branches of the trade.

2. Dutch Directories

Adresboeken voor den Nederlandschen boekhandel,[1828]1848-1896

These directories were intended for the Dutch book trade in the widest sense. For that reason they included everything of potential interest to this branch: lists of booksellers, lending libraries, publishers and printers, bookbinders and paper manufacturers, but also for example, type foundries, ateliers that colored in plates for children’s books and maps among others, music and art dealers, manufacturers of nautical instruments and businesses in which the latest reproduction techniques were used. And of course the directories also listed the newspapers and magazines published in the Netherlands, with their subscription and advertising rates.

But these directories are also interesting in other regards, for starting in 1855 they also give a sort of general statistical review of every locality in the Netherlands where there was a bookstore (and that was virtually every community in the country!) The information given includes the number of inhabitants, their religions, specific details on local education, trade and industry, for example the number of factories or workshops for different industries, and the travel time in hours from Amsterdam. In this way a publisher or bookseller could evaluate the sales potential for his products in a particular locality. The series forms a unique tool for research into many aspects of the book trade and book making in the nineteenth century. Much information concerns the Netherlands itself and its former colonies (the Dutch East Indies, Surinam and the Dutch Antilles), but there is also mention of the Dutch book business abroad, in particular in the United States of America and in South Africa.