Firsts: London’s Rare Books Fair
Having earned the title of Procrastinator-In-Chief for my lack of articles these past few months, I’ll dive straight in.
Earlier this year I attended my first Firsts fair. Notwithstanding the clumsy title, many consider Firsts: London’s Rare Books Fair to be the leading rare books fair in Europe. While it may not be the biggest, it does tick all the other boxes: longevity (Est. 2013), affiliation (Antiquarian Booksellers Association), quality of exhibitors (prestigious from across the globe), and diversity of offerings (ancient manuscripts and rare maps to modern and contemporary first editions).
One of the many attractions of Firsts is its accessibility; confirming what I learnt from my earliest forays into the world of rare books: this field of collecting is not exclusionary and is budget accessible. The fair takes place annually in mid-May at the Saatchi Gallery and is free to attend on the Sunday. For a less crowded experience you can pay £6.00 to attend on Saturday or £10.00 on Friday, although in the world of rare books even the crowded days aren’t very crowded.
The Saatchi Gallery is located in the Duke of York HQ, a large building fronting a lawn-covered space just off the Kings Road. It’s proximity to Sloane Square and to one of London’s last independent bookstores, John Sandoe Books, means there’s also plenty to keep you busy nearby. In the main building, exhibitors from all over the world are spread across two floors and on the top floor there are scheduled book-related talks also free of charge. Outside the building, over the weekend, you’ll find plenty of food trucks with every imaginable cuisine as well as drinks bars.
So what was the experience like? Quite simply, a book lover’s paradise. For a start, the size and site are just right; big enough to cover a full range of offerings but small enough that you never feel overwhelmed. The layout of the gallery is simple and well spaced so there’s no fear of missing any of the exhibitors. The experts at their stands are friendly and happy to explain and answer questions. This year’s theme was Art of the Book but, as is the case at most fairs and festivals, nobody sticks to the theme - which in my opinion, is for the best.
And speaking of experience, I learned the hard way to follow my friend’s advice from Hatchard’s Rare Books: leave your credit card at home. On the Friday of the event, I spotted a first edition of Henry Miller’s book Tropic of Capricorn (at that time banned in the UK and US). It was printed in France, where the government apparently deemed the population more capable of reading sexually explicit content than were the prudish Anglo Saxons. It was in perfect condition and it came with a beautiful cloth covered protection box with a replica of the book cover’s image on the front. Like a good student, I did my homework and found that similar first editions on biblio.com and abe.com were comparably priced but with two significant differences: The one at the fair came with the box protection and, it had annotations. Wait, I hear you say, an earlier article warned that annotations other than by the author or a famous owner devalue a rare book. Well, there are exceptions I think. In this case the annotations were on the back of the printer’s errata slip and the annotations were priceless. A previous owner, name unknown, had evidently gone through the whole book for words or phrases that may have qualified it for censorship and, in perfect handwriting, meticulously noted how many instances and at what page numbers each dirty word appeared. My bank overdraft suffered but my heart soared.
The other amusing moment was when I found a signed first edition of my friend Mick Herron’s 2010 book Slow Horses - now of Apple TV and Gary Oldman fame. The American exhibitor priced it at £500 so I called Mick and told him, to which Mick replied:
“Oh, the American hardback edition, I think I’ve got a few copies of those lying about at home.”
“Well,” I answered, “if you sign a couple of them it’ll save you having to go to the cash machine for a while.”
Firsts is the ideal place to further your rare books learning journey and, especially on a sunny day, it’s a perfect day out: drifting in and out of the fair itself, sitting on the lawn to sample the food and drink offerings, and nipping across the road to look in at John Sandoe Books.
What better way to spend a weekend in London?