Miniature Book Society Newsletter, Number 28, January 1996 Page: 2
16 p. : ill. , 26 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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To this day, the Spielmann catalogue remains,
in the words of the late Doris Welsh,
"the most extensive and cohesive account
of miniature books yet to appear in print."
Not surprisingly, as long ago as 1982,
the Spielmann catalogue was described as
"a rare book in its own right." Happily, this
most important reference volume has been
re-issued by Maurizio Martino in a facsimile
edition, hardbound in cloth, in a
press run of 250 copies. It is available at
John William Pye Rare Books, 79 Hollis
Street, Brockton, MA 02402-1218.
The Scrivener
The Mini-Books of Hungary
ary and I moved from Hungary to
Canada in 1957. Our ties with the
country of our birth have steadily declined
over the years, but one connection remained:
miniature books.
We got our first Hungarian miniature
book as a gift from a friend perhaps
twenty-five years ago: a beautiful edition
of a great dramatic play. After acquiring a
few others, we got "infected" with the
"mini-book bug" (literally a micro-organism)
and became collectors; first of Hungarian
miniature books and later expanding
into the rest of the world. Hungarian
books, however, remain to this day, a central
focus of our interest. About one-third
of our present miniature book collection
is Hungarian. It helps, of course, that we
understand the language, but many collectors
who don't speak a word of Hungarian,
possess such books. The reasons
for this are: first, there are so many of
them; second, some have been published
entirely or partially in English; finally and
most importantly, many of them are so
2beautifully illustrated, printed and bound.
How did a small Eastern European
country of ten million inhabitants become
the virtual miniature book center of the
world? It is estimated that perhaps 2,500
miniature books have been published in
Hungary, the bulk of them during the quarter
of a century since the early 1960s. There
are at least two social-political explanatory
factors: 1. Socialist governments heavily
subsidize all sorts of cultural activities,
including book publishing; the production
of miniature books is a labor-intensive,
expensive undertaking relative to standard
book publishing; 2. Hungarian miniature
book publishing centered around professional
printing presses, whose workers
produced many of these books as "societal
work," a euphemism for working after-hours
without pay. In spite of this somewhat
authoritarian connotation, many of
these little books were produced as labors
of love.
A large segment of Hungarian mini book
collectors were those who produced them,
professional printers and binders. Miniature
book clubs sprang up in Budapest and
several smaller cities and they often centered
around printing plants. Later, an increasing
number of other book lovers became
enthralled with the hobby. The
"dean" of Hungarian miniature books,
Gyula Janka, originally was a printer himself.The numerous limited edition and numbered
books published by the clubs and
presses, were generally intended for the
personal use of club members and employees,
not for commercial distribution. Some
of the ones presently in circulation are
quite valuable. Hungary, however, also
produced numerous miniature books for
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Miniature Book Society. Miniature Book Society Newsletter, Number 28, January 1996, periodical, January 1996; Ohio. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc9330/m1/2/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.