Bancroftiana, Number 119 Fall 2001: Meet Me at the Fair!

Meet Me at the Fair!

Each February Bancroft curators and staff turn out in sizable numbers at the California International Antiquarian Book Fair. Booksellers from far and wide assemble to offer samplings from their incredibly rich and varied stock of books, manuscripts, printed ephemera, pictorial works, and numerous other formats that are the core of their specialized trade.

The California International Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco is the largest in the world.

The California Fair alternates between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but the latter venue—in our own back yard—now attracts the largest gathering of antiquarian booksellers in the world. The items on display never fail to astonish and mesmerize, but equally important are the opportunities for Bancrofters to chat with booksellers, private collectors, and other bibliophiles. The conversations help keep us all connected throughout the remainder of the year, and give us the opportunity to identify new collecting areas and to remind the trade and collectors of our older specialties.

Without doubt the booksellers bring their most outstanding wares to display. But those who know Bancroft are good about alerting us in advance of things they think will interest us. At the same time, we invariably meet booksellers new to us, so there are always plenty of surprises.

We at Bancroft frequently emphasize that we are responsible not only for collecting individual books, manuscripts, and other items, but also for collecting collectors and booksellers. There is no more fertile ground than the Book Fair to encourage this. We have always urged our Friends to join us at the Fair if they possibly can. Not only is it enormous fun, but it is highly educational, and frequently dazzling. We also recognize that the special interests of our individual friends make them very good scouts for things we might not otherwise discover.

In February this year we had a special example of how important having a Friend at the Fair can be. Bob Hirst, Curator of the Mark Twain Papers and General Editor of the Mark Twain Project, made an appointment to meet me on Saturday morning. My task was to introduce him to booksellers likely to have worthwhile Mark Twain material. Moving from booth to booth can be time-consuming, because there is much to see, but there is even more to discuss, especially if you are introduced as the Curator of the Mark Twain Papers. Indeed at virtually every booth we visited, Bob found items of potential interest to Bancroft. A good two hours after he arrived, we finally completed our first pass along a single aisle of booksellers and found ourselves at Bancroft's exhibition and table (a generous space provided to major research libraries by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America).

There we found Kimo Campbell, a member of the Council of the Friends of The Bancroft Library, looking at our display of publications. I introduced Kimo to the Bancrofters on hand and when he spoke with Bob Hirst, he immediately asked if Bob had seen an original Mark Twain letter offered by a bookseller from London. Indeed Bob had seen such a letter and had already committed us to buying it. But Kimo was pretty certain that wasn't the letter he had seen. He urged us to start down a new aisle while he went back to see if he could locate the place where he'd seen the letter. A few minutes later he came back to us and said he had indeed located a second letter. He guided us to a London specialist in autograph material whom we had not previously met. I introduced Kimo and Bob to her, and when she learned of Bob's specialty she asked if she could take notes as he identified the context of the letter. Furthermore, she brought out still another Mark Twain letter from her portfolio.

Bob was able to provide considerable information about where Mark Twain was at the time each letter was written and something of the circumstances. The bookseller busily recorded Bob's comments. At that point, I asked Bob if he'd be interested in having either letter offered to Bancroft on approval (approval offers are made to give the potential buyer time to analyze the significance of the document or book and to assess the coffers). "How about both?" Bob asked.

The bookseller generously agreed to write up an approval invoice when Kimo Campbell quietly said, "Actually you don't have to offer them on approval." He then wrote a check to the bookseller, and handed the letters to Bob Hirst as a gift.

Such generosity is astonishingly gratifying, and we certainly don't expect our friendly scouts to do more than show us items they think might be of interest, but Kimo was so pleased to learn that what he had scouted out for us was important to the Mark Twain collection that he gladly bought them for us. We hope that other Friends will want to continue helping us in our scouting at future Book Fairs. You can truly do this "without cost or obligation." If you would like to join us in the hunt, please let us know and we'll try to get passes for you so that you can accompany us to the Fair.

—Peter E. Hanff
Deputy Director