John Howell for Books

John Howell for Books On line specialities in California History, Book Club of California, Fine Press, Limited Editions, Miniature Books and more....

Martin Breslauer (1871-1940) was known as the Konig der Antiquare. He was one of the greatest German booksellers of the ...
09/11/2026

Martin Breslauer (1871-1940) was known as the Konig der Antiquare. He was one of the greatest German booksellers of the early twentieth century. The text here is a self deprecating letter written to a friend. I mean, bibliophiles have some strange obsessions. I cannot account for the means by which the California book collector William Wilcox Robinson got Breslauer’s letter, but Robinson had his secretary, Ruth Frey Axe translate the letter and it was printed for book collector friends. This is the second Grant Dalstrom edition (1970, the first was 1935). I bought this because it is SIGNED twice by Jake Zeitlin. I shall be talking about book collecting and printing social networks November 13th at the Clark Library in Los Angeles. The text is interesting having been passed around by serious book collectors. Kind of a fun item for those obsessed with similar Troubles.
Read more about it (or buy it if you collect this type of thing) on my website here: https://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/product/6307

Paul Landacre passed in 1963. It is a tragic story. The next year, Landacre’s friend and early promoter, Jake Zeitlin, r...
09/08/2026

Paul Landacre passed in 1963. It is a tragic story. The next year, Landacre’s friend and early promoter, Jake Zeitlin, represented the estate. This brochure, with 1964 prices for signed Landacre prints, promoted the gallery exhibition.
https://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/product/6306

It has been said that Will Cheney was devoted to type. What better way to review that devotion than to have a look at th...
09/03/2026

It has been said that Will Cheney was devoted to type. What better way to review that devotion than to have a look at this early type specimen book (1961)?
Check it out on my website here: https://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/product/6305

By now my audience is hip to the fact that I like to bring to the market the “book arts,” meaning the materials that are...
09/01/2026

By now my audience is hip to the fact that I like to bring to the market the “book arts,” meaning the materials that are used to build up a book. I especially like when an artist provides beautiful materials that go into the construction of books. In this case, we have a miniature book that contains samples of pastepapers used to cover a book. The designer, Claire Maziarczyk, helps the reader understand the technical challenges is designing a pastepaper that works on the scale of a miniature book (i.e: a surface 3 inches or under).
Find more information about this lovely miniature book on my website here: https://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/product/6304

Saul Marks explains to the Zamorano Club how he chose the name for his press (hint: impetuously), and what Saul learned ...
08/28/2026

Saul Marks explains to the Zamorano Club how he chose the name for his press (hint: impetuously), and what Saul learned about the great Christopher Plantin subsequent to naming his own business. All thanks and love to Muir Dawson!
Just added to my website here: https://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/product/6303

NFS - Not For Sale. Ensign Gabriel Moraga’s exploration of the Sacramento to Valley in 1808 is the 41st volume in Glen D...
08/25/2026

NFS - Not For Sale. Ensign Gabriel Moraga’s exploration of the Sacramento to Valley in 1808 is the 41st volume in Glen Dawson’s Early California Travels Series. Have you ever tried to collect the entire series? It is a challenge! Printed in a uniform size by many important California printers of the 1950s, Glen rounded up texts from otherwise obscure publications which relate the earliest written firsthand accounts of visits to California. At the time, during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, California was contended by the major Western imperial powers. All the powers are represented in the series, Spain, England, France, Russia, and the Americans. Despite the genocide carried out by the Americans in the second half of the nineteenth century, these early accounts still hold a romantic feeling for me, imagining what these familiar locations might have been like before the Western settlement.

This book holds many mysteries. The title is simple enough; it is the opening line of Don Quixote by Cervantes. The prin...
08/20/2026

This book holds many mysteries. The title is simple enough; it is the opening line of Don Quixote by Cervantes. The printer is easy enough; Ward Ritchie. 1933 is a very early date for a Ward Ritchie Press item. Now the mysteries begin. The text is a travelogue recounting a short stay in Madrid, shortly after the revolution overturned the Spanish monarchy. But who was the author, Alexander A. Mackenzie? Ritchie printed this in an edition of 300 copies, yet OCLC only recognizes 6 institutional copies. I can find no record of an Alexander Mackenzie in Los Angeles at this time period. Who was MacKenzie? Could it have been the prankster Ward Ritchie who was known to write under various pseudonyms? And what about the watermarked laid paper? I have not been able to identify the source of the paper.
Find out a little more about this puzzling production on my website here: https://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/product/6301

Did you know that the Hollywood starlet, Gloria Stuart, was a letterpress printer? This is a piece she printed in 2008,...
08/18/2026

Did you know that the Hollywood starlet, Gloria Stuart, was a letterpress printer? This is a piece she printed in 2008, 2 years before her death at 100 years of age. It contains the text of a poem written by AE Housman. The title on the title page reads, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Housman’s poem was written 1896, when Wilde was found guilty of violating England’s so**my laws. It was not published until after Housman’s death in 1936. The poem argues that homosexuality is a natural phenomenon, and therefore the English laws were unjust. The poem appears in anthologies under the title: “Oh Who Is That Young Sinner.”
Find it on my website here: https://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/product/6302
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Did I forget to mention that Gloria Stuart initialled the colophon?

October 3 and 4, 2026. I will be there in booth 302. Come visit me, won’t you?
08/14/2026

October 3 and 4, 2026. I will be there in booth 302. Come visit me, won’t you?

For all the fans of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, here is a sort of travelogue and literary companion to the Spanish Classic. ...
08/12/2026

For all the fans of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, here is a sort of travelogue and literary companion to the Spanish Classic. The author is Homer Crotty, a Los Angeles attorney, philanthropist, book collector, and member of the Zamorano Club.
Printed in Los Angeles by Saul and Lillian Marks at the Plantin Press for the Zamorano Club. Bookplate of fellow Zamoranan, John Haskell Kemble.
$35. Buy it from my website. Free Media Mail postage within the US. CA residents add sales tax, PayPal and credit cards accepted. Copy and paste the link into your browser:
https://www.johnhowellforbooks.com/product/6300

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