The Private Library

Turn Left at the next Private Library

Americans have long had a love affair with the automobile.  But, as millions of Americans hop into their cars this Memorial Day weekend (traditionally the start of the summer vacation season on this side of the pond), we may want to pause and remember that there once was a time--before the Interstate Highway System, even before designated state highways--when getting around the USA was no sure thing.

In the early years of the 20th century drivers were more likely to encounter muddy paths than paved roads. Finding a source of petrol was no sure thing, either.  Directions in the days before designated state highways often were couched in terms of local landmarks.  To get from point A to point B, it really helped to have a touring guide.  

These (now very scarce) guides, as Tom McKay observed in an article for the Wisconsin Historical Society, are very important for students of local history:

While many tour book entries consist of a simple "cross R.R." or "pass left hand road," scanning route descriptions can reveal interesting details about the communities and rural environs along the routes. County historical societies frequently encounter a dearth of historical information about the rural hamlets that once dotted the landscape but have largely disappeared over the last 90 years. The routes described in the tour books passed through scores of these hamlets in Wisconsin. Where the route was complex or difficult to describe, the authors included more descriptive facts to guide travelers through a rural community. For example, the 1910 Wisconsin State Automobile Association tour book reveals that the hamlet of Edwards (near Howard's Grove) had an operating cheese factory and saloon. On the other hand, King's Official Route Guide for 1916 indicates that Elm City (between Antigo and Rhinelander) was just a railroad station. Entries in this guide also show that the Clark County hamlet of Spokesville had a church, creamery and store in operation....

For folks who collect books about travel, transportation, the Industrial Revolution, or the coming of the automobile age to a particular locale, such touring guides provide essential insights which often are unavailable from any other source, as McKay points out:

The publications concentrated on descriptions of road surfaces. Portage County historians can locate the beginning of brick pavement in Stevens Point on the route from Knowlton by using the 1910 Wisconsin State Automobile Association tour book. That same book identifies a stretch of corduroy road, made from logs, between Weyauwega and Freemont. All of the tour books clearly distinguish dirt, clay, and sand road surfaces from each other. Those identified as clay or sand roads may have accompanying comments about passability in poor weather. Researchers can discover city streets which had macadam paving and country roads which were favored with a gravel surface....

Do not expect to find these guides readily available in the marketplace. Because they were frequently consulted, Fine copies are difficult to come by, and they often command a substantial premium when found in such condition....

A Deteriorating Situation at The Private Library

We have observed in previous posts that rapid deterioration occurs when books are printed on paper made from highly acidic wood pulp (a situation characteristic of most books published from roughly 1850-1990). For book collectors, this problem is particularly acute if their collection contains books published during World War II and the decade or so immediately following.  As Gordon Neavill notes in a recent article:

The War Production Board, which was responsible for allocating paper supplies, was established in January 1942, a few weeks after the United States entered the war. Its purpose was to direct war production and assign priorities to the delivery of scarce materials. Paper use in the publishing industry was limited in fall 1942, when each publishing firm was allocated a paper quota based on its use of paper in 1941. Initially publishers were restricted to 90 percent of the paper they used before the war. This was not a severe hardship, especially compared with Britain, where publishers in 1942 had to get by with 37.5 percent of the paper they used in 1939....  Paper restrictions became increasingly severe as the war continued. There was an additional 10 percent cut in 1943, and a further 15 percent cut early the following year.

These paper stocks continued to be used after the war ended--in fact, almost a decade would pass before the last of these paper stocks would be exhausted by publishers.

To save paper (and money), publishers cut where they could--fewer pages, smaller pages, fewer books altogether.  This, despite the fact that demand for books was soaring at the same time that the resources needed to print books were rapidly diminishing.  (Among these resources were printers and binders.  Since neither occupation was considered "essential," a lot of these folks wound up serving in the military, creating a shortage of skilled labor for book publishers.)

Books published during this period can usually be recognized by their thin, browned and brittle pages (none of which may be obvious from a photograph that focuses on, e.g., a book's binding).  Allen & Unwin's 1942 3rd impression of Tolkien's The Hobbit, for example, was printed on wartime paper stock.  So, too, was the 1944 first collected British edition of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (originally published separately; published in a collected American edition in 1943):

   

Lesser titles published during this period also came in for such treatment, though if such books have been well preserved it may be difficult to spot browning and brittleness without (carefully) examining the actual pages of such books:

  

As usual, dealing with a trusted independent bookseller can save you a lot of time, money and frustration in acquiring such fragile books.  Once such books have been purchased, though, it will be up to you to preserve them for future generations....

Driving the Lane at The Private Library

The world may never again see an athlete dominate basketball for as long and as thoroughly as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. From the time he stepped on the court as Lewis Alcindor at Power Memorial High School in his native New York City, to the years he owned college basketball at UCLA, to the time he retired as the NBA's all-time leader in nine statistical categories ... the 7-foot-2 superstar established himself as ... the kind of player who graces a sport once in a lifetime.

