Book shopping is never so fun (and expensive ) as at the Antiquarian Book Fair. At the gala preview tonight, one might spy a first edition of Victoria Sackville-West’s “Constantinople”; letters written by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Allen Ginsberg, or a rough-draft manuscript of Larry Rivers’s memoir, “What Did I Do?”

But don’t get any ideas about adding these to your bookshelves. The cochairmen of the New York Public Library-organized event, interior designer Thomas Jayne and literary entrepreneur Lea Carpenter, are asking guests to purchase these items and about 50 others for the library’s shelves.

“People tend to think about philanthropy as giving away a fortune or paying ‘x’ to come to a party. I thought, why not try to capture people who are book lovers and library lovers and connect them in a really personal way, which is to put a book on the shelf,” Ms. Carpenter said. “It’s instant philanthropy.”

Curators at the library developed the list after perusing book dealers’ offerings. The “Curator’s Choices” will be posted prominently throughout the Seventh Regiment Armory, and dealers including Locus Solus Books, Joseph J. Felcone Incorporated, and David Schulson Autographs have agreed to display the items prominently in their booths. Meanwhile, in the Lions Lounge created by David Monn and Gayfryd Steinberg, buyers can place and sign “sold” stickers on a master list.

To start the pages and dollars flying, at least two people bought items early. Beth Rudin DeWoody, who won’t be at the preview because she is going to opening night of “The History Boys” with her brother, William Rudin, for his birthday, has purchased and donated an autographed letter of the Ballets Russes set and costume designer Leon Bakst. Meanwhile, Ms. Carpenter’s sister, Katie Carpenter, has perhaps shown her geeky tendencies with her purchase of a 1929 aeronautical supplies catalog from the Robertson Aircraft Company offered by High Ridge Books.

The list was inspired by a donation at last year’s gala preview. Robert and Susan Morgenthau made a gift of two books published in 1941 in conjunction with a Nazi exhibition mounted in Paris during the occupation, called “Le Juif et la France.” The president of the library, Paul LeClerc, had told the Morgenthaus about these books, which are now part of the library’s Dorot Jewish Division.

Ms. Carpenter, one of the founding members of the library’s Young Lions, describes her own library as “chaotic and disorganized – a very personal collection of things I’ve read over the years.” Many of her books were accumulated while she completed her degree in English at Princeton, and fewer while she picked up an MBA at Harvard. That suggests another way the library might enhance its acquisition funds: by having curators go out and organize their donors’ collections.

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Already it’s been an exciting week for book lovers. On his way into the American Museum of Natural History Tuesday to attend the PEN gala (for a full report, please see page 25), the public events tsar at the New York Public Library, Paul Holdengraber, ran into one of the first friends he made when he came to America for graduate school. He and the poet and literary theorist Wayne Koestenbaum met at Princeton, where apparently, Mr. Holdengraber, at least, became a very literal interpreter. The PEN gala invitation called for black tie, you see, so Mr. Holdengraber wore a black tie – with sculls on it – by Josh Bach. He promises to wear it again on May 31 at the library, when he’ll be interviewing the editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick.

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Olivia Fussell paid $350 at a live auction Tuesday night to dance with the Knight of St. George. Her partner, in convincing armor designed by William Ivey Long, was, in fact, the rector of the French Speaking Episcopal Church, Nigel Massey.

The dance took place just before the group chairman of HSBC Holdings, Sir John Bond, received his St. George’s Society Medal of Honour. The event at the Pierre raised $300,000 for the society, which provides financial support to British expatriates in the New York area.

Sir James said he had experienced more enthusiastic British patriotism outside his country than inside. So when he designed his family arms, he included two buffalos (in honor of Buffalo, N.Y., where he had lived) and a dragon (in honor of China, where he also lived).

agordon@nysun.com