Eight Unexpected Highlights from the Antiquarian Book Fair
The fifty-eighth New York Antiquarian Book Fair, organized by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), opened March 8 at the Park Avenue Armory and runs through Sunday.
Some of the items on display include Shakespeare folios and quartos and ephemera, Einstein’s Bible and his letter on “God’s secrets,” a manuscript poem by Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s copy of the Odyssey, and the four-million-dollar Hamilton Collection, complete with a lock of his hair. There are also far stranger items, such as the “first salad monograph,” an instructional needlepoint from Shakespeare, and a shooting script from the Kurosawa classic Yojimbo.
Here is a deeper look at some of the unique items on view at the fair:
1) Moses Seixas and George Washington:
On August 18, 1790, on behalf of the Newport Jewish congregation (then numbering about three hundred), Moses Seixas welcomed George Washington, expressing support for his administration and hope for his advocacy of religious freedom. Washington’s letter in response, published in the Newport Mercury that September, not only echoed Seixas’s sentiments but also employed much of his rhetoric (indicated below with italics):
The Citizens of It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