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

For all the hoopla (pun intended) of the upcoming NBA Finals, we are aware of few books about the sport of basketball that have achieved the iconic status that titles penned about other sports have achieved.  Baseball, for example, has everything from Ball Four to The Boys of Summer to Bang the Drum Slowly.  Football has North Dallas Forty and Semi Tough and Friday Night Lights.  Golf has Out of the Bunker and Into the Trees, Dead Solid Perfect and Harvey Pennick's Little Red Book.  Basketball has....

Well, there's an official encyclopedia (last updated ten years ago).

There are several histories of the game, including some that cover aspects of the game that often get overlooked:

  

There are several biographies of "name" players...

   

...as well as some fairly scarce titles about the rules and mechanics of the game itself:

   

But iconic?  Maybe Pete Axthelm's The City Game or Stanley Cohen's The Game They Played.  Or, more recently, Alexander Wolff's Big Game, Small World. 

Then again, perhaps the time is not yet ripe....

Transgressive Anapestics and The Private Library

Even folks who otherwise have no interest in collecting poetry often have a volume or two on their shelves devoted to the anapestic (sometimes amphibrachic) delights known as limericks:

There once was a girl named Irene
who lived on distilled kerosene.
But she started absorbin'
a new hydrocarbon
and since then has never benzene.

Limericks, by definition, are almost always naughty.  Their transgressive nature (upsetting various taboos) is one reason so many of them are attributed to Anonymous:

There once was a mathematician
Who preferred an exotic position.
'Twas the joy of his life
to achieve with his wife
topologically complex coition.

Several scholarly works have been written about the form, the best known probably being the two volumes penned by American folklorist Gershon Legman.  The product of several decades of research, the two volumes contain almost 5000 authenticated examples.

Most limericks follow a strict rhyme scheme (a-a-b-b-a), often have a "twist" at the end, and usually engage in a good bit of word play.  In the following example, both "spring" and "fall" have several different meanings:

There was a young fellow named Hall
who died in the spring in the fall.
'Twould have been a bad thing
had he died in the spring
but he didn't — he died in the fall.

Although much earlier examples have been documented, the form was widely popularized by 19th century author Edward Lear, whose own 200+ limericks were mostly nonsensical, accompanied by witty illustrations:

Poetry purists may shun such works, but book collectors interested in humor, folklore and like topics continue to find much of interest in books devoted to the subject (several such titles have in fact been penned by "serious" poets--see below):

   

 

Guest Editorial: The Write Collection for The Private Library

We are deeply indebted to "loyal reader" Linda Hedrick for the following Guest Editorial....

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I have a theory that book collectors, accumulators, and readers are all closet writers.  At least I admit it in my case, so naturally I own books on how to write.  I must confess that in desperation I try weird things that I haven’t found in a book.  The other day I was at a Starbucks and saw little packages of madeleines, so thinking how greatly they inspired Proust I bought one.  They were tasty but did nothing for my writing.  Perhaps it’s because I lack a French childhood, but I don’t think it’s the fact that I didn’t grow up eating madeleines because Oreos don’t work either.  A. J. Liebling in an essay written decades ago mused that if Proust could write In Search of Lost Time (aka Remembrance of Things Past) after eating a madeleine, just think what he could’ve written after a repast of a dozen Gardiner’s Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sautéed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island duck!  

Since I read a lot of books on writing, I find I have a nice little collection to that end. 

One of my favorites is Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.  The best thing about this book, IMHO, besides the humor is her emphasis on the rewards of writing itself rather than of publication.  Although it’s not strong on the craft of writing, nor is it meant to be, I find it great for motivation.

William Zinsser’s On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction is a valuable reference.   He advocates a strong, clear style without a lot of clutter.  Although the title states it’s about writing nonfiction, I think his advice is valuable for all types of writing.

John Gardner, who was not only a novelist but also a university professor of fiction writing, wrote two books on writing:  The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers and On Becoming a Novelist. They are considered classics, although he was often considered controversial in his criticisms of his well-known contemporaries. (Gore Vidal wrote vehemently against him.)  Both were among the first books on writing I purchased.

My nomination for one of the greatest stories on the planet is Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.  So I was a bit disappointed in Ernest Hemingway on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips.  I don’t know if it was all the blank pages and spaces in the book, or the fact that it consists of little pieces of Hemingway on writing from books, letters, interviews, and speeches, assembled to make a book.  Having said that, Hemingway is always a distinct pleasure to read, even in snippets. 

Famous science fiction writer Ray Bradbury wrote Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You.  An odd title for a book by him, he has admitted using “Zen” in his title as a hook – this book was first published in 1989 when “Zen” had mass appeal, if little understanding.  Basically a collection of essays, I find this to be a really good read. (Aside: read his The Halloween Tree if you haven’t yet.  Awesome children’s book!)

