Antiquarian Bookfair

On Saturday, whilst the HM was attending a conference on the writings of George Eliot, I dropped into the Antiquarian Bookfair in Chelsea town hall.

I had hardly been there five minutes when Ed C of Cambridge appeared loping over the horizon. After demolishing a couple of baked potatoes, we hit the stalls. And plenty of delights we found. There were around 70 stalls, from all over England and the Continent and some splendid tomes were on offer. I was taken with some small alum-tawed volumes from the early 16th century offered by a dealer from Berlin at a mere 600 euros or so. Ed found a copy of an interesting little limp binding, 'The Book of Trade Secrets, Receipts and Instructions for Renovation, Repairing, Improving and Preserving Old Books and Prints' - that recommended the use of cyanide of potassium for the removal of certain stains, which we both thought rather extreme.

I was rather taken by the Alembic Bibliography, which gives the early history of one of the finest private presses I have come across, and from whom we bought some of our letter-press equipment. Sadly, it was outside my budget, but it was very gratifying to know that David and Claire who ran the press started, as we did, using an Adana table-top press.

Another item of particular interest was a tiny volume, around 7mm square, which contained the Lord's Prayer printed in several languages, once on each page. The book - of which there were several copies on offer - was housed in a tiny clear box which served as a magnifying glass; so I can confirm that the pages were actually legible should anybody wish toread them. At £48 it too was over my budget for an item for which I could discern no conceivable use.