Firsts chose Revolution as its theme for 2026, and about 100 dealers at the Saatchi Gallery answered it from the Book of the Dead to Electric Ladyland.
Firsts, London’s rare book fair, took Revolution as its theme at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea from Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 May 2026.
About 100 booksellers from around the world took stands under the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association. Senate House Library was charity partner and brought revolutionary material of its own, from the civil wars to the suffragettes.
The year marked 250 years since the American Declaration of Independence, so the strongest material came from that war and its writers. Shapero Rare Books showed a letter Thomas Paine wrote in 1797, and Daniel Crouch Rare Books a plan of Boston in October 1775.
The French Revolution arrived through a British spy’s handwritten letter and a first edition of Mary Wollstonecraft’s account of it. Mary Beard’s line for the fair was that revolutionary texts help to create history.
An invitation-only preview opened the fair on the Thursday evening, from 17:00 to 21:00. Lucius Books offered the original artwork for the American cover of Electric Ladyland, and Butler Rare Books an Egyptian Book of the Dead fragment from about 1500 BC.
Propaganda from the Russian and Chinese revolutions was on the stands too.