The Antiquarian book fair recently came to Manhattan for it’s annual visit and it didn’t disappoint as Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Kerouac were joined by Salvador Dali and Jim Morrison in a potpourri of rare books and fascinating ephemera. Among the items on display was a smoking jacket worn by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a first edition of On the Road by Jack Kerouac and some pulp novels inspired by the Beat Generation. In addition, there was an illustrated version of Edgar Allen Poe’s, The Raven illustrated by the artist Edouard Manet, original copies of the Strand Magazine featuring Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and a rare photo of Jim Morrison —used for the cover of the Absolutely Live Doors album that the lead singer didn’t love —as much as the record label —because it obscured the faces of his bandmates.

Fans of the popular TV show Pawn Stars visiting the book fair were delighted to be able to chat with leading rare books expert Rebecca Romney, the beautiful and brilliant bookseller who reminded us that the Great Gatsby, with it’s tales of fabulous estates and parties had just turned 125 years old recently. The book, in part, inspired our own publisher, Chase Backer, a visionary bon vivant in his own right, to create 25A magazine to celebrate the fabulous mansions and estates of the area.

Courtesy: Type Punch Matrix/ rebeccaromney.com

AK: Rebecca, why is the Great Gatsby still so popular?

RR: The Great Gatsby came out in 1925 and in fact it wasn’t a big hit for Fitzgerald …he was better known for his earlier novels and Gatsby only did OK… and by the time of his death it was not his best known work and he thought he was going to die with it unnoticed and it was one of the books that came back into the popular circulation in the post-war period and now we look back at it in 2026 and we just had it’s centenary- 100 years —and it’s one of the American classics …you never know which book is going to become a classic at the time.

AK: Why is Gatsby such a classic?

RR: I think it is a great way to engage with the idea of the American Dream and its complexities…the hopes and the failures that are built into it. I think that people respond to it because it is a very human investigation of a concept that a lot of us wrestle with in this country, so it makes sense that it is part of so many high school’s curricula —and when that happens it becomes part of our shared cultural experience —our vocabulary.

AK: What about Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald—were they friends or frenemies?

RR: They were certainly friends but there was competition there and one of the best ways to read about that is actually Hemingway’s own book called A Moveable Feast. That’s where you really get his side —it’s Hemingway not to the benefit of Fitzgerald. If you are interested in that rivalry and want to get a sense of it —read A Moveable Feast.

AK: I’ve seen an original copy of On the Road by Jack Kerouac in another booth— but you have a whole Beat Generation section here too.

RR: We are showing how that Beat movement translated into pop culture through mass-market paperbacks -so you take the Beats who were sort of the rebel generation after WW2 …the movement before the hippies…and instead of Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs you have “Naked Brunch” so, you can see how a literary movement is digested into popular culture and comes out the other end that comes out as cheap paperbacks that people could buy at drugstores. This collection is called the “ Beatsploitation “

collection.

AK: That’s so funny! Catch us up on you— we all love watching you in the TV show Pawn Stars talking about rare books

RR: Well, the New York Fair is the big event of the year —everyone comes and shows up and there’s a lot of energy here. When we are not at the fair we are back at the shop, Type Punch Matrix, where we do catalogs and we are always looking to do collections. I do videos now. I try to do a little education in the rare books space. A lot of people think these are just expensive books that are too fragile to touch but it’s also these mass market paperbacks where you can see a book as a time capsule of that moment in history …all of that is part of the rare books world.

AK: most popular rare book you have dealt with?

RR: a first edition of Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen always sells quickly

AK: Are you still doing Pawn Stars?

RR: I was just in Las Vegas shooting new episodes.

Article and Photos by Adam Kluger