Gearing Up for the Boston Book Fair

Booksellers (and book collectors) are getting ready for this weekend's book fairs in Beantown. The ABAA's International Antiquarian Book Fair will be held Nov. 16-18 at the Hynes Auditorium.

I have enjoyed the work of book artist Laura Davidson at a few past fairs and am glad to see her work among the highlights that Priscilla Juvelis has packed for Boston. Every Nib, an artist's book made in a limited edition of 18, is a new work from Davidson (seen above). "The five pages each of five pen nibs are woodblock prints, each on a different colored ground, all in shades of buff, each nib with the catalogue information about the nib written in ink. On each of the five pages there is a silverpoint drawing with ink wash of a different pen." $1,850

Outline history of an expedition to California, a satirical comic book on the California Gold Rush of 1848/9, is one of the items that Laurens Hesselink of Antiquariaat FORUM BV promises to bring to the fair. This one looks very cool -- anonymously written by someone calling himself XOX, it features swindlers, Indians, pirates, and others on their way to the gold fields. "In its graphic form this curious work is clearly a very early predecessor of the modern comic book." (??6,500; $8,250).

Jeff Hirsch Books will offer a selection of signed first editions, including Gwendolyn Brooks' In The Mecca ($150), Don Delillo's Underworld ($100), and Arthur Miller's After the Fall ($250). Quill & Brush will have the first edition of the first American textbook of gynecology, William Dewees' 1826 Treatise on the Disease of Females ($1,250). And speaking of females, Brian Cassidy says he'll bring "binders full of women," -- you can't miss that!

If you go, don't forget that the Boston, Book, Print & Ephemera Show (a.k.a the 'shadow show') will be open on Saturday at the nearby Back Bay Events Center. More than seventy dealers will be there -- including B&B Rare Books, Peter Masi, and James Arsenault & Company.

Images courtesy of (top) Commonwealth Promotion, Inc.; (middle) Priscilla Juvelis; (bottom) Antiquariaat Forum BV.