The Spoils of the Book Fair

If you were at the fair yesterday, you would have seen old postcards and trading cards, manuscripts and maps, posters and prints, ephemera of all sorts, and of course lots and lots of books.

My modest acquisitions were five old Albany postcards for $2 each, a few of which are inscribed and posted, and for $15, a Henry James volume of novellas “The Wheel of Time,” “Collaboration” and “Owen Wingrave” published in 1893 by Harper & Brothers. It’s bound in dark greenish-teal cloth, top edges trimmed, with white endpapers. The cover has a silver triple rule and stamped silver design, and title, device, and author’s name in gilt. It’s in generally good condition, with a small tear in the cloth on the head of the spine, and the rear free endpaper is torn apart from the pastedown.

Without consulting a bibliography, I can’t confirm that what I have is in fact the first American edition. Either way, I don’t imagine it’s valuable or rare, but it’s a very attractive edition of a book I fully intend to read.