The Book Merchant Jenkins in Brisbane’s West End may be located in a former church but the subject matter on display is decidedly secular.
Enter owner of the store and rare book merchant Yarran Jenkins, who has filled the shelves on Dornoch Terrace for the past five-and-a-half years, and counts happy customers across the globe.
When we meet, Jenkins has a pencil tucked behind his ear as he prepares for an auction on February 1 to clear the inventory ahead of a long-awaited move to Woolloongabba.
As we chat, an assistant at the front of the store processes orders – the stretch and screech of sticky tape providing the soundscape to our interview.
The store specialises in niche non-fiction with a focus on sexuality, LGBTIQ+, ethnopharmacology, dance, performance, and art. For as long as he can recall, Jenkins has been fascinated with books and how they are collected, displayed and consumed.
“It wasn’t about reading,” he says. “It was about the space. It was about the quiet. I particularly remember an edition, in our school library, of The Lord of the Rings. I could never read it … but the mystery of the book was very captivating.”
Jenkins has spent his adult life buying and selling books across Australia in every conceivable manner. These days he conducts online auctions that attract hundreds of people. For many years he operated a mobile shop out of his van at music and folk festivals.
His previous store in Bardon featured the Logical Unsanity 24 Hour Book Shed – a pay-what-you-can operation that gained a cult following.
In 2019, keen to better understand the world of rare books, Jenkins attended the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. The week-long event is one of only two such training courses, where attendees learn everything from rare book valuation techniques to better understanding the nuances of insurance, shipping and marketing.
While in the US Jenkins drove 8000km across the country to meet other bookstore owners, buying books along the way.
“Humans are collectors,” Jenkins observes. “They collect all sorts of things: bottle caps, bottles, books. And if you like bottle caps, you can get into collecting books on bottle caps.”
The scale of Jenkins’ trade is bewildering and most of the time it’s a one-person operation.
“Next week we’ll be shipping off 1000kg of books – all of those books on that shelf, and in that entire room will be packed up and shipped off,” he says.
Perhaps surprisingly in this digital age, the world of hand-sold books, slowly passing from one owner to the next, is thriving. In 2022, the global rare book trade at auction was estimated to be worth US$1.6 billion.
Jenkins recently connected an avid mountain climber in India with a prized find – an exceedingly rare edition about the British Antarctic Expedition signed by Ernest Shackleton and the rest of the landing party.
“A large portion of my business is online,” Jenkins says. “For the auctions there can be three people sitting in the room and 300 people watching on the internet because they’re too busy and they don’t want to put on pants.”
The bookseller had to jump through hoops to gain an auctioneer’s licence but was able to secure his accreditation in 2023. Every book sold at the farewell auction on February 1 will mean one less item to transport to the new store, which will feature twice the amount of space and, mercifully, a dedicated loading dock.
One thing he will be happy to leave behind in West End are the resident possums, who refuse to leave the comfort of the roof. As Jenkins explains, possum pee and ageing paper do not mix.
For now, the old church displays the bookseller’s treasures, the rarest of which are kept behind glass. Jenkins opens a cabinet and pulls out a first edition of poet Paul Verlaine’s 1903 collection Hombres (Hommes). A nearby book details Balinese temple dancers, while another is a hand-painted book on French mushrooms produced in the 19th century. Jenkins says this book was never published – it is the only one of its kind.
Elsewhere in the store sits a first edition (1853) of Alfred Russel Wallace’s exploration of the Amazon, priced at $5000. Jenkins enthuses about a collection of etchings by Australian artist Garry Shead that isn’t bound – it’s housed in a ceramic brick.
All rare book sellers specialise in particular fields and Jenkins has developed impressive holdings in sexuality, ethnopharmacology and art. His largest customers are institutions – he has sold thousands of books to a research collection at one of the world’s top universities.
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Every day, customers and colleagues enquire about this book or that. Our conversation is paused while Jenkins fields a call from a new customer who is interested in selling a vintage book on Australian art.
“Books allow people to really explore what it is that life means to them and what they really want out of life,” Jenkins says.
“Books represent that seemingly infinite, expansive human endeavour and knowledge and mystery, and what the world could be, and what the world is. And our attempts to engage, understand, struggle and embrace all of those things. They all come into the world of books.”
The Book Merchant Jenkins, 19 Dornoch Tce, West End, holds its final auction on February 1, with attendees welcome in store or online. The bookshop will reopen at its new Woolloongabba location in coming months.
thebookmerchantjenkins.com
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