Katharine Kyes Leab was a 20th-century American publisher, expert on rare books and manuscripts, and co-owner and editor-in-chief of American Book Prices Current, known as "the grande dame of book auction data."
In 1972, Leab and her husband took ownership of American Book Prices Current. ABPC, established in 1895, records books, manuscripts, autographs, maps, and broadsides sold at auction in much of the world. It focuses on North America and the United Kingdom but also tracks countries including Switzerland, Germany, Monaco, the Netherlands, Australia, and France. Leab served as co-owner and editor-in-chief for more than four decades. Leab adapted ABPC with major 20th-century technical changes in book publishing. In 1994, she began publishing American Book Prices Current on CD-ROM through 2006. In 2006, she introduced "ABPC on a Stick". In 2007, she converted ABPC into an online database, which offers data back to 1975.
Other
In addition to her own business, Leab wrote and spoke widely and passionately about books, book collecting, and stopping the theft of rare books and manuscripts. She contributed pieces to Seven Days, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, and both the New York Times and New York Times Book Review. Leab became so troubled by increasing theft of rare book and manuscript from libraries that in the 1980s she created and maintained Bookline Alert Missing Books and Manuscripts, a registry of thefts to help both law enforcement and libraries could alert each other. As she later recounting in 2016, she became involved when hearing that book thieves were using her American Book Prices Current as a guide to picking the most valuable books to steal, once they had broken in.
In 1964, Kyes married Daniel Leab; they had two daughters and a son. In the mid-1970s, the Leabs bought a house in Washington, Connecticut, where they began to live full-time in 1983. She served as a trustee of the Washington Montessori School in the 1980s. Both Leab and her husband served on local community organizations, including the zoning board of appeals in the 2000s and 2010s. In mid-2017, Leab moved home and business to South Burlington, Vermont. Leab's husband often credited her in his own books. In I Was a Communist for the FBI, he wrote that she "saved me from many a folly." With self-deprecating humor, he expressed thanks "to my wife Katharine Kyes Leab, who has lived with Labor History for over a decade... and never, well hardly ever, complained about the demands made by this journalistic interloper." Leab died age 78 on February 16, 2020, in Washington, Connecticut.
Kathy was a real contributor to the antiquarian book world as I think a great many people will be aware. She will be remembered and missed by booksellers around the world. ILAB pays its respect to Ms Leab and her achievements for the rare book trade.
Abigail Leab Martin, Leab's daughter, has added Books to her earlier Autographs and Manuscripts Editor role.
Leab Awards
Leab was active in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries as well as a member of the Bibliographical Society of America. For the ACRL, Leab and her husband endowed a fund the "Leab Awards" to celebrate excellence in library exhibition catalogs. Leab and her husband, publishers of American Book Prices Current underwrote the awards, formally known as "The Katharine Kyes Leab and Daniel J. Leab American Book Prices Current Exhibition Catalogue Awards." The awards were made from 1986 and continue to be made annually.
Daniel J. and Katharine Kyes Leab Collection of Book Auction Ephemera
Leab and her husband left ephemera related to book auctions at the end of the twentieth century, open for research.
Kyes, Roger M. & Kyes Family Papers
In 2003, Leab deposited nearly 50,000 papers of her father and family in the Eisenhower Library.
Works
Articles: Articles include:
"Appraisal" with Daniel Leab, Book Collecting: A Modern Guide
"The OTHER Auction House in England" with Daniel Leab, Town and Country
"The Auction Year" with Daniel Leab in Rare Books, 1983–1984
"Forgers and Scholars," New York Times
"Tracking Down Rare Books: The Quietest Blood Sport," Collecting, Seven Days
"My New Post Office Address Unknown," New York Times
"Anthony Rota" with Daniel Leab
"The Book: A CD–ROM History by Scottish Center for the History of the Book," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
Books: Books included:
The Auction Companion with Daniel Leab
Speeches: Some of Leab's speeches
"That Was Then, This Is Now - But Our Love Is Here to Stay"
"H. Bradley Martin and Other Rare Birds: Collectors and their Astonished Families"
"Marked Improvements: Provenance and Theft" for Mind the Gap: Recent Provenance of Antiquarian Materials conference by The Grolier Club
