This program is co-sponsored with the Book Club of Washington (BCW), Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), and Seattle Public Library
Steven Schuyler, a Boston-area rare book dealer specializing in the building arts, shares his personal
passion, favorite finds, and insights into what books can tell us about the building trades, changing architecture, and interior design and decoration trends.
Schuyler grew up in the Pacific Northwest, attending Bainbridge Island schools and Whitman College before earning a Ph.D. from Harvard. He was his high school’s first exchange student, to Cologne, Germany, where he lived with a family “awash in books and book sleuthing.” He recalls, “I got the bug there, and it never left me.” Schuyler says, “For me, collecting has always been about the mindset more than the activity. I got to know Europe as a teenager through the windows of the wonderful book stores I experienced, from London to Brussels to Amsterdam to Berlin.” He will share some of his ‘collector anecdotes’ with us. He will also showcase some of the stunning visual materials that comprise a publication prepared by Richard Cheek, Selling the Dwelling: The Books that Build America’s Houses, 1775-2000. It is the catalog for an exhibit held at New York’s prestigious Grolier Club in 2013-2014 that documents the development and influence of the house design book, from early American builders’ manuals through the rise of popular pattern books and catalogs for kit homes.
This presentation will be followed by a panel discussion with librarians and book dealers addressing the delights and the challenges of book collecting in this field and a problem faced by many local collectors—where will my books go after I go? The talk and panel will be accompanied by an exhibit of books and ephemera from local collections and from the Seattle Room of the Seattle Public Library.
Craftsman Bungalows catalog cover courtesy of Larry Kreisman
Cost:
Free / donation