Firsts took Books in Bloom as its theme at the Saatchi Gallery in 2025, with more than 100 dealers and the Chelsea Physic Garden beside them.
Books in Bloom was the theme when Firsts, the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association’s rare book fair, filled the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 May 2025. The dates fell just before the Chelsea Flower Show.
More than 100 dealers from around the world took stands. Beyond the theme, the shelves carried travel, private press, poetry, children’s books and science fiction.
The Chelsea Physic Garden, founded by the Society of Apothecaries in 1673, took part throughout. Alan Titchmarsh, who has collected gardening books for more than fifty years, lent his support.
Plants and printing have a long shared history. Early herbals used woodcuts to teach medicine, and Victorian natural history plates were coloured by hand.
An invitation-only preview opened the fair on the Thursday evening. Peter Harrington showed a herbal of 1543, and Daniel Crouch Rare Books a 1753 map of the Chelsea Physic Garden. Shapero Rare Books brought a Chinese album of flower watercolours from around 1800 that once belonged to the Duke of Marlborough.
Beaux Books showed the 1938 colour chart the Royal Horticultural Society used to name plants, and David Pearson gave a talk on provenance.