Last weekend, on a visit to Portland, ME, I ran into one of those little books that just grabs ahold of you in the shop and won't let go. I don't know if there's a name for this sort of book - you know the type, the one you know will be yours as soon as you pick it up, even if you can't always explain why ...
This one is Abrégé de l'Histoire Ancienne, en Particulier de l'Histoire Grecque, suivi d'un abrégé de la fable, a l'usage des Elèves de l'Ecole Militaire (A Paris: chez le veuve Nyon, Libraire, rue de Jardinet, An 10, ou MDCCCII [1802]). It's one of a series of small texts produced for the use of the students of the ?cole Militaire in Paris beginning in the 1770s. It's in French. I don't even read French.
But it's a fascinating book. It's bound in pasteboards covered in what appears to be waste parchment (later stained or painted to produce the colored pattern). The old parchment, however, is almost entirely taken up with manuscript writing - which, from the way it overlaps the edges of the boards, was clearly there prior to the parchment's being attached to the cover boards. I can't make out much of the writing, which appears to be in French (if anybody wants to have a go, let me know and I'll get you some hi-res images), but I like it.
That's interesting in and of itself, and there's still more. Several previous owners have made this book their own. Benjamin Duprat signed his named on the front pastedown, adding the date "14 fevrier 1812." Duprat also signed the rear pastedown, and glued the letters of his last name there, ransom-note style. I still have some tracking down to do on Duprat, but it's possible that he's the same Benjamin Duprat who went on to become a well-known publisher and bookseller in Paris in the mid-19th century. If anyone has any information on that Duprat, I'd be delighted to receive it.
Other owner's marks include an early inked list on the front pastedown of the fourteen rulers of Persia from Cyrus the Great (550-529 BC) to Alexander the Great (330-323 BC), and a later inscription on the recto of the front flyleaf: "Lucy D. Waterman / New York, July 1896."
Sometimes it's not the content that matters. It's the story. And this little book has a great story to tell. What's your book with the great story? Or, what's the book that you picked up off the shelf and knew immediately would be yours?
This one is Abrégé de l'Histoire Ancienne, en Particulier de l'Histoire Grecque, suivi d'un abrégé de la fable, a l'usage des Elèves de l'Ecole Militaire (A Paris: chez le veuve Nyon, Libraire, rue de Jardinet, An 10, ou MDCCCII [1802]). It's one of a series of small texts produced for the use of the students of the ?cole Militaire in Paris beginning in the 1770s. It's in French. I don't even read French.
But it's a fascinating book. It's bound in pasteboards covered in what appears to be waste parchment (later stained or painted to produce the colored pattern). The old parchment, however, is almost entirely taken up with manuscript writing - which, from the way it overlaps the edges of the boards, was clearly there prior to the parchment's being attached to the cover boards. I can't make out much of the writing, which appears to be in French (if anybody wants to have a go, let me know and I'll get you some hi-res images), but I like it.
That's interesting in and of itself, and there's still more. Several previous owners have made this book their own. Benjamin Duprat signed his named on the front pastedown, adding the date "14 fevrier 1812." Duprat also signed the rear pastedown, and glued the letters of his last name there, ransom-note style. I still have some tracking down to do on Duprat, but it's possible that he's the same Benjamin Duprat who went on to become a well-known publisher and bookseller in Paris in the mid-19th century. If anyone has any information on that Duprat, I'd be delighted to receive it.
Other owner's marks include an early inked list on the front pastedown of the fourteen rulers of Persia from Cyrus the Great (550-529 BC) to Alexander the Great (330-323 BC), and a later inscription on the recto of the front flyleaf: "Lucy D. Waterman / New York, July 1896."
Sometimes it's not the content that matters. It's the story. And this little book has a great story to tell. What's your book with the great story? Or, what's the book that you picked up off the shelf and knew immediately would be yours?
Earth Day, 2009.
Nell Greenfieldboyce's feature Judging a Book (Bag) By Its Cover on NPR's All Things Considered gives us a glimpse into the world of Caitlin Phillips.
For five years now Phillips has been transforming discarded books into functional purses.
Why purses?
