Highlights from the 2019 Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair
The Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair took over the Brooklyn Expo Center in Greenpoint this past weekend, overflowing the 60,000-square-foot venue with curators, book dealers, pulpy paperbacks, rare editions and retro book fanatics.
The fair showcased 110 dealers with more than 50,000 collectible items for sale, ranging in price from under $50 to many thousands of dollars. Attendees perused stacks of vintage books, vernacular photography, counter-culture posters, rare prints and other literary ephemera, and listened to seminars on subjects ranging from collecting grimoires (books of magical spells), 19th-century spirit photography, a 17th-century treatise on alchemy and a children’s book show-and-tell event.
Big names in book collecting were in attendance, including A.N. Devers, whose London bookshop the Second Shelf focuses on rare works by women writers, and Christopher de Lotbiniére of Christopher’s Rare Books, a New York City-based dealer specializing in rare editions with striking jacket art.