Toronto 2025: A Long Printing Culture Meets a Delightful Mix of Books, Booksellers, and Booklovers

Now in its 53rd year, the fair will bring together leading Canadian and international sellers of antiquarian books, maps and prints. Visitors will discover an extensive array of rare and vintage books, manuscripts, photographs, prints, and ephemera. Whether you are an experienced collector, librarian or archivist, scholar or simply someone who loves the book arts, there is something for every taste.

Canada’s book-printing tradition may seem modern, but its origins reach back more than 250 years. Printing in British North America began in the 1750s. The first widely recognised press was operated by John Bushell in Halifax, launching the Halifax Gazette in March 1752. Before that, there were no printing presses established in the colony.
In 1764, William Brown and Thomas Gilmore founded the Quebec Gazette / La Gazette de Québec. This marked a major step in bilingual publishing, launching in French and English.
Throughout the early 19th century, printing presses were still relatively rare in Canada; most books and periodicals were imported from Britain, the United States or France.

By the mid-19th century, the Canadian printing and publishing industry began to expand. Presses and bookshops grew in cities such as Montreal and Toronto and booksellers became integral to the trade. With immigration, industrialisation, and the growth of public libraries, book production and distribution expanded rapidly between 1840 and 1918.

After World War I and into the 20th century, Canada’s publishing industry matured further. Montreal and Toronto emerged as key centres for French- and English-language publishing, respectively. The expansion of libraries, universities and cultural institutions bolstered the trade. By the late 20th century, Canada had established a national identity in publishing and printing, supporting both scholarship and commercial trade.

This history forms an important backdrop for the Toronto Antiquarian Book Fair. The fair is not only a marketplace of rare books, maps and prints, but also a celebration of Canada’s book culture, its print heritage, its bilingual dimensions, and its connection to the international trade. Exhibitors and visitors are walking in the footsteps of generations of Canadian printers, publishers and booksellers who gradually built the infrastructure of the book trade here.

Today, antiquarian booksellers are organised in the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of Canada (ABAC) or Association de la Librairie Ancienne du Canada (ALAC). Established in 1966, it has been the cornerstone of the Canadian rare book trade for nearly six decades. The association became a member of ILAB in 1970, counts 55 booksellers across Canada's vast territory and also organizes the Toronto fair.

In a recent interview, the President of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of Canada (ABAC), Aimee Peake, emphasised that the Canadian trade is booming and the fair plays a key role in bringing together North American and international markets. She noted that Canadian booksellers benefit from strong domestic engagement and an increasing global connectivity: READ THE ARTICLE HERE

We invite you to join us at the Toronto Antiquarian Book Fair 2025 at OCAD University’s waterfront campus. Explore the booths, meet knowledgeable dealers, and discover treasures that reflect both Canada’s print heritage and the global history of the book.

November 14th -16th, 2025
Toronto Antiquarian Book Fair
OCAD U Waterfront
130 Queen’s Quay E.
Toronto, Ontario

To find out more about the friendly faces, read up about Toronto's exhibitors on the relaunched Instagram account of the fair --> VISIT HERE

Further Reading: The History of the Book in Canada by Patricia Lockhart Fleming / The Oxford Companion to the Book, Suarez and Woudhuysen, Oxford University Press, 2010