events: New York Antiquarian Book Fair, Saturday April 9, 2011, Park Ave. Armory
Yesterday we got to go to the NY Antiquarian Book Fair. My excellent friend Zoe is a rare book dealer, and the bookshop where she works gave her some free passes for her friends. I was so incredibly excited that she invited us! It worked out perfectly because we were already planning to be in NYC to see Sleep No More for the second time on Friday night (post forthcoming on that, too, but that'll take longer to type out), so instead of trying to do a NY trip all in one day, we stayed over at Missi & Mike's and went to the Book Fair on Saturday.
I just have to say, it was incredible. Obviously we weren't going to buy anything; it was more like worshipping at the temple. Seeing all these amazing books, the history of our culture, so carefully preserved and cared for! Seeing the first editions, and signed copies, and rare books and manuscripts and documents! One booth had several early quartos of Shakespeare plays. Upon seeing them, I was moved to tears.
Two of my favorite things were actually at Zoe's bookshop's booth. They had an original Quechua dictionary, one of the oldest in existence! Quechua is the native language of the people of Peru, and was never written down before the conquest. The dictionary dates to the 1580s and includes both a dictionary and a grammar of Quechua. Of course it's in Spanish, but apparently the publisher was of French origin, imported all his printing presses to Peru from France, and they Spanishized his name to make it look better for the Spaniards. Amazing to see.
Zoe's bookshop also had a set of Frederick Catherwood prints. Catherwood was the architect and artist who went on many of the early (like 1830s) expeditions to Maya temples. His drawings were the first the world saw these places--and because of erosion and looting, his drawings are all we have of some of these places. So incredibly exciting to see them.
My other favorite thing was in a different booth. They had a lot of children's books, and hanging on the wall they had an original graphite drawing by Chris Van Allsburg. The drawing (which was huge) was Van Allsburg's attempt, just for himself, to figure out what happened to Harris Burdick. I jumped up and down when I saw it. And now I know (or, at least, I know what Van Allsburg suspects happened). The drawing cost $45,000. It was right next to a beautiful print of the cover art for The Dark Is Rising, one of my favorite books. So awesome.
We walked around the whole book fair. One game we played was to try to find the most expensive items. I saw a first edition of Tom Sawyer that was priced at $108,000. I know we saw something else at $125,000. There were a lot of things between $25,000-75,000. There were also a lot of things that looked like they could be found at any yard sale. (Plan: attend more yard sales.) There were also booths that didn't have prices on their books, which indicated to me that their stuff was probably pretty expensive.
I also found a few books that reminded me of the old treasure trove of books in my mother's attic, which belonged to my mother and to my grandmother when they were children. Some of these might be worth some money. Might be interesting to find out, but unless they were super valuable I wouldn't want to sell them. From what I saw yesterday, they'd probably be worth $75-200, which puts them on the "cool to have" list.
It was such an amazing afternoon. We got to hang out with Zoe a little bit, see what she does, and see all these amazing books. I was blissed out for the rest of the afternoon.
I just have to say, it was incredible. Obviously we weren't going to buy anything; it was more like worshipping at the temple. Seeing all these amazing books, the history of our culture, so carefully preserved and cared for! Seeing the first editions, and signed copies, and rare books and manuscripts and documents! One booth had several early quartos of Shakespeare plays. Upon seeing them, I was moved to tears.
Two of my favorite things were actually at Zoe's bookshop's booth. They had an original Quechua dictionary, one of the oldest in existence! Quechua is the native language of the people of Peru, and was never written down before the conquest. The dictionary dates to the 1580s and includes both a dictionary and a grammar of Quechua. Of course it's in Spanish, but apparently the publisher was of French origin, imported all his printing presses to Peru from France, and they Spanishized his name to make it look better for the Spaniards. Amazing to see.
Zoe's bookshop also had a set of Frederick Catherwood prints. Catherwood was the architect and artist who went on many of the early (like 1830s) expeditions to Maya temples. His drawings were the first the world saw these places--and because of erosion and looting, his drawings are all we have of some of these places. So incredibly exciting to see them.
My other favorite thing was in a different booth. They had a lot of children's books, and hanging on the wall they had an original graphite drawing by Chris Van Allsburg. The drawing (which was huge) was Van Allsburg's attempt, just for himself, to figure out what happened to Harris Burdick. I jumped up and down when I saw it. And now I know (or, at least, I know what Van Allsburg suspects happened). The drawing cost $45,000. It was right next to a beautiful print of the cover art for The Dark Is Rising, one of my favorite books. So awesome.
We walked around the whole book fair. One game we played was to try to find the most expensive items. I saw a first edition of Tom Sawyer that was priced at $108,000. I know we saw something else at $125,000. There were a lot of things between $25,000-75,000. There were also a lot of things that looked like they could be found at any yard sale. (Plan: attend more yard sales.) There were also booths that didn't have prices on their books, which indicated to me that their stuff was probably pretty expensive.
I also found a few books that reminded me of the old treasure trove of books in my mother's attic, which belonged to my mother and to my grandmother when they were children. Some of these might be worth some money. Might be interesting to find out, but unless they were super valuable I wouldn't want to sell them. From what I saw yesterday, they'd probably be worth $75-200, which puts them on the "cool to have" list.
It was such an amazing afternoon. We got to hang out with Zoe a little bit, see what she does, and see all these amazing books. I was blissed out for the rest of the afternoon.