Enjoy this selection of preview items that our members will be exhibiting at the upcoming 42nd annual Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair. We'll be adding items to this page all week, so check back daily for more extremely rare and beautirful items! Fantaisie-Fantasia-Fantasie-Fancy- Scenes for Ladies of Leisure to Construct c1840. A large folio with die-cut opening in cover to create a "picture frame". It includes 2 plates and an array of cutout hand finished engraved images of women, children and accessories. The two 12" x 9 ½” plates have numerous slits at the base Each of the images has a tab at the base. The individual women are placed in the incisions or slits creating elegant scenes from the serene to the severe. Includes two pattern sheets with eight (8) different scenes. Endless scenes can be created beyond the scenes shown. Twenty-four (24) images and accessories. Offered by Eclectibles (Booth 204). CROZE, Austin de. . La Lumière Magique. Paris, 1920. 4to. 92pp. 37pp. text and illustrations, distributed over 92pp. overall. Various papers and media utilized running the gamut from heavy card to glassine via what appears to be brown wrapping paper and other diverse elements. Bound in later full burnt yellow morocco gilt, black title labels to spine, embellished with pentagrams to both boards. A beautiful volume, strong, clean and clearly well looked after. Original cover and spine bound in. Filled with numerous pen, ink and watercolours designs with the unpu... [more Boston Book Fair: Featured Items]

The following book went missing or was stolen from the main sorting facility of the USPS in Los Angeles between October 17 and October 21, 2018: Twain, Mark. THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG. London: Routledge Later printing. Contemporary quarter dark blue calf and dark blue pebbled cloth sides, red non-pareil marbled end papers. The incorrect date “(1871)” is penciled in on the title-page. Binding a bit scuffed. If you have any information on the item, please contact Kevin Mac Donnell at (512) 345-4139 or info@macdonnellrarebooks.com. [more Missing: ‘The Celebrated Jumping Frog’ (1872)]

A number of ABAA members have either opened new stores or renovated their existing premises recently. This is significant because for years, antiquarian booksellers were either retiring or converting to “closed shops,” which only sell by appointment, on the internet, and/or at rare book fairs. It's an expensive undertaking to keep a shop open to the public with regular business hours, staff, utilities, etc., and many rare booksellers — like their trade bookselling counterparts — found it challenging to maintain an open shop. Unlike those in the new-book trade, antiquarian booksellers have the option of operating as a “closed shop,” and focusing on rare-book catalogs, rare book fairs, and selling to institutional collectors directly instead. Recently, a new trend has emerged, with the five ABAA members below opening new stores or significantly expanding their existing ones. Whitmore Rare Books (Pasadena, CA) Whitmore Rare Books recently moved from a second-floor walk-up space to a ground-level showroom on a much more heavily trafficked street in Pasadena. Owner Dan Whitmore explains the attraction of the new space: "We opened our new retail shop at 121 E Union St., Pasadena, CA 91103 in October 2018. The space was previously used as an art gallery. I fell in love with the high ceilings, the vintage purple-lead glass, hardwood floors and big window bays. We sit just on the edge of Old Town Pasadena and a short walk to the convention center where the CA International... [more ABAA Members Expanding]

It's back! The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair returns to the Hynes Convention Center in Boston's beautiful Back Bay for its 42nd year, November 16-18, 2018. Special events at this year's event include documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman on the making of Ex Libris: The New York Public Library; political guru Michael Goldman on 1968: The Year of the Century; Sumio Yamazaki from the Kyoto Book Artists Society in discussion with Charles Vilnis on Japanese art books; Editor Peter K. Steinberg on Sylvia Plath; and the 17th annual Ticknor Society Roundtable panel discussion on starting a collection. One of the oldest and most respected antiquarian book shows in the country, the Boston Book Fair offers a top selection of items available on the international literary market. Attendees have the unique chance to get a close look at rare and historic museum-quality items, offered by some of the most prestigious participants in the trade. Whether just browsing or buying, the Fair offers something for every taste and budget—books on art, politics, travel, gastronomy, and science to sport, natural history, literature, music, and children's books—all appealing to a range of bibliophiles and browsers. TICKETS Admission is free on Saturday and Sunday! Friday night's exclusive Opening Night event is ticketed ($20). HOURS Friday, November 16, 5:00-9:00pm Saturday, November 17, 12:00-7:00pm Sunday, November 18, 12:00-5:00pm Hynes Convention Center, 900 Boylston Street, Boston,... [more Boston Book Fair 2018]

A couple of literary first editions caught to eye this week, along with an original WWII propaganda poster, and an entertaining and very honest description of a first edition Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. THE COLOSSUS AND OTHER POEMS by Sylvia Plath New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962. First edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 84 p. First American Edition. With this startling, exhilarating book of poems, Sylvia Plath (1932-63) burst into literature with spectacular force. In such classics as "The Beekeeper's Daughter," "The Disquieting Muses," "I Want, I Want," and "Full Fathom Five," she writes about sows and skeletons, fathers and suicides, about the noisy imperatives of life and the chilly hunger for death. This copy belonged to Anne Wilder, the confidant and lover of poet Anne Sexton, with Wilder's signature to the front flyleaf. The two engaged in a passionate affair and a prolific correspondence (Wilder is identified as "Anne Clarke" in Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters), which reveals much about Sexton's work and her psychological struggles during the mid- to late 1960s. Like Plath, with whom she shared a brief but intense friendship while attending Robert Lowell's graduate writing seminar at Boston University, Sexton was among the finest confessional poets of her generation. The two remained inextricably linked by their work, which explores the darker, feminine aspects of the American experience, and by the nature of their untimely deaths. Octavo. Or... [more Books of the Week]