"The book kind of pretty much decided what form it was going to be," she says. "The spine becomes the bottom of the purse, because I keep the cover completely intact." She adds handles and a vintage button to match."
Highlights:
Book most often requested - Pride and Prejudice
Books out of bounds-
Phillips "won't cut up the Quran, although she will sometimes cut up a Bible, especially if it's a custom order from someone who wants to commemorate a well-loved copy that has fallen apart after years of use" and "For a long time, she wouldn't cut up Fahrenheit 451, "because the irony was just overwhelming, to cut up a book about destroying books."
Phillips' natural inclination leads her more toward the preservation than the altering of books. "Growing up, Phillips read constantly and was taught to treat books as almost sacred. She would never write in the margins or dog-ear the pages" then "a job at a used bookstore taught her that every year, huge numbers of out-of-date or damaged books are just tossed in dumpsters." Now 500-750 books a year are reclaimed by Phillips.
The NPR piece also includes a video of Philips at work and a 3 minute podcast.
More at Rebound Designs
Something happened to Maurice Girodias when he moved Olympia Press to New York during the late 1960s.
A bold and brave publisher in Paris but with a self-destructive streak, he would routinely scamper amongst cow-pies and deliberately splat a few; he was cavalier with business and casual regarding ethics. When he arrived in New York, he upped the ante by playing hopscotch in a mine field.
In September of 1969, Simon and Schuster published The Seven Minutes by Irving Wallace. This was Wallace's novel concerning obscenity and censorship, its plot centering upon a bookseller accused of selling copies of a fictitious obscene book titled, The Seven Minutes by J.J. Jadway. As part of his research, Wallace had interviewed Girodias, at the time the world's most notorious publisher with Barney Rosset of Grove Press a close second.
Girodias was tipped to the upcoming release of Wallace's book and its content. He was not happy about the way Wallace had handled the Girodias-based character of Christian Leroux, a sleazy Paris publisher who had been the "original" publisher of Wallace's fictitious The Seven Minutes by J.J. Jadway. So unhappy was he that Girodias had a book quickly written purporting to be The "Original" Seven Minutes by J.J. Jadway that the Wallace book was based upon.
Additionally, in a grand, single-finger salute to Wallace, Girodias wrote an inflammatory Preface, which told the "real" story behind The Seven Minutes, of how he got a hold of the original manuscript, and how rotten he thought Wallace's novel was. He added a blurb to the front cover of the book, too, just to make sure Wallace got the message:
"The Last and the Greatest Underground Erotic Masterpiece...On which Irving Wallace Based His Bestselling Novel."
Suffice it to say, Wallace and Simon and Schuster got the message and they were not amused. They took legal action against Girodias, and the court ruled that Girodias had deliberately produced a book guaranteed to confuse the public and do harm to the publisher and the reputation of the author.
Girodias was ordered to destroy all 150,000 copies of the book's print run. In practical terms this was done by tearing off the front covers to provide proof and pulping the now defaced books.
Thus this book, with its great backstory, has become one of the most rare and desirable books in all of erotic literature.
And so I recently decided to conduct a census to determine just how many copies of this exceedingly scarce book were still extant.
Amy Wallace and her brother David Wallachinsky report that there is one copy, perhaps two, boxed up and in storage along with other books and items from their father's estate. Irving Wallace's personal copy(s): Monster association!
A private collector has one intact copy. I'd heard about this copy but did not know the owner. In a bizarre coincidence, he recently found me in regard to another matter. We established a correspondence and soon, in relation to O7M, he wrote: "I got it mail order. When I was collecting Olympia Press/Ophelia Press I had set up a notification of all new listings, for those publishers, on Abebooks.com. When the listing for The Original Seven Minutes by JJ Jadway came up I bought it. It was years ago but I didn't have to pay much for it $15 or $20. Sorry but I can't remember the bookseller involved."
An amazing bargain; the bookseller clearly didn't know what he had and how rare it was.
The actual author of Girodias' The Original Seven Minutes by J.J. Jadway, Michael Bernet, reports that he has three intact copies, and one with the cover removed.
