Edit: The Fair is now open! Shop the Fair here...
Don’t miss the 2023 ABAA Holiday Virtual Book Fair!
The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) will host a virtual book fair to kick off the end-of-year holidays at www.abaa.org/vbf from 12 pm ET on Thursday, November 30 until 7 pm ET on Saturday, December 2, 2023.
Over the last three years, virtual book fairs hosted by the ABAA have grown in size and scope, offering a wide array of rare books and related items, including manuscripts, maps, autographs, prints, and a wide variety of ephemera, and drawing a diverse group of collectors. At this ABAA Holiday Virtual Book Fair, international dealers will join ABAA members to offer their latest acquisitions and rare finds.
The exhibitors can be previewed here...
Doors open at 12 pm ET on Thursday, November 30, 2023 and will remain open continuously until 7 pm ET on Saturday, December 2, 2023. Exhibitors will replenish their booths each night, giving collectors an incentive to visit and shop over multiple days. Admission is free!
More details can be found at www.abaa.org/vbf...
Sign-up to receive email updates about this and other virtual book fairs throughout the year...
Preview Items
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1971)
New York: Harper and Row, 1971. 1st U.S. Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Fine in a fine unclipped dust jacket. Very light edge wear to bottom of jacket.
Old Christmas by Washington Irving (1886)
London: Macmillan & Co, 1886. A bright, beautiful copy. Randoph Caldecott. Stated fifth edition, in the publisher's green cloth, decorated in elaborate gilt, with all edges gilt. Contents include: Christmas, The Stage Coach, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and The Christmas Dinner.
Sam in the Suburbs by P.G. Wodehouse (1925)
346 pages. Small octavo (7 1/2" x 5") bound in original publisher's pea-green cloth stamped in dark green in original illustrated jacket. $2 price on jacket spine. Letter signed by author laid in. (McIlvaine A35b) First American edition.
Letter dated January 30, 1931 from his printed letterhead, 1005 Benedict Canyon Drive, Beverly Hills to the recipient Miss Wynne-Roberts, offering here his autograph to the recipient
Sam the Sudden is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 15 October 1925 by Methuen, London, and in the United States on 6 November 1925 by George H. Doran, New York, under the title Sam in the Suburbs. The story had previously been serialized under that title in the Saturday Evening Post from 13 June to 18 July 1925.
The cast includes the recurring character Lord Tilbury, publishing magnate and founder of the Mammoth Publishing Company, who had appeared in Wodehouse's novel of the previous year, Bill the Conqueror, and who would later visit Blandings Castle in Heavy Weather (1933). It also introduced the criminals Alexander "Chimp" Twist, Dora "Dolly" Molloy and Thomas "Soapy" Molloy, who reappeared in Money for Nothing (1928), Money in the Bank (1946), and Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin (1972).
Condition:
Minor sunning at head of spine; mild toning to endpapers. Jacket spine sunned, a few chips, a few tape repairs from reverse, spine head chipped affecting lettering, one inch by one inch chipped at front heal edge, closed edge tears else better than very good in a good to very good jacket.
Little Pet's ABC Panorama (ca. 1870)
New York: McLoughlin Bros., [n.d., ca. 1870] First edition. The illustrations seem to be the same as those that appear in the McLoughlin children's book Major's Alphabet (1870). Original wooden box with color-printed paper onlay. Two wooden knobs on the side of the box allow readers to turn through the scroll. Box (7 x 7 x 1 ") containing paper scroll (approx. 5" wide). Scroll is color-printed with twenty-six vignettes, one for each letter of the alphabet, with accompanying verse ("B is for Benjamin, making a bow"). Illustrated by William Momberger.
Companies like McLoughlin Bros. in New York and Milton Bradley in Massachusetts employed creative formats for alphabet books during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The present item is an unusual book that introduces an element of tactile play to learning the alphabet. While McLoughlin, Milton Bradley, and other companies were distributing these alphabet books, the Educational Toy Manufacturing Company, also in Massachusetts, experimented with a movable metal multiplication tool "Consul the Educated Monkey," and British company H.G. Clarke released their "Magic Toymaker" booklet, which could be assembled into a paper puppet. These books utilized the concept of learning through play, a staple of early childhood education since Friedrich Froebel innovated the kindergarten in early nineteenth century.
Freedom: A Fable by Kara Walker (1997)
An early and exciting artist book by Kara Walker produced by the Norton Family as their annual Christmas gift to friends and colleagues. Walker's characteristic 'Negro' silhouettes are featured here in exquisite 'pop-up' cut-outs that illustrate the narrative of a "soon-to-be emancipated 19th century Negress." A fine copy.
Quilts of Gee's Bend: Vol. 111 by Carolyn Shattuck (n.d.)
Rutland, VT: Carolyn Shattuck, n.d. A striking open edition book with a "magic star" construction that allows the work to be opened to reveal the interior pages. Gee's Bend, Alabama is famous for the quilts created there by African American women The expertly crafted Gee's Bend quilts are known for their bold and improvisational use of color, geometry, and mixed materials. Every Gee's Bend quilt is unique yet belongs to the same aesthetic family. Their quilt making tradition dates back four generations. The goal was to improvise upon designs that had already been made in order to create a truly unique composition. Materials such as old clothes, cornmeal sacks, corduroy, denim jeans including the inside pockets for darker colors and any fabric that fit the color palette were used. This work was created by the book artist to honor these quilters. With stiff black paper covers with title label and orange decorated paper. Affixed to each folded page is a replica of a bright and colorful quilt design. Printed on Red River paper and Hemptone from Paperworks. In fine condition. Measures 4 x 4 x 2 inches.
Auld Lang Syne
Die Alte Gute Zeit
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Vienna: Offizin am Wolfersberg, 2021.
Oblong Miniature Book. 2 1/4 x 3 inches. Unpaginated. [34] pp. Frontispiece water-color illustration, text in English and German with title page printed in red and black inks, 3 water-color illustrations; text clean, unmarked. Limp vellum binding made without glue, made from a hand-written eighteenth-century vellum document with tongue and slot closures with slots on both sides of the covers, stitched spine with a small bead pull, all edges painted and gilt, housed in a paste-paper-covered slip case with the opening of the slip case covered with a small strip of vellum manuscript; binding square and tight. Small bifold laid-in the slip case is like a colophon with production details. GA323-001. Fine.
LIMITED EDITION of 10 copies, this is number 5, the text is taken from Beethoven's 12 Scottish Songs, WoO 156, Illustrations by Philipp Stastny. Contains both the English version of Burns' famous poem, alongside a German translation by George Pert. Printed in 6- and 8-point Linotype on Echt-Butten Ingress paper by Karl Wohnude, a private printer from lower Austria. 4 original water-colors painted by Philip Stastny, formerly of St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna. The binding was made from al old notary document from the eighteenth century, as are the end sheets and the opening of the slip case. Herbert Hüpfel's Offizier am Wolfersberg has published two miniature books. The first, Wo? Fünf Blumen-Haiku. Where? Five Flower-Haiku, was the winner of the Miniature Book Society 2020 Miniature Book Competition. In both cases, Herbert Hupfel has brought together various artists, printers, and he does the bindings for his small editions (10 copies) of highly evocative and charming miniature books. Of Auld Lang Syne. Die Alte Gute Zeit, I can make available copies numbered 2, 3 (the slip case of copy 3 is covered in vellum manuscript as opposed to the paste-paper), 5, 6, 7, 9, and one out of sequence.