Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair Returns to New York
Items from the Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair
The second Empire State Rare Book and Print Fair featuring exhibitors from across the country will be held in Shepard Hall at City College of New York September 27 - 29.
In addition to a wide range of rare books, prints, works on paper, historic documents and ephemera, The Promise of Liberty exhibition will debut at the fair featuring The Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln ($2,000,000), George Washington’s 'Justice & the Public Good Letter' ($550,000) and his first Thanksgiving Proclamation, and a letter from Albert Einstein alerting President Franklin Roosevelt to the possibility of the creation of an atomic bomb.
Other highlights include:
- a letter from Frederick Douglass on his return voyage as a free man ($450,000)
- a signed copy of Martin Luther King’s Stride Toward Freedom ($200,000)
- a first edition of Breakfast at Tiffany's signed by Truman Capote ($10,500)
- the first printing of Anne of Green Gables in one of five surviving jackets from 1909 or earlier ($40,000)
- a rare first edition of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations ($25,000)
- a book on jazz from the library of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts presented to him as a birthday gift by Mick Jagger ($15,800)
The weekend will include a Q&A session with Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell, writer Lois Lowry, Beatles expert Kenneth Womack, novelist and journalist Stona Fitch, and fashion illustrator Richard Haines.
Eve Lemon, who co-founded Fine Books Fairs in 2022 with her husband Edward said: “Our fairs are social, interactive events that cultivate a welcoming experience that instills the joy of collecting to all who attend. New York City is the pinnacle event of our fairs, and we wanted to create a bespoke, truly memorable experience for both exhibitors and collectors that also reflected the city itself."