So, a total of six copies accounted for. There may two or three other intact copies in the hands of former employees of Giroldias. So, we have a strong estimate of nine intact copies extant.
But, at the end of his note to me, Michael Bernet declared that "I had them before they were condemned, unlike Girodias's partner who stole them from storage."
Ah, the mysterious and mythical missing box. This apocryphal tale has been floating around for decades with no solid evidence of the magic box of fifty's actual existence.
Until now.
Continuing the census, I asked a fellow I've been acquainted with for twenty five years, an erotica collector of some repute and casual scholar who once interviewed Girodias, was a part-time now an occasional dealer who has not and will never list through third-party aggregators, about how many extant copies of O7M he was aware of. To which he replied:
"Girodias did not remember how many boxes were shipped before the Court Order, but Girodias did give a full box of 50 copies to his partner [Ah! Stolen or gifted? Another choice tidbit about this book]. When he died access to them passed to a person very close to me. I can attest that the box of 50 mint copies was gifted by Girodias. My first mint copy came from this box."
To which I replied, "Your first mint copy?"
His response:
"The late bookseller Seymour Hacker secretly purchased dozens of mint copies of the first edition of LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER from the lover of the deceased publisher. (Told to me by Hacker). For years he quietly put up a copy for auction every six months or so. This way he kept the price of the book in the thousands of dollars. It is enough for any one to know that I have at least one copy of 'Original Seven Minutes' in both mint and 'front cover removed' condition. It makes no economic sense to divulge how many total copies I have."
The ethical sense appears to be beyond him. This jus' ain't right.
Thus, The Original Seven Minutes is not a scarce book. With at least fifty mint copies extant, it is not even a rare book. With that many mint condition copies, a premium can't be placed on condition; almost every copy is brand new. Any copies in less than mint condition are the true rarities and, theoretically, should turn condition issues on their head.
The paucity of surviving copies in the marketplace of the first edition of O7M and their price is the result of the deliberate creation of an artificial shortage.
Making the Market
"Common sense tells us that the only way to increase the value of diamonds is to make them scarce, that is to reduce production" (Ernest Oppenheimer, diamond miner and marketer whose business would be swallowed by the De Beers cartel).
Until recently, De Beers completely controlled the international market for industrial- and jewelry-grade diamonds. Far from what we've been led to believe, diamonds are not rare. With the exception of large, multiple carat stones of exceptional clarity, color (meaning no color at all), and brilliance, diamonds are common. It was De Beers' paramount marketing strategy to control the price of diamonds by withholding their supply from the markerplace.
It is one thing for a rare book dealer to buy up as many copies of a genuinely rare book as they can acquire to set the market price. I have done this myself when, finding that there were only three copies of a certain book being offered worldwide on the Internet, I bought them all. I "made the market" for a book that was quite rare and, for a number of reasons, had been previously unknown to collectors of this particular genre of literature and possessed a degree of importance. Years later and long after my dealer involvement in that genre of collecting, that book remains quite rare with only a copy or two surfacing every now and then.
It is quite another thing to deliberately sell copies of a reputedly scarce book at an exorbitant price when you know that the book is actually common because you have access to four dozen or so from a private, clandestine stash and want to prevent your stratospheric price from nose-diving into Earth at Mach II, which would be a virtual certainty if the secret got out. The operative plan seems to be to sell the last of the remaining copies on the day of death. Only afterward, while the dealer's carcass rots, when collectors begin to talk to each other - as like-minded collectors always do - will they discover that they've been had, big-time, that, far from being the coolest collector on the planet with a mint copy of a legendary rarity, they're just another collector with a book that everyone has; that the mint condition book they were told was scarce beyond belief in any condition and paid well into four figures for is actually worth, at best, $50-$100.
At that point, the only recourse left to the collector will be to visit the cemetery and autograph the dealer's grave in yellow.
The reprint, OPS/3 The controversial first edition, OPS/1
Girodias lost a fortune when he was ordered to destroy all copies. But he made up for some his losses by issuing another edition of The Original Seven Minutes under the title Seven Erotic Minutes, without the offending Preface, without the J.J. Jadway byline, and without the wrapper blurb associating the book with Wallace's. With the news of the box of fifty copies of The Original Seven Minutes, that reprint may now be rarer than the original edition.
