Parikian started as a bookseller when she found a dusty composite volume of eight
Erasmus first editions for about £9 in the back room of a bookshop. She sold it to Jacques Vellekoop and asked for £100, who put it in his catalogue for £1,000. Parikian opened her own antiquarian bookshop in
Oxford, and published some 80 catalogues over 45 years. Her specialist area was European books published before 1650. ==Personal life==