BPAL: O

Really, the most interesting thing that has happened today that is fit for public consumption was testing perfume. I need a new job, I do, for this one has stopped fatiguing me with the amount of work and started fatiguing me with the amount of boredom, indicating that I may wish to seek employment of the slightly less part-time variety. Time to go check the local bookstores.

( O )

BPAL: O

Really, the most interesting thing that has happened today that is fit for public consumption was testing perfume. I need a new job, I do, for this one has stopped fatiguing me with the amount of work and started fatiguing me with the amount of boredom, indicating that I may wish to seek employment of the slightly less part-time variety. Time to go check the local bookstores.

( O )

(no subject)

A very happy birthday to the splendiferous and wonderful rachelmanija!

(no subject)

A very happy birthday to the splendiferous and wonderful rachelmanija!

the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair

I have now seen E.R. Eddison's handwriting in person. I win at life.

...

Okay, other stuff happened today too. But that one kind of sticks somehow.

The Book Fair is at the Hynes Convention Center, which I had last seen absolutely full of anime cosplayers. It was startlingly, gravely quiet this afternoon, which confused me momentarily, since there actually were a lot of people, until I realized that I have never actually seen the Hynes without the addition of, for instance, belly dancers (lots of those at Noreascon, at occasionally surprising hours). But it was a deeper quiet than that caused by the general absence of disruptions: it was that calm, meditative quiet that one gets in the presence of a great many books or a great many Book People or both, the quiet of a cathedral or of deep in most library stacks.

I had a wish list and a budget, and as I had rather expected both went out the window, the wish list because nothing that was on it consented to show up and the budget, surprisingly enough, because I wound up spending considerably less money than I had anticipated. This is not my fault, but rather the fault of the people who do not seem to exhibit books with prices falling between one hundred and one thousand dollars. Most of the things I lust after turn out to be insanely expensive, and the things I did pick up turned out to be shockingly low, and so I came in under fifty dollars for the day and I am just as confused as you are by this. I don't usually manage to come in that low at buck-a-book shops.

Only two bookspoils, but I am delighted by both: unexpectedly, there was an affordable copy, first edition yet, of Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle on the Moon, one of my childhood library favorites, in purple buckram with light blue stamping and a color version of one of the illustrated plates tipped on the cover. Lots and lots of illustrated plates, some in color, which didn't exist in the copy I used to check out. And the best colored endpapers EVER. And no library marks or anything. I have to track down a camera and take a picture of these endpapers for you all. They are SO gorgeous. The book was thirty, and I honestly believe the proprietor to have mislaid a zero. It is the only explanation. I can't wait to reread it.

And while I was paying for that one eredien handed me a copy of Christina Hole's Witchcraft in England, with the Mervyn Peake illustrations, and it turned out to be fifteen bucks. It's an umpteenth reprinting, but it's in good shape and the picture reproduction is clear and sharp and the book has been on my buy list for several years now, since various libraries drew a blank. I read it this evening, and it is wonderful and will provide a source of story-kernel and corroborative detail for years to come. ( Excerpt. )

Other notable things witnessed: as I said, E.R. Eddison's handwriting, repeatedly, as part of a magnificent collection of minor and obscure Eddison that was unfortunately going as a single gigantically expensive collection-- Egil's Saga, Styrbjorn the Strong, a complete first of the Zimiamvia trilogy, and an extra copy of A Fish Dinner in Memison with a long and referential inscription from the author recommending the book to the attention of one Mr. de la Mare-- with, indeed, Walter de la Mare's personal bookplate on the facing. (I nearly had to sit down.) Walter de la Mare's bookplates were very, very, very Art Deco, which I feel as though I should have expected, and Eddison's handwriting is an absolutely classic and thoroughly anachronistic eighteenth-century copperplate, obviously done with a quill pen and using Augustan-era spelling and orthography. There's a little vaguely runic squiggle next the signature, and I'd love to know what on earth it means.

More Arthur Rackham than anyone could look through, an abundance of riches, and all leatherbound and crumbling and intimidatingly gorgeous.

A great folio flung open of Poe's The Raven, with a sullen-looking portrait of the Author As A Fallen Angel with gigantic outthrust gilt (!) wings nearly four feet from tip to tip, somehow managing to look both thoroughly silly and thoroughly striking.

A framed Kay Nielsen storyboard from the original designs for Sleeping Beauty.

A pamphlet entitled 'Book of Excuses, Or, A Life-Preserver', organized according to subject for which an excuse might be required; under 'living in Boston' it had "I enjoy a quiet, village sort of existence." Under 'living in New York' it had "I dislike Boston."

