Riverby Books

Riverby Books Riverby Books has more than twice as many books as any two book stores less than half the size.
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Calling all boy sleuths - complete Hardy Boys mysteries (66 vols) - available as a set for (SOLD, thank you!!)
05/30/2026

Calling all boy sleuths - complete Hardy Boys mysteries (66 vols) - available as a set for (SOLD, thank you!!)

Calling all girl sleuths - complete set of Nancy Drew books (64) - hardcover - get them all for $250
05/30/2026

Calling all girl sleuths - complete set of Nancy Drew books (64) - hardcover - get them all for $250

Honestly, is there anything better than this? Good job kiddo. Good job, parents. Our basement has 1,000 kids books, most...
05/30/2026

Honestly, is there anything better than this?
Good job kiddo. Good job, parents.
Our basement has 1,000 kids books, most $5

Today it's been autographed books, and if your name is Sally to Melissa or Max, this is the post for you. Autographed by...
05/28/2026

Today it's been autographed books, and if your name is Sally to Melissa or Max, this is the post for you.
Autographed by Neil Gaiman (to Melissa and Max): Graveyard Book $70
Autographed by Neil Gaiman (no inscription): Ocean at the End of the Lane $30
Autographed to Melissaby Katherine Paterson: Bridge to Terabithia $50
Autographed to Sally from Tennessee Williams: Memoirs $175
Autographed by George R.R. Martin: A Dance with Dragons $100

We also saw two books that belonged to Harpo Marx this week - one with his personal bookplate and one inscribed to him - the person who brought them in didn't even know they had them - so even though we were sad that they decided to keep them, it was still a thrill to see them.

You never know what's going to be in the next box.

05/27/2026

Looks like a drenching rain this evening, so we'll be closing at 6 instead of 9. — ok — so it didn’t rain at all. Oh well. See you tomorrow

This Memorial Day, we want to share a first peek at a tremendous collection that has just come into the store. From the ...
05/25/2026

This Memorial Day, we want to share a first peek at a tremendous collection that has just come into the store.
From the personal collection of the family of President Grant, books handed down from the 19th century, added to through the 20th, and now (soon) available you, after 5 generations in the Grant family --
The first thing out of the box is:
Frederick Phisterer's "Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States."
Printed in NY in 1883. Part of Scribner's 'Campaigns of the Civil War' series.
This copy has the bookplate of Ulysses S. Grant III -- the grandson of President Grant -- himself a Major General in the US Army. He finished 6th in his class at West Point (Douglas MacArthur finished first), and led a long and distinguished career through both World Wars. Though he never knew his famous grandfather, he was a historian (and book collector) and proud and careful steward of the family name and legacy.
The books in his collection (still in boxes in my office, as we prepare a catalogue) include several biographies of President Grant, many of them annotated by US Grant 3rd or other family members. This volume, in addition to the bookplate, has a couple small pencil tics in the margins where something caught his (USG3's) interest.
This volume is available for sale today (more to follow soon)-- SOLD — but more coming soon — please message me if you’d like us to email the catalogue to you

This just came in the front door. Extremely scarce 1968 cookbook of Traditional Negro Recipes.Written by Ruth Gaskins up...
05/22/2026

This just came in the front door.
Extremely scarce 1968 cookbook of Traditional Negro Recipes.
Written by Ruth Gaskins up in Alexandria (which we sometimes forget is part of the south).

She published a first edition of this collection the same spring that Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated & riots swept through her community. The NY publisher Simon & Schuster noticed the book and bought the manuscript for nationwide distribution (this copy). Its copyright page is dated 1968, but we can see from the Advance Copy notification tucked inside this copy that it wasn't released until June 3rd of 1969. (This copy also has a glossy photo of Ruth Gaskins, intended for use in magazine newspaper reviews of the book).

The recipes are real, authentic, and easy to make in modern kitchens. If you can find a muskrat, squirrel or rabbit (turtle and possum recipes too). Grits and hominy, spice cake and powder biscuits, pickles and kidney pie and much much more.

But this book is not nostalgia and Uncle Tom. It is an assertion of independence, relevance, and worldview. She writes of 'the negro welcome' in the first paragraph of the introduction ("...I don't have to wait for a special invitation. If I feel like seeing a friend, I'll go... I'll draw up a chair and eat...")

Then, in the second paragraph, she dispels any misconception that the past can be viewed through rose colored glasses: "The Welcome comes from back in the days when we were slaves. For over 200 years we were told where to live and where to work. We were given husbands, and we made children, and all these things could be taken away from us. The only real comfort came at the end of the day, when we took either the food that we were given, or food that we raised, or the food that we had caught, and we put it in the pot, and we sat with our own kind..."

Gaskins' introduction is 7 dense pages of enlightened and inspiring prose, a celebration of what was called negro culture in her time, and in many ways it is a first draft declaration (in print) - confident and proud and profound - that the African American experience is as central to the story of the country as the tired old American Dream (of whites) that has been (and still is) doled out in sugary dollops in schools and much media.

Sadly, this book and Gaskins’ voice are largely lost to history. There are fewer than 10 copies on the market right now, and only a scattered few in libraries.

We're delighted to offer it for sale (sold - thank you) and happy that the A's took such good care of it over the years, before bringing it to us.

They're really such modest things, these books. Fragile, finite, and fabulous. Utterly opaque to people who don't have t...
05/18/2026

They're really such modest things, these books. Fragile, finite, and fabulous. Utterly opaque to people who don't have time for them & endlessly interesting for those of us who do.
This is the second edition of To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. It was printed on her own Hogarth Press (she and her husband printed many of her books, as well as other notable titles) in 1930, after the 1927 first edition sold out. Plain green boards, some fading from age. It will be 100 years old before you throw away that jar or pickles in the back your refrigerator. $[sold. Thank you. Enjoy].

You never know what will be in the next box.

05/14/2026

settle an intra-bookstore debate for us.
Is John le Carre shelved under "L" or "C"?

Today’s unexpected find, this whole stack on logging railroads (also railroad wrecks and railroad snowplows) $10 each. Y...
05/12/2026

Today’s unexpected find, this whole stack on logging railroads (also railroad wrecks and railroad snowplows) $10 each.

You never know what will be in the next box.

Address

805 Caroline Street
Fredericksburg, VA
22401

Opening Hours

Monday 10am - 6pm
Tuesday 10am - 6pm
Wednesday 10am - 9pm
Thursday 10am - 9pm
Friday 10am - 9pm
Saturday 10am - 9pm
Sunday 11am - 5pm

Telephone

+15403736148

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