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Rare Books, Hidden Gems and The Elephant Man
After two years of literary events and book shopping being relegated to the internet, now we are slowly coming back to having events and fairs in IRL (in real life)!
The Norwich Book Fair at the Millennium Library in Norwich in April this year was held as part of the Provincial Book Fairs Association (PBFA) calendar of book fairs around the United Kingdom. The free event was well attended and the bright atrium of the Forum was a perfect way to show the books to potential customers.
Local second-hand booksellers had set up stalls for the public to peruse old, rare or limited edition secondhand titles. The stalls were close together and each had marked out the types of books for ease of viewing, such as murder, mystery, and art. All sellers had a broad range of subjects and titles. This meant you had Agatha Christie rubbing shoulders with Beatrix Potter and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
In this heady mix I had the good fortune to discover an original edition (Cassell, 1923) of ‘The Elephant Man and other reminiscences’ by Sir Frederick Treves.