It may come to pass that more than 59 collectors will want to add the book to their collection. At that point, another generation down the line, the book may become scarce in the marketplace again. But it will be true scarcity, not bogus, as this example of professional misbehavior demonstrates.
_____
My thanks to Stuart Fanning for providing images of the two earliest editions of Girodias' Seven Minutes.
The facts concerning the case of Wallace & Simon and Schuster v Girodias/Olympia Press are drawn from the Introduction to Patrick J. Kearney's A Bibliography of the Publications of the New York Olympia Press (Privately Printed, Santa Rosa, 1988).
A bold and brave publisher in Paris but with a self-destructive streak, he would routinely scamper amongst cow-pies and deliberately splat a few; he was cavalier with business and casual regarding ethics. When he arrived in New York, he upped the ante by playing hopscotch in a mine field.
In September of 1969, Simon and Schuster published The Seven Minutes by Irving Wallace. This was Wallace's novel concerning obscenity and censorship, its plot centering upon a bookseller accused of selling copies of a fictitious obscene book titled, The Seven Minutes by J.J. Jadway. As part of his research, Wallace had interviewed Girodias, at the time the world's most notorious publisher with Barney Rosset of Grove Press a close second.
Girodias was tipped to the upcoming release of Wallace's book and its content. He was not happy about the way Wallace had handled the Girodias-based character of Christian Leroux, a sleazy Paris publisher who had been the "original" publisher of Wallace's fictitious The Seven Minutes by J.J. Jadway. So unhappy was he that Girodias had a book quickly written purporting to be The "Original" Seven Minutes by J.J. Jadway that the Wallace book was based upon.
Additionally, in a grand, single-finger salute to Wallace, Girodias wrote an inflammatory Preface, which told the "real" story behind The Seven Minutes, of how he got a hold of the original manuscript, and how rotten he thought Wallace's novel was. He added a blurb to the front cover of the book, too, just to make sure Wallace got the message:
"The Last and the Greatest Underground Erotic Masterpiece...On which Irving Wallace Based His Bestselling Novel."
Suffice it to say, Wallace and Simon and Schuster got the message and they were not amused. They took legal action against Girodias, and the court ruled that Girodias had deliberately produced a book guaranteed to confuse the public and do harm to the publisher and the reputation of the author.
Girodias was ordered to destroy all 150,000 copies of the book's print run. In practical terms this was done by tearing off the front covers to provide proof and pulping the now defaced books.
Thus this book, with its great backstory, has become one of the most rare and desirable books in all of erotic literature.
And so I recently decided to conduct a census to determine just how many copies of this exceedingly scarce book were still extant.
Amy Wallace and her brother David Wallachinsky report that there is one copy, perhaps two, boxed up and in storage along with other books and items from their father's estate. Irving Wallace's personal copy(s): Monster association!
A private collector has one intact copy. I'd heard about this copy but did not know the owner. In a bizarre coincidence, he recently found me in regard to another matter. We established a correspondence and soon, in relation to O7M, he wrote: "I got it mail order. When I was collecting Olympia Press/Ophelia Press I had set up a notification of all new listings, for those publishers, on Abebooks.com. When the listing for The Original Seven Minutes by JJ Jadway came up I bought it. It was years ago but I didn't have to pay much for it $15 or $20. Sorry but I can't remember the bookseller involved."
An amazing bargain; the bookseller clearly didn't know what he had and how rare it was.
The actual author of Girodias' The Original Seven Minutes by J.J. Jadway, Michael Bernet, reports that he has three intact copies, and one with the cover removed.
So, a total of six copies accounted for. There may two or three other intact copies in the hands of former employees of Giroldias. So, we have a strong estimate of nine intact copies extant.
But, at the end of his note to me, Michael Bernet declared that "I had them before they were condemned, unlike Girodias's partner who stole them from storage."
Ah, the mysterious and mythical missing box. This apocryphal tale has been floating around for decades with no solid evidence of the magic box of fifty's actual existence.