Annie Dillard wrote a book sharing her insights into the writing process, The Writing Life. Although not a guide, I found recognition and reassurance in reading about her perceptions and experiences as a writer.

Seven of Eudora Welty’s essays on fiction have been published in a book called On Writing. Again, not a how-to, these essays are in a literary criticism vein, and offer some significant thoughts to ponder about writing and writers.

E.M. Forster wrote Aspects of the Novel in 1927, which is a collection of lectures he gave at Cambridge University.  They contain some wonderful observations on novels, comprising a survey of the form. It’s a very engaging read.

Some other published authors who’ve written on the writing process include Gertrude Stein.  How to Write I find a strange book. Disjointed, parts poorly written, I think I must read it again to see if I missed something. On Writing by Stephen King is part autobiography, part writing guide.  His advice is more intuitive and he shares specifics of his writing process.  And to my delight he stresses that a writer must read a lot.

The Maeve Binchy Writers’ Club, an eponymous recent publication, is one of my latest purchases.  A collection of letters written to students in a writing course at the National College of Ireland, as well as contributions from editors, publishers, and other authors, this book is evidence of her warmth and folksy, commonsensical approach to her craft.  I particularly liked a comment in the section on editors, when she took offense at advice on changing a character. “…if she knew so much about books, why didn’t she write her own?”  A common thought among writers, I’m sure.

Of course, it is de rigueur to have a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style on your desk.  Even if you usually reference style topics online, like myself, it screams “serious writer” should someone visit your desk.

In the meantime, for my own writing I really need to talk Jeff Bezos into loaning me the Amazon.com software, so I can download it into my brain.  Then when I have a good thought, my brain will spit out: If you like that idea, you may like... or Others who’ve had that idea also....

Humor and The Private Library (Part V)

...As the days went on, the ogre ate all the clocks in the town — mantel clocks, grandfather clocks, travelling clocks, stationary clocks, alarm clocks, eight-day clocks, steeple clocks, and tower clocks — sprinkling them with watches, as if the watches were salt and pepper, until there were no more watches. People overslept, and failed to go to work, or to church, or anyplace else where they had to be on time. Factories closed down, shopkeepers shut up their shops, schools did not open, trains no longer ran, and people stayed at home. The town council held an emergency meeting and its members arrived at all hours, and some did not show up at all....

James Thurber, The Last Clock: A Fable for the Time, Such as It Is, of Man

E. B. White, in Some Remarks on Humor, observed that [h]umor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.  Which may just be another way of saying that most folks know humor when they hear it or read it or see it, so books about the physiology, psychology and other-ology of the subject isn't really what they're looking to add to the shelves of their private libraries.  They want the good stuff.

While all kinds of authors over the centuries have offered nips of the good stuff, it's that rare breed we label humorists who brew the stuff up all day long:

  

Folks who collect books by humorists tend to gravitate, over time, to either a specific humorist for whom they have acquired a particular taste, or to a particular type of humor that may be well represented by more than one author:

  

Many types of humor have attracted a wide range of humorists over the centuries, and the question for someone collecting such humor is how broadly and how far back do you want to collect?  Jewish humor, for example, can be collected over a span of centuries and across a wide range of authors.  So can political humor (much of which is satirical):

  

As we have suggested numerous times with respect to other types of book collecting, a good bibliography or two (and a specialist independent bookseller) will save you a lot of money and frustration in the long run....

  

Humor and The Private Library (Part IV)

...the way I hunt them the old black rascals know the crack of my gun as well as they know a pig's squealing. They grow thin in our parts, it frightens them so, and they do take the noise dreadfully, poor things. That gun of mine is a perfect epidemic among bear: if not watched closely, it will go off as quick on a warm scent as my dog Bowieknife will: and then that dog whew! why the fellow thinks that the world is full of bear, he finds them so easy. It's lucky he don't talk as well as think; for with his natural modesty, if he should suddenly learn how much he is acknowledged to be ahead of all other dogs in the universe, he would be astonished to death in two minutes....

Thomas Bangs Thorpe, The Big Bear of Arkansas

Hyperbole is the most distinctive characteristic of one of the most popular and widely collected types of literary humor, the tall tale or yarn.  Such tales frequently are associated with the larger-than-life individuals that populate folktales and folklore, myths and legends:

  

Many folks seem to think that hyperbole characterizes a particularly "American" form of humor, but in fact tall tales are known the world over:

  

The exploits recounted in tall tales often are so humorous and fabulous that they attract the interest of filmmakers:

   

In fact, for folks who collect books-into-film titles, tall tales-into-film might make an interesting subset:

Now it happened that there was a mining camp in Colorado where more than an average number of the miners were bald. An enterprising hair tonic salesman from Kentucky decided to take advantage of this golden opportunity, so he made the trip north. It was a rainy summer evening. The salesman was headed towards the mining camp with four bottles of hair tonic under his arm. As he was crossing one of the trout streams which lead to the Arkansas River, the salesman slipped and dropped two bottles of hair tonic into the water. The bottles broke, and the hair tonic spilled into the stream.

