Rare Book Monthly

Articles - April - 2018 Issue

Strength at the New York Shows

- by Bruce E. McKinney

Book Fairs: safe harbors for intellectuals. Image by Abby Schoolman Books

The New York Antiquarian Book Fairs have come and gone, delivering large crowds and excellent results to the more than three hundred exhibitors who participated in at least one of the three fairs:

The 58^th Annual New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, the New York City Book and Ephemera Fair, and the Manhattan Vintage Book & Ephemera Fair.

The 58^th at the Armory was 4 days, the other two both Saturday events.

The crowds were robust, the buying mood strong. These fairs are too often pawns to the weather, economy and political environment but they escaped this year, the occasional cloudy sky.

Taken together, they continued New York’s uninterrupted annual reaffirmation of books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera as a primary collecting area. To those in the field this is not news but to the newbies and tire kickers deciding if and what to collect this all adds up to healthy signals.

Rare Book Monthly

Sotheby's
Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
Available for Immediate Purchase

Sotheby’s: William Shakespeare.
The Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare, 1960. 7,210 USD

Sotheby’s: Charles Dickens.
A Christmas Carol, First Edition, 1843. 17,500 USD

Sotheby’s: William Golding.
Lord of the Flies, First Edition, 1954. 5,400 USD

Sotheby's
Fine Books, Manuscripts & More
Available for Immediate Purchase

Sotheby’s: Lewis Carroll.
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Inscribed First Edition, 1872. 25,000 USD

Sotheby’s: J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Hobbit, First Edition, 1937. 12,000 USD

Sotheby’s: John Milton.
Paradise Lost, 1759. 5,400 USD

Archived Articles

Ask Questions

Strength at the New York Shows

Rare Book Monthly

Article Search

Archived Articles