Rose City Book & Paper Fair Is Going Virtual This Year
- by Michael Stillman
The Cascade Booksellers Association will be holding their annual Rose City Book & Paper Fair again in June, but this year's edition will be unlike any before. The western states booksellers organization normally holds its fair in the Rose City, Portland, Oregon, but this one will be harder to pin down in terms of location. It is nowhere and everywhere. This one will be a virtual fair.
The Rose City Fair was originally scheduled to again take place in Portland, but the booksellers had to cancel that plan for the same reason so many other events have been cancelled. However, rather than just cancelling the fair, the Cascade Booksellers decided to create a virtual, online fair. They have retained the originally scheduled dates, June 12-14.
To attend this fair, you will need to go to the Cascade Booksellers web page at cascadebooksellers.com. It will open at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, June 12, and remain open until 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 14. While there, you will be able to visit each exhibitor's “virtual booth.” The booksellers association explains that, “they will be offering a wide variety of the best in used, rare and collectible books, paper ephemera, prints, postcards, maps and more using a variety of social media, websites and electronic catalogs.” They continue, “There are already lots of ways to buy books online. The Rose City Virtual Book Fair is an experience, not a website. It will be a fun and dynamic event, offering an opportunity to visit and explore. Browse, chat, connect, buy, collect.”
This year's fair will be free to the public. However, you can purchase an admission to the Preview to be held on June 11. The cost is $10 and will give you first crack at purchasing the items offered. To purchase a Preview admission, go to the Cascade booksellers website at cascadebooksellers.com.
While you may not get to shake hands with a bookseller this year, there are some definite advantages to this format:
1. No travel is necessary. No lost time or expenses for gas, eating in restaurants, perhaps renting a hotel room.
2. Admission is free, the usual entrance fee having been waived.
3. Longer hours... much longer hours. The fair will be open continuously from the Friday morning start to the Sunday evening close. You can attend in the middle of the night if you like.
4. Visiting is not effectively limited to people living in the Pacific Northwest. It can be attended just as easily from any place in the world, opening the doors to all sorts of people who could never attend before.
Many of the booksellers from previous years will be back in this new format along with some new ones as well.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Book of Hours.- Heures de nostre dame a l'usaige de Romme, Paris, Antoine Chappiel pour Germain Hardouin, [1504]. £6,000-8,000
Forum, May 28: Colonna (Francesco). La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, second edition, Venice, Sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545. £15,000-20,000
Forum, May 28:The Christ Child holding a crystal orb and surrounded by banderoles with devotional exhortations, on a leaf most probably from a Book of Hours, [Southern Netherlands, last decades of the fifteenth century]. £2,000-3,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Jackson (Shirley). The Haunting of Hill House, first English edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to Claude Fredericks, 1960. £2,000-3,000
Forum, May 28: Lennon (John). In His Own Write, first edition, first impression, signed by the author, 1964. £3,000-4,000
Forum, May 28: Doves Press.- Keats (John). [Poems], one of 200 copies on paper, Doves Press, 1914. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Rodrigues (João Barbosa). Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium, 2 vol., first and only edition, Brussels, 1903. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Newton (Sir Isaac). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica…editio ultima, auctior et emendatior, Amsterdam, Sumptibus Societatis, 1714. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Kepler (Johannes). Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, wuibus astronomiae pars optica traditur, first edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1604. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Tagliacozzi (Gaspare). De Curtorum Chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo, first edition, Venice, Gasparo Bindoni, 1597. £7,000-10,000
Forum, May 28: Lootsman (Jacobsz). The Lightning Colomne, or Sea-Mirrour, containing the Sea-Coasts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Navigation..., 1670. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Ribelles y Helip (José), Attributed to. An album comprising 33 finely executed watercolours of Spanish costume, bull-fighting scenes, and other genre subjects, [circa 1830]. £10,000-15,000