Not too long after this incident, the fishermen along the Arkansas developed a new method for catching trout. They'd head to the bank of the river carrying a red and white barber pole and some scissors. Then they would set up the barber pole and call out: "Get your free shave and a hair cut here". All the trout whose fur had grown too long or who needed their beards trimmed would hop right out of the water and be picked up by the fishermen. It wasn't until the mills began muddying the waters so much that the fish couldn't see the barber poles that the practice died out.

S. E. Schlosser, Fur-Bearing Trout

Humor and The Private Library (Part III)

...I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter....

Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal:  For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick

Satire has had a long and complex history.  It is neither entirely the "cankered muse" referred to in Alvin Kernan's work on the satire of the English Renaissance, nor is it purely a literary form.  (The word itself comes from the Latin word satura, the sense of which is perhaps closest to that of the French term pot-pourri.)   Folks interested in delving into satire's complicated evolution will find available a number of titles appropriate to the task:

   

Although works similar to satire are known as early as the 2nd millenium BCE, what we today recognize as satire is largely the product of the ancient Graeco-Roman world--the plays of Aristophanes, the works of Lucilius and Perseus, and, most importantly, the works of Horace and Juvenal:

  

It is from the latter authors that the two types of modern satire derive their names.  Horatian satire "playfully criticizes some social vice through gentle, mild, and light-hearted humour. It directs wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating humour toward what it identifies as folly, rather than evil:"

   

Juvenalian satire, on the other hand, "addresses social evil through scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form is often pessimistic, characterized by irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal invective:"

Irrespective of type, satire frequently is misunderstood, and because it is misunderstood it has suffered repeated attempts at censorship, as well as denunciations of various types over the centuries (e.g., "tasteless," "heartless," "insulting," etc.).  All of this, naturally, has very much depended upon whose ox was being gored, so to speak....

Humor and The Private Library (Part II)

...Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats, and all of them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him a little hunch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut -- see him turn one summerset, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a cat.... You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when it come to fair-and-square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see....

Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Our responses to humor are conditioned by a variety of factors.  Thus, while our responses are sometimes intellectual (wit), at other times our responses are more emotional (mirth) or physiological (laughter). A number of books have been written that seek to capture our response to humor, which folks building a private library around this theme often find useful:

  

Because every response to humor is unique, there is no set way to build a private library of literary humor.  Most folks usually just collect whatever appeals to them:

      

One of the oldest and most popular forms of literary humor also is the most pithy. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge characterized the epigram thusly:

What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,

Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Although the modern epigram is modeled after those of the ancient Roman poet Martial, the Western tradition actually is much older, dating back to votive inscriptions at ancient Greek sanctuaries.  The form was especially popular in the 16th and 17th centuries, where it frequently is encountered in the works of authors as diverse as John Donne, Alexander Pope and Voltaire:

   

While the poetic form of the epigram has found favor among more modern authors like William Butler Yeats and Ogden Nash, the prose form may well be more infamous, as one of its most famous practitioners was Oscar Wilde:

It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

Although they did not start out that way, epigrams as we know them today are essentially a sub-set of an equally ancient but more prolix form of humor known as satire....

Humor and The Private Library (Part I)

 

...'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man....  

Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene I  

Probably no type of literature dates as quickly as humor.  It is a tribute to the greatest writer in the English language that humorous scenes which he penned over 400 years ago still resonate with modern readers. Much humorous literature does not.

There are a number of reasons why this is so.  Much humor is topical.  Not being contemporaries of the writer, these topical references frequently are lost on us.  But not always.  A good annotated edition of an older humorous work often can restore some of this missing context, affording modern readers an opportunity to laugh as well:

   

Folks building a private library of literary humor quickly recognize that, because literary humor cannot rely on voice inflections and body language, it must rely on other devices to elicit laughs.  One of the most obvious such devices is appropriate illustrations accompanying the text:

   

But most works of literary humor, like most works of literature in general, are rarely illustrated (especially nowadays), so other devices have to be utilized to elicit laughs. Among these are meiosis (understatement) and its counterpart, hyperbole; inappropriate response; metaphor; reductio ad absurdum; innuendo; and many more.  We will examine representative examples of each of these over the next several days.  

Folks seriously interested in building a private library of such works will find that many titles have been published which contextualize various types of literary humor:

  

These cover not only various devices (hyperbole, for example), but also literary humor specific to certain eras, locales or authors....

Book Collectors, Are You Listening...?

