Want to buy a book for €20,000?

SMALL PRINT: YOU PROBABLY won’t see too many Kindles and e-readers in the Freemason Hall in Dublin the weekend after next and…

SMALL PRINT:YOU PROBABLY won't see too many Kindles and e-readers in the Freemason Hall in Dublin the weekend after next and that's because the annual Dublin Book Fair will be taking place there.

One of the dealers at the show will be Maggs Bros Rare Books, from London, one of the oldest antiquarian bookshops in the world. Among the titles they will have on offer are six signed copies of a 50 limited edition set of Seamus Heaney's The Door Stands Open. The volume contains two poems and an essay by Heaney about the work of Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz. This is definitely not a book to stick in your back pocket, however. It's made of handwoven paper, bound in stainless steel covers, and has a slipcase of glass.

Originally published in 2005 by the Irish Writers' Centre as a set of 50, these remaining volumes will be sold to raise money for the centre, and are priced at €1,000.

Among the other Irish-interest books and manuscripts on sale will be a first edition of The Young King and Other Talesby Oscar Wilde (€20,000). Only seven of these vellum-printed copies were published in 1924. For Henry James fans, there is a 1915 letter from him to Mary "Molly" Osgood, wife of Robert Erskine Childers, author of The Riddle of the Sands(€750).

It all takes place at the Freemason's Hall, Molesworth Street, Dublin. Friday 17th from noon until 7pm and Saturday 18th, from 10pm until 5pm. Admission €3.

Rosita Boland

Rosita Boland

Rosita Boland is Senior Features Writer with The Irish Times. She was named NewsBrands Ireland Journalist of the Year for 2018