Peter Harrington Will Offer a Second Folio at the NY Antiquarian Book Fair

Peter Harrington, one of the world’s largest rare booksellers, is attending the New York Antiquarian Book Fair this March with a selection of its finest rare books, manuscripts and photographs each of which has a fascinating history. Prices range from $5,00 to $385,000.

The New York International Antiquarian Book Fair is being held at Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, New York from noon-8pm on Friday March 9th, noon-7pm on Saturday March 10th and from noon - 5pm on Saturday March 11th.

Peter Harrington will be on Stand A8.

Pom Harrington, the owner of Peter Harrington, says “We are bringing with us over one hundred and twenty rare books, manuscripts and photographs specially selected to be of interest to visitors to the fair. Do come and visit us to see some fascinating pieces of history if you can.”

Full details of the items Peter Harrington are bringing with them can be downloaded via the PDF attachment link at the top of this release and a series of videos about some of the items can be seen HERE. For more details about the Fair please click HERE.

Items on display will include:

A fascinating deposition for a complex patent case entirely in Abraham Lincoln’s hand and signed four times by him, from the years when he was making his reputation as “Honest Abe”, in his adopted home state of Illinois. 

This excellent first edition, in its original bright dust jacket, of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published in New York by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1925.

A tall and very fresh Second Folio edition of the collected Shakespeare’s plays Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, set page-for-page from a corrected copy of the First Folio. It is estimated that only 1,000 copies of the original edition were produced and it also contains Milton’s “Epitaph”, the first of his English language poems to be printed.

This is a rare first edition of the first volume of Das Kapital of which only 1,000 copies were printed and it was the only volume to appear in Marx’s lifetime.

As Peter Harrington say "Das Kapital was the most important work published in his lifetime, a thorough critique of the classical economic theories espoused by the likes of Adam Smith. It was not seen at the time as a harbinger of revolution, but was read with interest by sober German bankers and financiers, and was even issued in serial form. 

Marx would certainly have raised a thick black eyebrow at our price, although he understood perfectly that the capitalist system tended to produce high priced luxury goods. Marx spent most of his adult life in poverty, but he was a firm believer in the power of literature to change minds, being a prodigious writer whose collected works now fill fifty volumes.”

This first edition collection of the 85 essays by Alexander Hamilton and others, which became known as The Federalist is a very famous and influential American political work as it originated as America sought to ratify their new constitution. Hamilton was one of the Founding Fathers of the US and is the subject of the new musical. Only 500 copies of this first edition were printed and as the second volume was larger than the first most sets include a second volume which has been trimmed down making this uncut set in its original boards extremely rare.

This unusually large famous “roaring lion” signed portrait of  Churchill, captured within weeks of the US entry into World War II, is particularly sought after as bears the signatures of both Karsh and Churchill.

This exceptional photograph of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan standing in front of a portrait of Winston Churchill was signed by Reagan at Thatcher’s request. It was additionally signed by her and framed to hang at her official residence in Downing Street until her resignation, after which it was displayed in her home until her death. It is a remarkably symbolic image of the Special Relationship and is one of the best pieces of Thatcherite memorabilia in private hands.

Image: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies by William Shakespeare, 1632 ($385,000). Courtesy of Peter Harrington.