Browsing at the Cambridge book fair
The Cambridge book fair took place at the end of last week, at a new venue: St Barnabas Church on Mill Road. There had been a little concern, apparently, that St Barnabas, being slightly further out of town than the former venue, Cambridge’s Guildhall, wouldn’t attract quite so many visitors as usual. I went over on Saturday, though, the second day, and it seemed to be going like – a fair. Young folk, old folk. Chatting couples, lone rangers. People who seemed to know everyone. First-timers boggling at blind-tooled bindings.
Not bad going at all. At any rate, the dealers I talked to seemed pretty happy with St Barnabas, and the fair in general, even if many had done the more crucial business, maybe even between themselves, first thing on Friday. Some said they preferred it to the old place. But maybe I just didn’t chat/haggle with the dealers who strongly dissented.
I’ve cropped the crowds out of the select photographic record of the fair above and below; I just wanted to focus on some of the displays that caught my eye, as a tip of the hat to some of the dealers who had gone to the trouble of setting out their wares so decently. (Dealers from all over the shop: Bournemouth, Brighton, Cheltenham, Edinburgh, Hay-on-Wye, London, Manchester, Norwich, Sheerness, Sheffield, Weston-Super-Mare, York etc; some turn up at fairs infrequently; others are ubiquitous.) Please forgive me for the wonkier images here! But scroll on if a glimpse of a couple of hefty volumes of Johnson’s Dictionary, miniature books about cricket and other oddities and rarities are your sort of thing.
As for actually making any purchases myself: I exercised heroic restraint, of course, but still managed to come away with a couple of volumes relating to the subject of The Bibliomania itself. Maybe more on those further down the line, when I’ve got to know them a bit better; I must first clear some shelf space to accommodate the newcomers . . .
Thanks for these pics. I couldn’t get to the fair this year (long ago, in the late 80s,I used to run it) so this was a good substitute.