If you go to the left-hand column of this blog and look under Bookish Organizations, you will find links for 141 organizations.  From the Aberystwyth (Wales) Bibliographical Group to the Zamorano Club, each has, theoretically at least, something to offer folks who are interested in the book as a physical artifact:

      

Some of these organizations are quite active and quite democratic.  They welcome book collectors of all sizes, shapes and colors, irrespective of the corner of the globe from which they hail.  Such organizations utilize social networks like FaceBook and Twitter to help recruit and retain new members, and offer a wide variety of publications, services and activities designed with the same purpose in mind.  Almost all are very welcoming to new book collectors:

       

Other organizations also offer much of the above, but for a variety of reasons are much more selective about their membership.  Yet other organizations are moribund, or quickly becoming so.

The Private Library hereby extends an invitation to each and every organization in our list: tell our readers something about yourself.  

Share with us your organization's history, its aims, its plans for the future.  If you welcome new book collectors, tell us what that means in terms of publications, services, activities and the like.  What does membership cost?  Are student memberships available?  Are discounted memberships available for the less-well-off among the book collecting community?  Are you interested only in members from a particular geographic locale, or members who collect only at a certain level, or is anyone welcome?

This is one of the reasons why this blog welcomes Guest Editorials.  Drop us a line ([email protected]) and perhaps we can help your organization "get the word out."  Or at least give it our best effort.... 

"As Issued" at The Private Library

Publishers sometimes throw book collectors a curve--books that normally are issued in dustjackets are issued without them; books that usually have tipped-in illustrations have none; books that normally have a title-page are published without one.  Such books later show up in booksellers catalogs bearing descriptions such as: w/o DJ as issued; w/o tip-ins as issued; w/o title as issued.  This simply is the bookseller's way of letting you know that the copy on offer is not defective--whatever is missing was not there to begin with, even though it usually is.

The French edition of Robert Frank's landmark photographic work The Americans, for example, was issued without a dustjacket (it also was quite a different book textually from the English-language edition, having an almost anti-American sentiment):

To take another example: Sir Edward Burne-Jones' The Flower Book usually is found with the plates bound in, although originally it was published with the plates loose, as in this copy currently on offer from The Book Collector's Library:

Most professional booksellers base such a description on their own experience in handling multiple copies of a title over the years, or on descriptive bibliographies that exist for a particular subject, genre or author.  The matter can make for some rather pricey mistakes if you're collecting First Editions and the like, so unless you are working with an independent bookseller you trust, you had best make sure that you've done your research before laying out a lot of money for a book that may, or may not, have items missing as issued....

Situational Book Collecting and The Private Library

A few days ago "AJ" left a Comment that got us thinking about the varieties of book collectors and book collections that we've encountered over the decades, and where our own book collecting fits along that continuum.  AJ's Comment reads, in part...

I have learned as a long-time "accumulator" to look at condition foremost, but situationally I sometimes make exceptions. For instance, years ago I bought at an estate sale what I was later told is a first-edition first-state Emerald City (Baum)that,while intact, apparently had been used by its owner as a coloring book. Still, I'm glad to have the book and enjoy the thought that it's something that was so close to Baum's actual writing. And, of course, it's a book that in wonderful condition, I most probably couldn't afford. All in all, however, the exceptions are rare...like real-estate and location, it's condition, condition.

I suspect that, in an ideal world, we all would like to have a private library of whatever it is that we collect in the best possible edition and the finest possible condition.  I also suspect that for the great majority of us, that is not the case.  Certainly in our own case, situational book collecting is very much the order of the day.

Because our library is primarily a working library, the ten thousand or so hardbound volumes therein (we quit counting a long time ago) were purchased primarily to address specific research needs.  If the volume was in Fine condition, and affordable, great -- we bought it.  If not, we may still have bought it, especially if the book covered an obscure topic and we were unlikely to easily find another copy. Because our books often are put to hard use, we rarely buy paperbacks (which do not stand up to such use very well), but even here we make exceptions if that is the only way to get the information we need:

 
Don't bother looking for this in hardback....

Of course, the most obvious reply to this is "hey, it's on the Internet--why buy the book at all?"  But readers of this blog know that this is, in fact, quite often not the case.

While we realize that our approach means that much of our library will likely have little resale value, the number of obscure titles therein may eventually find institutional interest at some level, so the monetary value (or lack thereof) doesn't keep us up at night.  If we had the funds, it would be way cool to purchase a hardback (in the finest possible condition) that we could shelve untouched, while we read a paperback:

   

For collecting....                                                                      For reading....

Alas, unless we win a lottery, this scenario is unlikely.  More importantly, the independent booksellers with whom we've established a good working relationship understand this.

In addition to being nice people, with a good knowledge of books and a willingness to help new book collectors figure out just what the heck it is that the new collector wants, and can afford, I suspect that the most successful independent booksellers (such as several that we link to in our Bookish BlogRoll) are first and foremost good listeners.  Whether one collects situationally or not, such booksellers can save you an enormous amount of money and frustration....

P.S.

If you are serious about book collecting, you owe it to yourself to read the numerous Comments generated by yesterday's post....

Booksellers, Are You Listening?

