Fairs | October 2011 | Rebecca Rego Barry

Seattle Book Fair Preview

Coming up this weekend is the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair! On Saturday and Sunday, 101 book, map, and ephemera dealers will set up at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall and offer some amazing items. Here's a quick look at a few of them. 

screwjack.jpgEd Smith Books of Rolling Bay, WA, specializes in modern literature, photography, and screenplays. Smith is bringing some first edition westerns by Clarence Mulford, a first edition of No Country for Old Men, and a presentation copy of Hunter S. Thompson's Screwjack in bright red cloth with gilt decoration (seen above; $1,250).
aesop3.jpgBarnaby Rudge Booksellers is traveling from Laguna Beach, CA, with children's books, bibles, and natural history books. One of their highlights is an extra-illustrated 1666 first edition of Aesop's Fables (pictured above; $8,500).

Portuguese.jpgFirst Folio of Paris, TN, focuses on fine bindings and illustrated books. One of their beauties is this Portuguese almanac from 1813 bound in pale silk and extensively embroidered with gold thread and sequins ($3,750). They're also bringing a beautiful edition of Shelley's Poetical Works from 1908, bound in purple morocco and featuring on the cover a painting of a woman playing a lyre ($2,750). 

crusoepainting.jpgKevin Kelly Bookseller from New Paltz, NY, sent a preview list that shows several guitar and violin-related books and ephemera, including the very cool framed broadside from 1832 advertising one of Nicolo Paganini's last performances ($2,500). Another item of keen interest is James Bisset's original watercolor design comprising a trompe l'oeil image of an open book showing a full-page color illustration facing a page of text of Robinson Crusoe (seen here; $4,500).

Good luck to our bookseller friends and happy shopping to the buyers out there!