NY Antiquarian Book Fair 2020 Highlights

Another fun find comes from Inlibris Gilhofer Nfg., an Austrian rare book and manuscript dealer that plans to display Beethoven’s manuscript shopping list. Written in the maestro’s hand circa 1817, the list includes a mousetrap and a metronome. Price: €95,000 (approx. $103,000)

Tom Goldwasser Rare Books of San Francisco plans to show some of the Willa Cather collection he has just announced, the bulk of which belonged to Cather scholar and former president of Skidmore College David H. Porter. The collection ranges from the author’s own signed copy of The Borzoi, a history of Knopf published in 1920 for $500, to a 1913 first edition of Cather’s O Pioneers! in its extremely rare (virtually extinct) dust jacket, priced at $50,000.

Further highlights can be found in our spring issue’s Rare Book Week printed supplement, including:

London’s Peter Harrington will showcase a first edition of Graham Greene’s 1938 thriller, Brighton Rock, in its lurid pink “exceedingly rare dust jacket,” which might just be enough to peel your eyes away from their Third Folio. Price for the Greene: £87,500 (approx. $115,000); Shakespeare: £500,000 ($655,000)

Triolet Rare Books of Ohio, which specializes in “idiosyncratic and uncommon literary revenants,” puts the spotlight on this understated gem: Jean Cocteau’s L’Ode à Picasso (Paris, 1919) in the original printed wrappers and inscribed by the author. Price: $7,500