Our experience has been that most folks who frequent blogs rarely pay attention to Comments unless they themselves left one.  This is unfortunate, because a lot of times what is being said in Comments is much more interesting and much more important than what is being said in the blog posts.  A typical example is the comment that "Charlotte" left recently on this blog, which deserves the widest possible audience....

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As a "next generation" book collector, I'd also like to put in a few requests to the older generation, all of which could probably be summed up by the singular request that they quit treating the art of collecting as dead or dying!

Buying books online is only useful in so far as the collector knows what she is looking for, and the novice collector is less likely to know this than the more experienced. We need to see books and collections, and have access to librarians, other collectors and dealers. We need to be able to browse and ask questions. I often feel that dealers are responding to a difficult market by focusing exclusively on their known market, existing and deep-pocketed customers, with an eye on eventual (and imminent) retirement rather than the future of their businesses and the art. It's easier, in other words, to make yourself available primarily to people who know you and what they are looking for, with no worry about the accessibility or visibility of your shop because, really, in another 5-10 years you're just going to retire anyway. Online or "by appointment only" stores do little for a new collector.

Some more forward-thinking shops might want to begin by taking on apprentices. What better way to learn about the trade and art than to work in it? And I'd like to start building relationships with dealers who might still be around in twenty years.

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Booksellers, are you listening...?

Guest Editorial: "All Published" in Juvenile Books-in-Series

James Keeline honors us with today's Guest Editorial, which takes a look at the concept of all published as respects one of his previous Guest Editorials about juvenile books-in-series....

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"All Published" can take on some interesting connotations in certain areas of book collecting.

In my own area of special interest, juvenile series books, there are a number of cases where the author or syndicate or publishers planned additional volumes which were not issued.  

Among juvenile series book collectors, when a title is advertised but not published, it is called a "phantom title."  These are most frequently seen at the end of a series where a promised volume is never published.  These promises can be in the form of an advertising page or, more likely, a brief mention of the next adventure for the characters at the end of the story.

A phantom title can occur in the middle of a series when some circumstance requires a change in title or sometimes the entire venue of a story.  For example, several series had WWI titles which substituted for the planned next title.  Other times the publisher changed their mind on which title would sell best by the time the book was issued.  

In the Tom Swift series, copies of Air Glider (1912) make reference to Tom Swift in Giant Land in the list of titles on the copyright page.  This book was published as Tom Swift in Captivity (1912).  Copies of Captivity have a "next title" announcement at the end of the story for Tom Swift and His Electric Camera instead of Wizard Camera (1912):

 

The Stratemeyer Syndicate clearly felt that series were the way to succeed in juvenile book sales.  On several occasions Edward Stratemeyer told prospective writers that he was only interested in stories that could be the first volume in a series.  When The Trail Boys of the Plains (Dodd, Mead, 1915; Sully [1918]) was published it ended with:  

They had more than a week of adventures on the trail, had accomplished an important errand satisfactorily, and, secretly, were hoping for other adventures during their vacation.

The Nowadays Girls in the Adirondacks (Dodd, Mead 1915) is a little more specific about upcoming titles on its next-to-last page:

And those of you who care to follow the future fortunes, fun and frolic of our friends may do so in the next volume of this series, to be called:  "The Nowadays Girls on Casco Bay; or, The Treasure Box of Orr's Island."

However, these books, issued at high prices, did not find wide sales so additional volumes were not ordered by the publisher.

Another Stratemeyer Syndicate example is The White Ribbon Boys of Chester (Cupples & Leon, 1916), which was intended to begin a series about a group of boys interested in the temperance movement in the years before national prohibition.  The second volume (never published) not only was announced at the end of the first story, but there also was an advertisement that gave a brief description of this phantom title (The White Ribbon Boys at Long Shore) that appeared in Chester with a few other Cupples & Leon books of the period:

 

An example outside the Stratemeyer Syndicate is interesting because of the ambition it represents.  The Mystery of the Missing Eyebrows was the first volume in a planned (but not completed) twelve-volume Newspaper Boys series by "Stephen Rudd" and published by R. H. Gore in 1921.  The proposed titles were listed on the page after the copyright page. The post-text ad pages gave about a paragraph description for each of the next four titles. The Who Was Who in America (v. 6) entry for Robert Hayes Gore identifies him as a newspaper publisher and Stephen Rudd as his pseudonym:

   

The completist tendencies of collectors is especially strong among series book collectors. Hence, many want lists circulate that seek phantom titles.  Particularly troublesome are cases where a publisher announced an entire series which was not published.  One example of this is the Ben Lightbody series, for which two titles were announced: Ben Lightbody, Special Agent; or, Seizing the First Chance to Make Good, and Ben Lightbody's Biggest Puzzle; or, Running the Double Ghost Down to Earth.  These ads appeared in Altemus books in the 1910-13 period but the books were never issued:

Knowing that collectors love mysteries and some enjoy a life-long pursuit of books they may never find, there have been some descriptions by collectors of series which were never planned or advertised by any publisher.  A couple examples of these have appeared in April issues of series book magazines. It is particularly cruel to include such a series in a reference volume about boys' series books....

