Firsts returns to the Saatchi Gallery from 20 to 23 May 2027, opening with an invitation-only preview on the Thursday evening, 5pm to 9pm.
The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association was founded in 1906 and is the oldest organisation of its kind anywhere; its first president took office the following year. Membership requires a proposer, a seconder and years of trading, and it carries an obligation to describe a book accurately and to take it back if the description was wrong. Firsts is the association’s own fair, and that obligation is what a buyer is really paying for at the door.
A rare book is not an edition. Every copy has its own history of ownership, binding, repair and damage, and two apparently identical first editions can differ in price by a factor of ten on the basis of a bookplate or an uncut edge. That is why the trade still sells across a table rather than through a screen, and why what leaves a stand on the opening evening is not there the next morning.
The 2027 fair is at the Saatchi Gallery from Thursday 20 to Sunday 23 May, with an invitation-only preview on the Thursday evening. Dealers show manuscripts, first editions, maps and works on paper, from incunabula through to modern firsts. The association vets what appears on every stand, as it has for more than a century, and it takes public responsibility for the descriptions attached to every item on every stand.