Oxford Book Fair 2016
The annual PBFA Oxford Book Fair (www.oxfordbookfair.org) is one of the largest events in the British antiquarian, rare and second-hand book, map, print and ephemera calendar.
In 2016 around 100 dealers will offer tens of thousands of rare and collectable items, ranging in price from £2 to £35,000+.
In a new venue for 2016, the Oxford Brookes Wheatley Campus offers good national transport links via rail and road, with ample free on-site parking.
This year the fair coincides with 400th anniversaries of the deaths of William Shakespeare and Miguel Cervantes, and also with UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day.
In the past, the Oxford Book Fair has attracted the attention of national media with notable highlights, such as an archive of the First World War aviator who coined the term ‘joystick’ and some of the earliest photographic images of the Thames.
Venue: Oxford Brookes Wheatley Campus, Wheatley, Oxford OX33 1HX,
Admission: £2 or free via the website
Opening hours: Sat 23rd April Noon-6pm, Sun 24th April 10am-4pm
HIGHLIGHTS TO BE EXHIBITED AT THE FAIR
Original and partly unpublished illustrations for one of C.S. Lewis famous Narnia series of children’s books to be exhibited at the 2016 Oxford Book Fair by Blackwell’s Rare Books:
PARTLY UNPUBLISHED
(Lewis.) BAYNES (Pauline) Original signed drawing for Prince Caspian. [p. 157, ‘See, they carry green branches...’] [n.d., circa 1951,] black ink with pencil and ink annotations to borders, 31.7 x 19cm, original creasing from publisher storage, but none touching image, trace overlay with some pencil markings fixed with tape on verso, very good. Baynes’s drawing, with her pencilled signature beneath, shows Lords Glozelle and Sopespian looking at the Centaur, Giant Wimbleweather and Edmund. The image is the same size as published in the first edition, but gains additional interest by featuring the looked-on party carrying their green branches - only the Lords themselves are depicted in the published version, and an arrow pointing to that area of the picture marks it for deletion. The other pencil markings (some in red, numerals in pen at head) refer to sizing and place in text, with a contextual quotation in Baynes’s hand captioning her illustration. £5000
A beautifully preserved example of one of the rarest of eighteenth-century European Pomonas (fruits), printed in French and German, offered at the 2016 Oxford Book Fair by Michael Kemp, Bookseller
UNIQUE COPY OF THE RAREST POMONA
KRAFT, Johann. Pomona Austriaca, ou Arbres Fruitiers d’Autriche, Représentes en Figures, Dessinées et Peintes d’Apres Nature. [Fruit Trees of Austria Represented by figures, drawings and paintings from Nature.] Abhandlung von den Obstaumen worinn ihre Gestalt, Erziehung und Pflege angezeigt und beschreiben wird mit 100 sehr feinen Abbildungen in Kupfer gestochen und nach der Natur in Farben dargestellt. [Treatise on Fruit Trees. wherein their form, growth and tending will be shown and described, with 100 very fine illustrations engraved in copper, and depicted in their natural colours.]
Vienne [Vien]: A Baumer and Rudolph Graffer, 1796 - 7. [and 1816?]. 2 volumes. Folio. [365 x 240 mm] pp. 24 [French text], xvi, 45 [35* numbered 8 times] [German text]; hand painted frontispiece of garland of flowers heightened in gilt; 100 hand coloured plates: 20 [French text], [2], 46 [German text]; 100 hand coloured plates.
The deluxe edition in folio with the coloured hand painted frontispiece; list of 37 subscribers. Contemporary tree calf with early reback, spines gilt, margin repair to page 7/8 of Volume 1 French text. The final 20 illustrations of volume 2 are laid down onto what appears to be different versions of the plates. These final plates bear captions in both German and French whereas the first 180 plates bear German captions only. The pastedowns bear a shelf ticket and pencil note “(coll) Metternich”, possibly from the library of Prince Klemens von Metternich [1773 - 1859], Austrian politician and statesman. A Fine copy of perhaps the rarest of pomological works. £37,500
