News

Reflections on the Chelsea Book Fair from an observer

By Jeremy Knight

7th November, 2024

How was the fair for you? Well, book collecting can be a solitary affair: our partners may think that shelves exist for other purposes. But here everyone is on our one and only wave length. There are no spouses loitering by doorways hoping to escape, or refugees from the weather. No, at book fairs like this, the punters are like kids in a candy store. And what a store Chelsea was, despite the Circle and District lines being out of commission on the Saturday. It was well laid out with space to breathe, space to chat and space to buy. I saw very few mobile phones in use as people checked prices: here people realise that if you want the fairs to survive you have to buy from the dealer in front of you not from an electronic platform. Then you can take the book home – no hassle with the Royal Mail or having to wait in the house all morning for a delivery. The art of negotiation was on full show and accepted: English reserve was in abeyance as the deal was done.

It would be invidious to highlight one dealer above another – most were UK, a couple of European dealers, but importantly the dealers provided a range of books from £50 to £10,000 but nota bene, please, most were in the low hundreds so defibrillators were not needed to resuscitate, nor mortgage advisors to arrange loans. As one dealer said: “Chelsea is not a glass cabinet fair, thank God!” A buyer could have the sensual and exotic pleasure of handling a book instead of just peering at it. And once a book is in the hand – need I finish that sentence?

For us at The Book Collector stand, it was a great opportunity to talk to old and new subscribers, telling them about things coming up and what went on in the past, thus reminding them, not very subtly, that our archive goes back to 1952, the year Ian Fleming had two really good ideas (marriage wasn’t such a good one): to write Casino Royale and to launch The Book Collector. The boss was particularly delighted as he purchased a red and black print of Lenin brandishing a lavatory plunger with the caption, ‘Fuck the Cistern’. He likes that sort of thing.

For two days there was a buzz in Chelsea that had nothing to do with football, fashion or frivolity, but everything to do with the good company of books and their collectors. Different from Firsts.