Yes, the Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair has been going on for 31 years here in Denver, but this is the first time I have attended. What I have been doing on this particular weekend for the past 30 years I have no idea. In any case, it was very interesting to visit all the book stalls and see what was on display and how much they were asking for everything. I was very excited to see that a number of books that I own were on sale at the fair for big bucks ( Hunter S. Thompson's Great Shark Hunt and Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream, for example), but when I got home and looked, I realized that many of my copies were not 1st editions. You would be surprised how few books on the bookstore bargain tables turn out to be first editions. Someone should look into that. I was tempted to make an offer at one booth, where the complete set of Charles Dickens' original Pickwick Papers was for sale (see photograph above). This consisted of all the original booklets issued between 1836 and 1838. The price - six thousand dollars. If I had decided not to repair the hail damage to my new car last month, they would be sitting on my bookshelf today. That is, if I could have bargained the bookseller down a few bucks. Maybe to five hundred.
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