Guest Editorial: A Soupcon of Books for The Private Library

Today's Guest Editorial comes to us from "loyal reader" Linda Hedrick....

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I long to move to the Pacific Northwest, and if the gods of the real estate market would only smile upon me, I would do it in a heartbeat.  When I tell people of my desire, they “flood” me with warnings of lots of rain (true) and a high suicide rate (not true).  But rain is my friend and there are two things that will assuage any discomfort about lots of rain:  books and soup.

My stacks of to-be-read books are approaching Mt. Everest in size, and I may even have seen a sherpa ducking in and out among them.  If I were compelled to be inside because of the rain, I might actually make a dent in those piles of books.  And for sustenance to aid my reading, hot, tasty soups are a joy to make and an even bigger joy to consume.  To combine both pleasures, I have been thinking of collecting books on soup:

   

Amazon shows 13,904 results for “soup” in the books category.  Take out the author’s pages, novels and non-fiction with “soup” in the title, and the “Chicken Soup for...” volumes (enough for a hearty collection in themselves), and you are left with lots and lots of cookbooks on soup.

Arguably the first cooked dish made by our most ancient ancestors was soup. Throw a couple of hot rocks into some sort of natural bowl filled with water and plants, and there you have it.  According to etymologists, the origin of the word comes from the Latin “suppare” meaning to soak (the same root word also is said to be the base of “sup” and “supper”).  It also is related to “sop”, and some early cookbooks say the concoction is to be poured over bread, which also was a mechanism for eating it before the advent of spoons.   Even the word “restaurant” is related to soup, deriving from the French “restoratif”, as soups, being easily digested, were prescribed for invalids for millenia.

Cookbooks devoted to soup alone are rare in pre-modern times.  Copies of ancient Greek and Roman cookbooks do have soup recipes in them, and they can be surprising to the unsuspecting modern cook, as they contain only ingredients known in those times (e.g., no tomatoes).  Apicius was a Roman known for his recipes (at least a half-dozen of which we today probably would classify as soups).  An interesting book in this regard is Francine Segan’s The Philosopher’s Kitchen:  Recipes from Ancient Greece and Rome for the Modern Cook:

      

Cookbooks with soup recipes appeared in medieval England.  The Forme of Cury was compiled by Richard II’s chefs some time in the late 14th century.  Modern reprints are available by various publishers, but I could not find an original (and if I could, the gods of the lottery would probably have to not merely smile, but buckle over with mirth).  In English, the most extensive collection of soups (and its cousins, broths and potages) was published in 1660 in Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook or, the Art and Mystery of Cookery, of which 20% of the recipes are for soups.  Again, I could only find reprints:

 

Eliza Smith’s The Compleat Housewife, or, Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion was first published in 1727, and contains a section on soups.   In 1742, William Parks, a printer in Williamsburg, Virginia, published an amended edition of this book based on the fifth edition.  This is considered to be the first cookbook published in the United States.  Copies are available in various conditions (none pristine, as cookbooks were handled and used frequently) in prices ranging from a few dollars for a modern paperback to almost $2000 for an 18th century edition:

The first pamphlet in America devoted specifically to cooking soups was Emma Ewing's Soups and Soup Making (1882), which I’ve only been able to find as a modern reprint.

As to modern soup cookbooks, there are several that would serve well in a collection.  The Culinary Institute of America published their Book of Soups in 2001, followed by The New Book of Soups in 2009. The Best Recipe: Soups & Stews, published by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated in 2001, not only has lots of recipes, but also the tips and technical information they are well-known for, including equipment recommendations:

   

If anyone has additional suggestions, or if you would like to share your favorite soup cookbook, please leave me a comment!

Speaking of soup, I’m getting hungry and there are some greens leftover from my CSA box. I think I’ll throw them in some water, and crack open a book.  Now if only I can find some suitable rocks....

Mining The Private Library

Until science and technology point us in a different direction, it remains a truism that modern industrial societies would collapse without sustained extraction of various resources.  Whether its oil, coal, uranium, copper or some other resource, humankind has been extracting these from the ground and elsewhere for millenia. 

Although given today's environmental awareness we are not likely to celebrate our efforts in this regard without feeling a bit guilty, this was not always the case.  Many cultures have celebrated such efforts in the past, most notably on coins, tokens and medals:

    

While the most obvious collectors for many of the books devoted to mining are professionals who are (or have been) actively involved with various extractive processes...

   

...there is at least one type of mining that has long attracted a much broader range of book collectors -- mining for precious metals:

  

Among the many folks who collect such books are modern-day prospectors, survivalists, folks interested in local history, folks interested in the Industrial Revolution, and so on:

   

Because countries like Australia, and states like Georgia, Colorado, California, Nevada, Montana and Alaska, were foci for various types of mining, folks interested in the history of these areas also are likely to pursue a number of books about mining:

   

Many folks who collect these types of books also collect other items associated with these processes.  Two of the most popular are stock certificates for various types of mining companies and maps of various gold mining regions:

Several bibliographies exist for these types of books...

