Coming Events
NYC Rare Book Week
Join us for Rare Book Week in New York City. From April 4 to April 13, dozens of antiquarian book fairs, auctions, and exhibitions are open and available to collectors and bibliophiles. There’s so much to see and do—here’s a short guide to help you navigate. For a complete guide visit RareBookWeek.org.
New York Antiquarian Book Fair
Called “The Best Book Fair in the World,” the NYABF opens with a preview Thursday evening, April 7, and runs through Sunday, April 10, at the Park Avenue Armory at 643 Park Ave. Over 200 American and international dealers will display an astonishing array of rare books, fine art, maps, manuscripts, and ephemera. Admission: $50 for preview pass, $40 run of show, $25 daily, $10 for students carrying a valid school ID. For more information, visit nyantiquarianbookfair.com.
Stuart Lutz Historic Documents, Inc. of Short Hills, New Jersey, will put the spotlight on this large, signed photograph of Oscar Wilde. The image, dated 1892 in New York, was taken during Wilde’s famous tour of the U.S. Price: $12,500. historydocs.com
Yesterday’s Gallery of East Woodstock, Connecticut, specialists in Jazz Age fiction, will highlight two modern first editions: Lewis Sinclair’s Our Mr. Wrenn, The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man (1914), in its dust jacket, for $7,500, and Alice Dunbar’s The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories (1899), one of the earliest published collections of short stories by an African-American woman, for $4,500. yesterdaysgallery.com
Longtime antiquarian bookseller Joseph J. Felcone of Princeton, New Jersey, will bring this “very scarce” touchstone: the first book by the first female physician in the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell’s The Laws of Life, with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (1852). Price: $12,000. felcone.com
From the long out-of-print edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland published by Ediciones Dos Amigos with ten double-page intaglio etchings by Alicia Scavino ($20,000) to a designer binding by Mark Esser on Alan James Robinson’s Birds and Beasts of Shakespeare ($5,500) to the Wequetequock Cove Editions bilingual printing of Obscure Dentell Du Temps/Lace Shrouded in Time, hand-painted by French artist Julius Balthazar ($3,500), Priscilla Juvelis of Kennebunkport, Maine, is sure to have something beautiful on hand. juvelisbooks.com
Brooklyn’s Enchanted Books will beckon collectors with these two highlights: a first edition of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, inscribed to Suzanne Glazer, who worked in publishing ($22,500), and a Twiggy Paper Doll book from 1967 with an original dress to cut out and wear ($400). abaa.org/enchanted-books
Your great expectations will doubtless be fulfilled when you spot this remarkably fine first edition, first issue set of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (1838), in its original purple-brown cloth lettered in gilt, within the booth of Yarmouth Maine’s Sumner & Stillman. Price: $24,500. sumnerandstillman.com
Along with an amazing first edition Velveteen Rabbit (in dust jacket), New York’s Aleph-Bet Books will offer one of the rarest moveables—The Wizard of Oz Waddle Book (1934), complete with uncut waddles. “An utmost rarity,” said the bookseller. Price: $12,500. alephbet.com
Whitman collectors, rejoice! Honey & Wax Booksellers of Brooklyn, New York, will have this oversized promotional poster designed by Walt himself for distribution in bookstores, c. 1872. This fine copy on paper comes from the cache of “perfect” unused copies discovered in 1954. Price: $38,000. honeyandwaxbooks.com