by Chris Hartman, Project Manager
The 36th Boston
International Antiquarian Book Fair will be held at the Hynes Convention Center,
Boston, from Friday, November 14, through Sunday, November 16. There will be 134
dealers attending from the United States, Canada, Denmark, England, France,
Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Russia. These dealers will be selling
a large trove of rare, collectible and antiquarian books, illuminated
manuscripts, autographs, maps, atlases, modern first editions, photographs,
and fine and decorative prints. It is sponsored by two of the world’s foremost
antiquarian book organizations, the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of
America (ABAA) and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB).
For over two decades, the fair has been held in the Back
Bay’s John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center. Prior to that, it was located
at the Park Plaza Castle—an old armory located at the intersections of Arlington
Street, Stuart Street and Columbus Avenue, just under a mile from the Hynes. The
fair is now second in size and prestige; only the New York International Antiquarian
Book Fair, which is rapidly approaching its 55th year, tops it. (The next
fair in New York will be held April 9–April 12, 2015.)
I started attending the show in 1989, the same year I
moved to Boston. In those days, it was a tweedy affair, held within the insular
and highly competitive—yet generally collegial—antiquarian book trade. Exhilarating
as it was for me to be there, it was also, literally speaking, stuffy and hot
in that old armory, with each of the tightly packed booths fitted with what
seemed like stadium-strength Klieg lights beating down on the crowd of attendees,
who in addition to getting suntans, were craning their necks and squinting to
read book titles on spines.
At that first fair, I found a 1937 limited edition copy
of Yankee Bookseller, by Charles E.
Goodspeed, who just so happened to be the father of my employer at that time,
George T. Goodspeed. George was the successor to his father as head of their
antiquarian bookselling firm located at the top of Beacon Hill. I recall it was
priced at $120, a lot of money then (and still is now), but I knew I had to
have it. I brought it back to the apartment I was sharing with some Boston
College students in a Brighton triple-decker and reflected on my savvy and good
fortune. The next day, I told Mr. Goodspeed about it, and he immediately said
he wanted it from me! I was unaware he was collecting copies of it himself. But
shortly after, he relented, and I still have that book today. It’s one of the
jewels of my own collection, and it always brings back fond memories of my days
as an apprentice at Goodspeed’s.
On the other hand, the spacious and modern Hynes venue
resembles more of an airport or a hotel, with its network of escalators,
freight elevators and generic-looking potted plants stationed throughout the
second level, where the fair occurs. There are satellite rooms off the second
floor’s main hall where author talks are given, and where, on Sunday, from 1:00–3:00
p.m., attendees can receive a complimentary appraisal of their own treasures by
respected ABAA and ILAB book dealers.
Talks and seminars will be given throughout the weekend,
by, to name a few, Peter Drummey of the Massachusetts Historical Society and
Michael Volmar of Fruitlands Museum. The Annual Ticknor Society Collectors’ Roundtable,
a panel discussion consisting of collectors talking about their collections,
will also be featured. This year’s topic is called “Ephemera!” and will address
what ephemera is and why
it’s important to collectors, and will also include samples.
Among the highlights being brought to the fair this year
are rare and first editions of works by Charles Dickens, Raymond Chandler,
Louisa May Alcott, Gabriel García
Márquez and Charles Darwin, to
name a few. Also making
appearances are a 1789 proclamation from President Washington declaring
Thanksgiving a national holiday—valued at over $8 million; a complete collection
of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes stories from The Strand Magazine; Play Ball: Stories of the Ball Field by Mike “King” Kelly, a member
of the Boston Beaneaters in the late nineteenth century; and Mick Jagger’s
handwritten lyrics for his 1987 song “War Baby.”
For more detailed information, visit the fair’s website:
www.bostonbookfair.com.
Did You Know?
Rare books can fetch a serious fortune. Da Vinci's Leicester Codex—his personal
notebook detailing his ideas and observations, also known as the Hammer Codex—and
John James Audubon's The Birds of America—a book containing
hand-painted illustrations of a very wide variety of bird species found in
North America, including six species that are now extinct—are two of the most
expensive books ever sold. In 1994, Bill Gates purchased Da Vinci's Codex Leicester
for a colossal $30.8
million. In 2010, a copy of Audubon's The
Birds of America sold for a record £7.3
million ($11.5 million). But books don’t have to be hundreds of years old
to sell for millions. In 2007, Amazon bought a handwritten and hand-illustrated
copy of J. K. Rowling's The Tales of
Beedle the Bard—which, according to Rowling, is “a distillation of themes
found in the Harry Potter books,” and of which there are only seven original copies
in existence—for £1.95
million ($3.98 million).
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