Buzz Bookstore

“Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you. We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us.“
- LM Montgomery, “Anne of Avonlea”

Some new “Anne” just landed, including a first “Avonlea” and an 11th printing “Green Gables”. Enjoy.

True story: My wife and I looked at EVERY bouquiniste along the Seine to find a set like this - she found it for me at the very last stall! I ran across a bridge to Île Saint-Louis to find an ATM before anyone else could snap it up.

That set is still in my own library but I finally managed to track down another set for this shop, a full 9 years later.

The science of snowflakes + poetry + illustrations + super scarce ❄️❄️❄️❄️

[CHICKERING, Frances Elizabeth]. Cloud Crystals: A Snow-Flake Album. Collected and Edited by A Lady. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1864.

First edition. 10” x 7.5”, 158pp with 28 illustrated plates including title, featuring striking snow crystal forms printed in white against dark grounds, with accompanying descriptive and poetic text, such as selections from Emerson, Tennyson, Burns, Longfellow, and Shakespeare. Publisher’s original embossed brown morocco, gilt-lettered upper board and spine, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Leather rubbed along extremities and joints with some surface loss at corners and spine ends, but binding remains sound and unrestored, hinges secure, internally notably clean with plates bright and attractive. A handsome Very Good copy.

A visually distinctive Victorian gift book devoted to the geometry and symbolism of snow crystals, blending natural science, devotional reflection, and decorative design. Scarce in the trade, particularly in original morocco and sound condition, the work helped popularize the aesthetic and scientific fascination with snowflakes in mid-nineteenth-century America and remains one of the most recognizable illustrated winter books of the period.