  

...but a specialist independent bookseller will prove equally valuable.

"All Published" at The Private Library

Many book collectors are completists--i.e., if an author is known to have published fifty titles, then they won't rest until they've collected all fifty titles (however rare some of those titles may be).  If a publisher announces a ten-volume series about raising orchids, the completist is going to want all ten volumes.

The economics of publishing aren't always favorable to completists--a publisher may plan to publish a dozen titles about a particular topic, for example, but in reality only the first three or four of those planned volumes ever actually get published.  This can be frustrating for completists, until they encounter a dealer catalog or descriptive bibliography which notes that those three or four volumes were all published.  Thus, although the completist will never be able to own the dozen titles planned, they can at least own all the titles that actually made it into the marketplace.

Publishers cut short their publishing plans for a wide variety of reasons.  If the first one or two volumes of a series did not sell well (or garner a sufficient number of pre-publication subscribers), it usually made little sense to continue with the endeavor, especially if the planned volumes were expensive to produce.  The volume below (originally published in three parts 1887-1888), was the first of a planned three-volume 1889 Author's Edition of The Art Album of New Zealand Flora:

Available by subscription in a binding of full calf, morocco or gilt-decorated cloth (as above), the chromolithographed plates were expensive to produce and the project bankrupted the publishers before the remaining two volumes could be published.

The four volumes below were the first volumes in what was to have been a comprehensive treatise on the pathology of tumors:

Because of the extremely hostile professional reception to some of the treatise's tenets, the author (Rudolf Virchow, considered the father of modern pathology) chose to discontinue publication of the remaining volumes of the treatise.

Since both of the above are landmark works about their respective topics, they are quite expensive whenever occasional copies surface in the marketplace.  That, however, is decidedly not the case with many of the titles that carry the all published "stigma" -- a diligent search of independent bookstores frequently uncovers some very undervalued gems....

Uniform Editions and The Private Library

Uniform editions, as the TomFolio Glossary helpfully observes, are multi-volume set[s], usually by a popular author, all the volumes being [reprints] that are printed in the same size and bound in the same manner as each other, and often lacking any numbering sequence.

A type of collected edition (see ABC for Book Collectors), the image below (via Adrian Harrington Rare Books) illustrates the general concept:

For book collectors without deep pockets, uniform editions offer an attractive way to collect the (often complete) works of a favorite author without having to (1) mortgage the house and the kids' futures and (2) without having to go to the often considerable expense of having such works uniformly bound by a competent professional bookbinder.  (This assumes you're OK with reprints.  If you're collecting First Editions, it's unlikely you would want to destroy the original bindings and dustjackets for the sake of uniformity, however attractive.)

A wide range of authors have had their works published in uniform editions, including such perennial favorites as Mark Twain...

...Charles Darwin...

...Lord Byron...

 

...and many, many others.

Anyone contemplating collecting extensively in this area may find a copy of Nash (below) particularly useful:

While uniform editions were produced as early as the 18th century (primarily poetry), it wasn't until the 19th century that such editions began to find a ready market.  If you scour enough yard sales, garage sales and the like, you'll often encounter volumes from these editions, though finding a complete edition is rare.  An independent bookseller who specializes in uniform editions will, in the long run, save you money (and a good bit of frustration) in pursuing such editions....

Survivability, Dispersion and The Private Library

In one of our earliest posts to this blog we suggested that

as institutional libraries around the world fall prey to economic woes and neglect benign or otherwise, private libraries may well be the last best hope for survival of ideas of all types.  The more private libraries, the greater (hopefully) the diversity of ideas that survive.  And the harder it is to wipe 'em all out.

As an (oft times poor) student of history, we had in mind the numerous attempts that have been made over the centuries to wipe out "unapproved" ideas--either by censoring what gets published or, failing that, by simply destroying anything that slips through.  Numerous books outlining humankind's penchant for this sort of behavior have been published over the years:

  

Despite the fact that battles against censorship have engaged a long and distinguished cast of combatants, humankind seems to have to continually re-learn the lessons of centuries past:

   

In a sobering bit of irony, folks seeking to make "the world's knowledge" available electronically may unwittingly be laying the foundation for the most virulent censorship of all.  

The printed book has long been the best insurance humankind has yet devised for the survival and widespread dispersion of ideas of all types.  Electronic books offer far fewer assurances in this regard--one has only to consider the threats to survivability and dispersion posed by draconian digital rights management, widespread failure to migrate data stored on older electronic media to newer electronic media, or a terrorist's well-placed EPT (electromagnetic pulse transmission). It's enough to make one redouble one's efforts to collect printed books as expeditiously as finances permit....