Booth Book Sale On Labor Day Weekend

The C.H. Booth Library Book Sale, one of New England’s largest book sales, will be held for the 26th consecutive year during the Labor Day Weekend in Newtown. A record number of over 160,000 books and related items will be offered, rain or shine, at the sale. It will be set up inside Bridgeport Hall on the historic Fairfield Hills State Hospital campus.

Fairfield Hills may be the most unique site for a book sale in the Northeast, possibly in the whole country, both for its historic and social significance. Built in graceful Federal Revival style, Fairfield Hills opened in 1933, and, at its height of service, treated 2,500 psychiatric patients on a 180-acre park-like campus.

The hospital was completely self-sustaining; the remainder of the 600 acres was devoted to a working farm and power and sewage treatment plants. Today, the Governor’s Horse Guard utilizes some barns and pastures, but the hospital is closed.

Bridgeport Hall, where the book sale will be held, was the cafeteria and recreation hall for Fairfield Hills. The hall occupies over 14,000 square feet of space, divided into two cavernous, walnut-paneled rooms, ideal for once-a-year blowout book sales. Visitors can still see the huge kitchens and bakery, too, although most of the ancient equipment has been removed.

Last year the sale drew thousands of buyers to peruse more than 200 tables piled to overflowing with hardcover and paperback books, all arranged alphabetically by author in over 70 categories. This year the sale will feature a large number of almost new books, an expanded offering of over 17,000 paperbacks, plus unusually large selections of science fiction, cookbooks, the Dummies© instructional series, and current travel guides from private collections.

Children’s books abound; over 12,000 are sorted into categories from popular recent series to classics from the 1920s through the 1960s. Other large nonfiction categories include art, biography, gardening, crafts, chess, history, computer software, LP records, games, and puzzles. Fiction is categorized (novels, mysteries, thrillers, occult, short stories, more) and romance is now alphabetized by author.

The sale’s highlight is expected to again be the rare book room; many of these valuable gems have decorative leather bindings. Several hundred books will be offered. Two with particular historical interest are The American Woman’s Home, a guide to “principles of domestic science” published in 1869 by Catherine Beecher and her famous sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe; plus Pompeian (The Topography, Edifices, and Ornaments of Pompei), featuring many engraved plates and published in 1852 in a half leather and marbleized cover, written by noted English archaeologist, Sir William Gell.

Important writers are being featured this year. A 1972 paperback copy of America and Americans is inscribed with a note by the author, John Steinbeck. A tiny volume, The History of Moses, by Robert Louis Stevenson, privately printed in 1919 by the Philadelphia expert on book collecting, A. Edward Newton, has several notes inscribed.

A Woman of No Importance, a play by Oscar Wilde, is dated 1894. It is a limited edition, printed in London, and even lists the cast members from the first performance at Haymarket Theatre. Children’s volumes are also well represented, including works by L. Frank Baum and William James and a pair of Scribner Illustrated classics.

Book sale hours are Saturday, September 1, 9 am to 5 pm; Sunday, September 2, 10 am to 5 pm; Monday, September 3, 9 am to 4:30 pm; Tuesday, September 4, 2 to 6 pm; and Wednesday, September 5, 10 am to 4 pm.

Admissions of $10 (9 am to noon) and $5 (noon to 5 pm) are charged on Saturday only; tickets go on sale at 7 am. On Saturday and Sunday, books are sold at the marked price.

On Monday, books are sold at half the marked price from 9 am to 2 pm. From 2:30 to 4:30 pm on Monday and again on Tuesday, books are $8 per bag. Leftover books are free on Wednesday, with donations accepted. All proceeds from the Book Sale benefit Booth Library in Newtown.

The location is easy to reach: Take I-84 East or West to Exit 11, then turn left at the bottom of the ramp onto Mile Hill Road and follow the signs about one mile to Fairfield Hills. There is ample parking on the campus. For more information, call the Cyrenius H. Booth Library at 426-4533 or visit the library Web site at www.biblio.org/chbooth.htm.