Antique books set to avoid pages of history
Some of the world’s rarest books will be on show at this year’s Antiquarian Book Fair.
The event will see leading Australian and international dealers showcasing their most interesting and rare items. All-up, the collection is worth some $10 million, and includes around 10,000 items, ranging from valuable books to maps, manuscripts, photographs, prints and ephemera.
Highlights include the first children’s book devoted to Australia, Aboriginal material from the estate of the great anthropologist T.G.H. Strehlow, and first editions by Charles Dickens.
Author David Malouf, who will open the event Thursday, said rare books would maintain their popularity regardless of technological advances.
“There are a good many people these days who believe that the book as we know it is on the way to oblivion,” he said. “Quite soon, they assure us, the term ‘rare books’ will be a tautology.
“The new technology offers great convenience for storage, of course, but we have yet to see whether future generations will be willing to give up the pleasurable convenience of having a bound book in their hands, of experiencing the texture and also the smell of cloth and paper, and the variousness with which light falls on a page.
“Rareness is likely to be a quality, however things go, that will increase rather than the opposite, and will continue to be – though not perhaps the highest – the quality in a book that some collectors and readers are most drawn by.”
The 2009 Antiquarian Book Fair is being held at the State Library of NSW from November 12 to 14.
by Ehssan Veiszadeh
