The Boston Bookfair on Friday was lots of fun, though everything I was remotely interested in exceeded my price range by at least hundreds and often thousands of dollars. There was a lovely photography book with black and white 1950s-era images of the Lake District; a medieval manuscript treatise on medicine, illustrated in full color; a pre-suffrage publication by a minister from Indiana arguing on a Biblical basis for women's right to vote; and a fascinating early obstetrics text by the dude who was responsible for switching the standard birthing position from upright to horizontal (for which he ought to have been flayed).
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Children's books, of course, were wonderful to browse. I found a copy of
Four Little Kittens ($75.00), which three generations of Cooks will remember, and several E. Nesbits in first edition (priced at in the hundreds).
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The most charming new find was a book by Tove Jansson, Finnish author of the Moomin Troll series,
Who Will Comfort Toffle? This is the story of Toffle, who is afraid and alone, and his quest for a friend, so that he will not be so scared anymore. One day, he finds a bottle floating on the water and inside is a message from a person named Miffle, who is also scared and lonely. Toffle sets off on a quest to find Miffle, so that they can comfort each other. Of course, the implicit gender roles are knight-and-lady stereotypes, but the pictures were totally charming.
*Images from One More River and The Moomin Trove respectively.
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