About us

Bibliopoly has been developed by Bernard Quaritch Ltd., 5-8 Lower John St., London W1F 9AU (VAT number GB 539 0733 36), an antiquarian bookshop established in London over one hundred and fifty years ago by a German-born bookseller. Quaritch, with about thirty staff members, is proud to be a member of the British (ABA), the French (SLAM), and the German (Verband Deutscher Antiquare) trade associations affiliated to ILAB (International League of Antiquarian Booksellers).

Bibliopoly is designed to list the stock of participating antiquarian booksellers in a way that meets the specialized needs of those interested in antiquarian books, and is effective in five languages - English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Our search facilities

Those wishing to buy antiquarian books rarely have a specific author or a specific title in mind. They might, for example, be interested in incunables (i.e. date-range 1455-1500), they might want books printed in Toulouse or by Aldus, or early seventeenth century books on social reform, or books written in Greek or Swedish, or books with an interesting association, or with a fine binding, or miniature books. On Bibliopoly they may search for those and many other things. We hope our search page is self-explanatory and easy to use; should you experience any difficulty please click on "help" where you will find details of how to get the best from it.

Our search mechanism is assisted by multilingual dictionaries of authors' names and imprint towns (plus a few printers and publishers). If the dictionaries recognize your search term(s), the search mechanism automatically searches for equivalents and variant forms in the other five Bibliopoly languages and Latin. As regards searching for books of a certain kind or about a specific subject, for which word-searching is only effective in the language of the searcher (where it is effective at all), Bibliopoly has a system of categories which operates in five languages, such that if you select "Essays, letters, and other prose", you also thereby select "Essais, lettres, et autres écrits en prose", "Briefe und Aufsätze", "Saggi, lettere ed altra prosa", and "Ensayos, epistolarios y otros géneros de prosa".

How to contact us

Booksellers wishing to list their books on Bibliopoly should send an e-mail to .

A note on our name

The Oxford English Dictionary has "bibliopoly" to mean bookselling. It comes from the Greek bibliopwleion - either a bookshop or bookselling. We chose it because it is classical and international; cognate if relatively rare words exist in most other European languages. The word emphasizes the continuity of bookselling, a trade that has survived more than two thousand years. Its rarity does not seem amiss for a website offering antiquarian books.

Legal disclaimer

The Bibliopoly service is provided on an "as is" basis by us, Bernard Quaritch Limited. We give no warranty that the service will be suited to any particular purpose, even if such purpose is known to us. All transactions effected by using the website are between the purchaser and the relevant bookseller. Bibliopoly accepts no responsibility for any default.

To the extent permitted by law we exclude all liability, except in the case of death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for direct, indirect, special or consequential loss in contract tort or otherwise arising from use of the service, the website's content or any link to another website, or from any factor delaying, inhibiting, or preventing such use.

In particular but without limitation we make no representation or warranty, nor do we accept any liability in respect of any item acquired through the website.

Any use made of Bibliopoly is at the user's risk and any transaction entered into is entirely subject to the user's terms of agreement with the relevant bookseller.

We do not control and are not responsible for the availability or content of any other websites available via Bibliopoly through a link.

All legal relations between us and any user of Bibliopoly shall be governed by English law and are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Use of Bibliopoly constitutes acceptance of the above terms. We do not store any personal data

Copyright and trademarks

Copyright and all other intellectual property rights in the content of this website are owned by or licensed to Bernard Quaritch Ltd (trading as Bibliopoly). Copyright ©2000 Bibliopoly and / or its suppliers, 5-8 Lower John Street, Golden Square, London W1F 9AU. All rights reserved.

“Bibliopoly” and any other brand names and / or logos included within this website are trademarks or registered trademarks of Bibliopoly or of the relevant owner. You may not use these without prior written permission from the relevant trademark owner.

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