![[Original Handbill Advertising the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club, Oxford Street, London, June 29 and July 6, 1976]](/cassidy/images/items/200x300/12928.jpg "[Original Handbill Advertising the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club, Oxford Street, London, June 29 and July 6, 1976]")
![[Complete Set of Three Silk-Screened Posters for Cage's Performance of HPSCHD]](/cassidy/images/items/200x300/12883.jpg "[Complete Set of Three Silk-Screened Posters for Cage's Performance of HPSCHD]")
about me
I buy and sell intrinsically
fascinating, important, or unusual books, ephemera, and other cultural detritus in all fields. Specialties
include modern and contemporary literature; The Beats; poetry; popular culture; esoterica; artists' books; the avant-garde in all its various guises (music to film, art to dance); small journals and
magazines (especially those associated with the Mimeo Revolution);
letters, manuscripts, and archives; as well as vernacular, folk, and outsider books.
A sense of the eclecticism I strive for can be seen in some of material I've recently handled. From an illuminated 15th-century Book of Hours to a collection of photo-collages by William S. Burroughs, from a Yosemite tourist album containing some of the earliest images of the Sierra Club to an archive of letters from Henry Miller to his agent, I seek material that will fascinate and endure.
A sense of the eclecticism I strive for can be seen in some of material I've recently handled. From an illuminated 15th-century Book of Hours to a collection of photo-collages by William S. Burroughs, from a Yosemite tourist album containing some of the earliest images of the Sierra Club to an archive of letters from Henry Miller to his agent, I seek material that will fascinate and endure.
I have been involved in the book business in one form or another since 1994. For the better part of ten years, I was employed at several independent bookstores, including four years at Denver's Tattered Cover where I worked as a buyer. Since 2004 I have owned and operated Brian Cassidy, Bookseller - a rare, collectible, antiquarian, and out-of-print book business. From 2006-2009, I maintained an open bookshop in Monterey, CA, but now work privately in the Washington D.C. area. To date, I have issued six print catalogues of rare books. I exhibit at book fairs around the country. I am an occasional contributor to the weblog of Fine Books and Collections magazine as well as The Standard, the newsletter of the Independent Online Bookseller's Association (IOBA).
I am a graduate (English/Writing) of Loyola College (Baltimore, MD) and hold a MFA (English/Poetry) from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. I am also a graduate of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar, which I attended on a scholarship from the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA). I have also attended Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.
I am a member of the Independent Online Booksellers' Association, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (for which I serve on the Planning Committee), the Washington Area Booksellers Association, the Washington Rare Book Group, The Baltimore Bibliophiles, The Fine Press Book Association, and The Bibliographical Society of America.
I am a member of the Independent Online Booksellers' Association, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (for which I serve on the Planning Committee), the Washington Area Booksellers Association, the Washington Rare Book Group, The Baltimore Bibliophiles, The Fine Press Book Association, and The Bibliographical Society of America.
I was born and raised in Monmouth County, NJ, though I currently live with my wife and daughter just blocks from my office in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland. I welcome visitors by appointment.
The Washington Post recently profiled me for their Sunday magazine. The excessively bored or curious can read a bit more about me there. Others may further burden themselves with my interview for Fine Books and Collections magazine. And the truly dedicated or deluded can watch my interview, given as part of the ABAA's oral history project, where I blather on about how I got into the trade, give my thoughts on the future of books, and even reveal my real age: http://hq.abaa.org/books/antiquarian/abaapages/cassidy.html.
The Washington Post recently profiled me for their Sunday magazine. The excessively bored or curious can read a bit more about me there. Others may further burden themselves with my interview for Fine Books and Collections magazine. And the truly dedicated or deluded can watch my interview, given as part of the ABAA's oral history project, where I blather on about how I got into the trade, give my thoughts on the future of books, and even reveal my real age: http://hq.abaa.org/books/antiquarian/abaapages/cassidy.html.
