An antiquarian house shaped by two generations of the American book trade.
Randall House Rare Books has been part of the antiquarian book world since 1975. The firm took root in the great mid-century tradition of West Coast bookselling — a world of specialist shops, printed catalogues, and dealers who knew their fields intimately — and carried that tradition forward for nearly half a century from its home in Santa Barbara, California.
Scholarship and Plain Dealing
The house was known for two things above all: the scholarship behind its descriptions and the plainness of its dealing. A book offered by Randall House was described exactly as it was — its edition, issue, and state identified; its condition reported without flattery; its faults noted as carefully as its virtues. In a trade where a single word (“first,” “issue,” “fine”) can multiply or divide a book's value, that discipline mattered. Collectors returned because they could trust what they read.
What the House Handled
Randall House ranged widely. Over the years its shelves held Shakespeare folios and early Bibles, incunabula and modern first editions, fine bindings and fine-press books, children's classics and works of natural history. The house was equally at home with autographs, manuscripts, historical documents, and ephemera, and it kept a standing selection of original paintings, etchings, and works on paper by noted artists. Certain fields became specialties — the American Revolution, Californiana, sporting books, and the fine printing of the Grabhorn Press among them.
A Place in the Trade
Randall House was, for most of its life, a member in good standing of the principal bodies of the antiquarian trade — associations such as the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. Membership in these bodies is not a formality; it binds a dealer to a strict code of accurate description, fair pricing, and guaranteed authenticity. It was a standard the house was proud to keep.
A Closed Bookshop
The bookshop has closed its doors. Its departments, collecting guides, and reference material reflect what made Randall House useful to collectors — a specialist house devoted to the enduring pleasures of the rare book. To learn how the house worked, see Our Services and the Catalogues.