Please inform Stranraer police if you are offered the ”Treacle Bible” which was stolen from the Old Kirk (Kirk Covenant), outside Drummore village, at the end of June. The bolts were removed from the glass case where it had been displayed for years. Before the King James Bible of 1611 pre-reformation translators were risking their lives if they translated the scriptures from Latin or Greek into English. It was considered heresy, a capital offense punishable by burning. This 1549 edition of the Great Bible has been referred to as "The Treacle Bible" because of a verse in Jeremiah which says, "Is there not triacle in Gilead". “Treacle", variously spelled, is an old English name for ointment or balm. Stranraer Police can be reached at 44 1786 289070. [more “Treacle Bible” reported missing in Scotland]

One of our members recently purchased material bearing the Börsenverein Library's stamp. It seems the library doesn't typically deaccession material and was the victim of looting and related problems during WWII. If you happen to hold or have handled any of this material, kindly contact the person below for further details. Dr. Ramon Voges German National Library Deputy Head German Museum of Books and Writing Deutscher Platz 1 04103 Leipzig Phone: +49 341 2271-315 Fax: +49 341 2271-240 Mail: R.Voges@dnb.de [more Material from Börsenverein Library in Leipzig]

The National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest is sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA), the Fellowship of American Bibliophilic Societies (FABS), the Grolier Club, and the Center for the Book and the Rare Books and Special Collections Division (the Library of Congress), with major support from the Jay I. Kislak Foundation. The 2018 winners are: First Prize: Samuel Vincent Lemley, University of Virginia: Biblioteca Genealogica: Sicilian Printing, 1704-1893 Second Prize: Paul T. Schwennesen, University of Kansas: Borderlands: A Manifesto on Overlap Third Prize: Hanaa J. Masalmeh, Harvard University: Far From the Eyes, Far From the Heart: My Life as a Syrian-American Muslim Essay. Ena Selimovic, Washington University in St. Louis: Ja, Ben, I, Je: A Book Collection in Translation We asked each some questions about their respective collections and their path to becoming a book collector. ---- First prize-winner Samuel Vincent Lemley of the University of Virginia collects items printed in Sicily between 1704 and 1893. Read his bibliography and essay here: Biblioteca Genealogica: Sicilian Printing, 1704-1893. Q: Could you give us a brief description of your collection? Samuel Vincent Lemley: My collection is an experiment in what might be called 'biblio-genealogy': it tells the story of my Sicilian ancestry in the form of books printed in Sicily during the years for which genealogical records of my ancestors survive. The chronological limits of my... [more Meet the 2018 NCBCC Winners]

Books "catch the eye" for many reasons: a colorful cover, a pithy title, or that rare moment of synchronicity that seems to conjure the perfect book at the perfect time. This week, a 1926 biography of Walt Whitman caught our eye for its magnificent title and a rare cut-out book celebrating Walt Disney's Snow White invoked childhood very strongly. Browse these and other items that leaped off the virtual shelves at us below... The Magnificent Idler: The Story of Walt Whitman by Cameron Rogers; illustrated by Edward A. Wilson Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1926. First edition of this earnestly humanizing popular biography of Walt Whitman, which "seeks neither to whitewash its subject nor exhume old scandals." The double-page landscapes by illustrator Edward Wilson, which depict Whitman communing with nature throughout his life, match the contemplative, gently comic prose of Cameron Rogers. Characteristic is the dialogue between the printers at work on the first edition of Leaves of Grass: "'Andy, this is crazy stuff.' 'Mebby.' 'Is this poetry, Andy, do you figure?' 'Mebby.' 'Anybody going to buy this stuff, Andy, do you figure?' 'Mebby.'" A near-fine copy, evidence of a mainstream readership grappling with Whitman's uncategorizable legacy in the decades after his death. Single volume, measuring 8 x 5.5 inches: , 312. Original full green cloth, yellow pictorial pastedowns to front board and spine, yellow pictorial endpapers, original unclipped color pictorial dust jacket... [more Books of the Week]

The follwoing item was reported missing: Steadman, Ralph. LET'S PARTY: Limited Edition, Signed Silkscreen Print. (Lexington, KY: Petro III Graphics), 2006. First edition. One of 250 SIGNED, numbered copies of Steadman's image on a bright, red background of a cowboy hat-wearing, skull-faced, bare-chested Thompson declaring "OK! Let's Party!!!" An image from Steadman's 2006 book THE JOKE'S OVER, a memoir of his friendship and collaboration with famed Gonzo Journalist Hunter S. Thompson. The "Joke's Over" prints cover the span of their association, from their first meeting in Kentucky to the 2005 memorial service at which Thompson's ashes were blasted out of a cannon and include work from FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, THE CURSE OF LONO and THE KENTUCKY DERBY IS DECADENT AND DEPRAVED, among many others. Two- color silkscreen on white Rising Stonehenge deckle edge paper measuring 22 x 30 inches. Fine. If you have any information on this item, please contact Beth at Quill & Brush at (301) 874-3200. [more Missing Steadman Print]