With our newest client Daniel Crouch Rare Books exhibiting at the 2024 iteration of Frieze Masters, we thought it the perfect time to get to know more about the business, and the man behind the brand. Read on for an interview with Daniel Crouch, in which he shares his passion for rare books, maps and other ephemera, and discusses what the future holds for the sector in the face of an ever-increasing digital world.
At this year's Frieze Masters, Daniel Crouch will introduce ‘A Celebration of Fictitious Cartography’: a tour of fantasy maps that begins with Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ before travelling through Dante’s ‘Inferno’, ‘Treasure Island’ and then onward to works by J. R. R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling among many more. Visit Daniel and see the exhibition for yourself at booth G6.
Can you tell us about your business and what inspired you to become a specialist dealer in rare books and ephemera?
Daniel Crouch Rare Books deals in answers to two questions: Where am I? And What time is it? Which, if you are a physicist amounts to one and the same.
As such we are specialist dealers in rare maps, atlases, plans, sea charts and antiquarian books relating to voyages dating from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Our carefully selected stock also includes a number of fine prints, globes, planetaria, scientific instruments and a selection of cartographic reference books. Our particular passions include rare atlases, town plans, wall maps, and separately published maps and charts. We strive to acquire unusual and quirky maps that are in fine condition.
The job came before the passion to be honest. When I was 16 I was looking for some summer holiday work, and saw an advertisement from a small shop in Oxford. I am the only person I know who has a career they found in a job centre!
What is the most unusual item you have sold so far?
Difficult to say really… A 1531 portolan map of the world – the most expensive map ever sold on the open market – now hanging in the Louvre Abu Dhabi? A 5,000-year-old Babylonian land map? An Aztec map now in the Library of Congress? Winston Churchill’s dispatch box and passport?
I think the most unusual is The Endeavour Globe, a magnificent silver globe punch bowl (yes, a punch bowl in the shape of a globe) made to commemorate Cook’s first voyage, and almost certainly commissioned by the voyage’s official naturalist, Sir Joseph Banks. The bowl shows Australia at the top. It has very louche figure of Atlas reclining on its at the South Pole, temporarily relieved from carrying the burden of the sky. You may see it in the below catalogue as item 20. It is now in the Library of New South Wales.
What book/map have you yet to handle that you would love to come through your door?
The Fra Mauro map is probably my favourite, but I don’t believe the Marciano in Venice is in the mood to sell...
What advice would you give to an amateur book collector?
Never compromise on quality. You will never forgive yourself if you buy junk “because it’s cheap”. It’s cheap for a reason! Don’t obsess over rarity - buy the stories that you love not the “one of three known copies”. Things are often rare for a reason too!
As the world becomes increasingly digital / AI-reliant, do you believe this will have any impact (both positive and negative) on your business / the collectability of rare books and ephemera?
This is very exciting - I have a dream whereby customers can don a pair of virtual reality specs and wander round the shop opening virtual folders and leafing through virtual paper like I used to do in Paris book shops 20 years ago! It would be wonderful if we could emulate some of the physical experience of looking at rare maps in a customer’s living room. I am more sceptical of AI - if it is anything like the DHL call centre, we are all doomed!
I suppose that I should also add that the separation of the “book” from the “text” grows with every passing year. People no longer buy rare books as “reading copies”: they either buy books “as fine art” or get the text online or in modern print. This is natural, fine, and only to be expected.
crouchrarebooks.com