Several original Gilbert and Sullivan production posters, unfortunately a rather frightening shade of orange but at least one signed by Mr. Carte.

Yeah. It was a good day. Shall go again next year, and maybe look into going to some of the panels. I am by no means a serious book collector, but a day like this is a real treat every so often.

the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair

I have now seen E.R. Eddison's handwriting in person. I win at life.

...

Okay, other stuff happened today too. But that one kind of sticks somehow.

The Book Fair is at the Hynes Convention Center, which I had last seen absolutely full of anime cosplayers. It was startlingly, gravely quiet this afternoon, which confused me momentarily, since there actually were a lot of people, until I realized that I have never actually seen the Hynes without the addition of, for instance, belly dancers (lots of those at Noreascon, at occasionally surprising hours). But it was a deeper quiet than that caused by the general absence of disruptions: it was that calm, meditative quiet that one gets in the presence of a great many books or a great many Book People or both, the quiet of a cathedral or of deep in most library stacks.

I had a wish list and a budget, and as I had rather expected both went out the window, the wish list because nothing that was on it consented to show up and the budget, surprisingly enough, because I wound up spending considerably less money than I had anticipated. This is not my fault, but rather the fault of the people who do not seem to exhibit books with prices falling between one hundred and one thousand dollars. Most of the things I lust after turn out to be insanely expensive, and the things I did pick up turned out to be shockingly low, and so I came in under fifty dollars for the day and I am just as confused as you are by this. I don't usually manage to come in that low at buck-a-book shops.

Only two bookspoils, but I am delighted by both: unexpectedly, there was an affordable copy, first edition yet, of Hugh Lofting's Doctor Dolittle on the Moon, one of my childhood library favorites, in purple buckram with light blue stamping and a color version of one of the illustrated plates tipped on the cover. Lots and lots of illustrated plates, some in color, which didn't exist in the copy I used to check out. And the best colored endpapers EVER. And no library marks or anything. I have to track down a camera and take a picture of these endpapers for you all. They are SO gorgeous. The book was thirty, and I honestly believe the proprietor to have mislaid a zero. It is the only explanation. I can't wait to reread it.

And while I was paying for that one eredien handed me a copy of Christina Hole's Witchcraft in England, with the Mervyn Peake illustrations, and it turned out to be fifteen bucks. It's an umpteenth reprinting, but it's in good shape and the picture reproduction is clear and sharp and the book has been on my buy list for several years now, since various libraries drew a blank. I read it this evening, and it is wonderful and will provide a source of story-kernel and corroborative detail for years to come. ( Excerpt. )

Other notable things witnessed: as I said, E.R. Eddison's handwriting, repeatedly, as part of a magnificent collection of minor and obscure Eddison that was unfortunately going as a single gigantically expensive collection-- Egil's Saga, Styrbjorn the Strong, a complete first of the Zimiamvia trilogy, and an extra copy of A Fish Dinner in Memison with a long and referential inscription from the author recommending the book to the attention of one Mr. de la Mare-- with, indeed, Walter de la Mare's personal bookplate on the facing. (I nearly had to sit down.) Walter de la Mare's bookplates were very, very, very Art Deco, which I feel as though I should have expected, and Eddison's handwriting is an absolutely classic and thoroughly anachronistic eighteenth-century copperplate, obviously done with a quill pen and using Augustan-era spelling and orthography. There's a little vaguely runic squiggle next the signature, and I'd love to know what on earth it means.

More Arthur Rackham than anyone could look through, an abundance of riches, and all leatherbound and crumbling and intimidatingly gorgeous.

A great folio flung open of Poe's The Raven, with a sullen-looking portrait of the Author As A Fallen Angel with gigantic outthrust gilt (!) wings nearly four feet from tip to tip, somehow managing to look both thoroughly silly and thoroughly striking.

A framed Kay Nielsen storyboard from the original designs for Sleeping Beauty.

A pamphlet entitled 'Book of Excuses, Or, A Life-Preserver', organized according to subject for which an excuse might be required; under 'living in Boston' it had "I enjoy a quiet, village sort of existence." Under 'living in New York' it had "I dislike Boston."

Several original Gilbert and Sullivan production posters, unfortunately a rather frightening shade of orange but at least one signed by Mr. Carte.

Yeah. It was a good day. Shall go again next year, and maybe look into going to some of the panels. I am by no means a serious book collector, but a day like this is a real treat every so often.