Peter Stern: An Intellectually Curious Bookseller and Bibliophile

2 days ago

2 min read

Peter Stern is a long-time exhibitor at the upcoming Northampton Antiquarian Book, Ephemera, and Book Arts Fair. Stern specializes in selling and collecting rare first edition literature from the nineteenth and twentieth century. He has a few thousand books at the moment, and in his collection aside from fiction, are poetry, plays, photographs and much more. For the last twenty-five years he’s been running his own online store, exhibiting at rare book fairs throughout the Northeast, while operating from an office in Newton, Massachusetts.

First Edition in dust jacket (Alfred Knopf, 1934)

Stern attended a school in Boston during his younger years, and it was there that he first worked for a bookseller in 1972 for a little over a year. He eventually left to start his own business, where he first spent ten to fifteen years working with a partner from California. After that he became the sole owner of his business, Peter L. Stern. He's always had a love for books and he naturally fell into the world of selling antiquarian fiction. When he looks back, he has no regrets on the trajectory of his life as a bookseller.

First Edition in wraps, Olympia Press, 1959

Before Covid, Stern attended between twenty to twenty-two fairs and exhibits a year. His process for choosing books to exhibit at the fair is open and free. He picks them out an hour before he leaves and always makes sure to bring the things he’s interested and excited about. Similarly, when looking for books to add to his collection, he buys for himself. This process allows Stern to stay engaged with his material while exploring his “intellectual curiosity.” This curiosity is the interest he has not only on how the book appears, but how he will research it and the story he will find. For Stern it’s all about the thrill of the hunt, he isn’t looking for rare and incredibly expensive copies, he just wants to genuinely enjoy his work and find interests that he shares with his clients.

Stern typically likes to keep to himself, however he loves being surrounded by other curious people like himself at fairs and exhibits. He enjoys being able to contribute to someone else's knowledge and having them do the same for him. Stern strongly supports small fairs and regional exhibits for this reason, it’s a way of connecting and learning and he believes they deserve more recognition.

First Edition in English. First American Edition. Inscribed by the author to Saul Bellow's friend and attorney Harvey Simkin. (Hillman-Curl, 1938). Translated from the German by Desmond I. Vesey. Verses translated by Christopher Isherwood

The Postman Always Rings Twice, Naked Lunch, Penny for the Poor and thousands of other fine first editions can be found in Stern's web store.

You can Browse, schmooze, and buy books from Peter Stern at the Northampton Book Fair on November 20th, 5-8pm and 21st, 10am - 4pm at the Northampton Center for the Arts, 33 Hawley Street.

For tickets and fair info