Until now.
Continuing the census, I asked a fellow I've been acquainted with for twenty five years, an erotica collector of some repute and casual scholar who once interviewed Girodias, was a part-time now an occasional dealer who has not and will never list through third-party aggregators, about how many extant copies of O7M he was aware of. To which he replied:
"Girodias did not remember how many boxes were shipped before the Court Order, but Girodias did give a full box of 50 copies to his partner [Ah! Stolen or gifted? Another choice tidbit about this book]. When he died access to them passed to a person very close to me. I can attest that the box of 50 mint copies was gifted by Girodias. My first mint copy came from this box."
To which I replied, "Your first mint copy?"
His response:
"The late bookseller Seymour Hacker secretly purchased dozens of mint copies of the first edition of LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER from the lover of the deceased publisher. (Told to me by Hacker). For years he quietly put up a copy for auction every six months or so. This way he kept the price of the book in the thousands of dollars. It is enough for any one to know that I have at least one copy of 'Original Seven Minutes' in both mint and 'front cover removed' condition. It makes no economic sense to divulge how many total copies I have."
The ethical sense appears to be beyond him. This jus' ain't right.
Thus, The Original Seven Minutes is not a scarce book. With at least fifty mint copies extant, it is not even a rare book. With that many mint condition copies, a premium can't be placed on condition; almost every copy is brand new. Any copies in less than mint condition are the true rarities and, theoretically, should turn condition issues on their head.
The paucity of surviving copies in the marketplace of the first edition of O7M and their price is the result of the deliberate creation of an artificial shortage.
Making the Market
"Common sense tells us that the only way to increase the value of diamonds is to make them scarce, that is to reduce production" (Ernest Oppenheimer, diamond miner and marketer whose business would be swallowed by the De Beers cartel).
Until recently, De Beers completely controlled the international market for industrial- and jewelry-grade diamonds. Far from what we've been led to believe, diamonds are not rare. With the exception of large, multiple carat stones of exceptional clarity, color (meaning no color at all), and brilliance, diamonds are common. It was De Beers' paramount marketing strategy to control the price of diamonds by withholding their supply from the markerplace.
It is one thing for a rare book dealer to buy up as many copies of a genuinely rare book as they can acquire to set the market price. I have done this myself when, finding that there were only three copies of a certain book being offered worldwide on the Internet, I bought them all. I "made the market" for a book that was quite rare and, for a number of reasons, had been previously unknown to collectors of this particular genre of literature and possessed a degree of importance. Years later and long after my dealer involvement in that genre of collecting, that book remains quite rare with only a copy or two surfacing every now and then.
It is quite another thing to deliberately sell copies of a reputedly scarce book at an exorbitant price when you know that the book is actually common because you have access to four dozen or so from a private, clandestine stash and want to prevent your stratospheric price from nose-diving into Earth at Mach II, which would be a virtual certainty if the secret got out. The operative plan seems to be to sell the last of the remaining copies on the day of death. Only afterward, while the dealer's carcass rots, when collectors begin to talk to each other - as like-minded collectors always do - will they discover that they've been had, big-time, that, far from being the coolest collector on the planet with a mint copy of a legendary rarity, they're just another collector with a book that everyone has; that the mint condition book they were told was scarce beyond belief in any condition and paid well into four figures for is actually worth, at best, $50-$100.
At that point, the only recourse left to the collector will be to visit the cemetery and autograph the dealer's grave in yellow.
The reprint, OPS/3 The controversial first edition, OPS/1
Girodias lost a fortune when he was ordered to destroy all copies. But he made up for some his losses by issuing another edition of The Original Seven Minutes under the title Seven Erotic Minutes, without the offending Preface, without the J.J. Jadway byline, and without the wrapper blurb associating the book with Wallace's. With the news of the box of fifty copies of The Original Seven Minutes, that reprint may now be rarer than the original edition.
It may come to pass that more than 59 collectors will want to add the book to their collection. At that point, another generation down the line, the book may become scarce in the marketplace again. But it will be true scarcity, not bogus, as this example of professional misbehavior demonstrates.
_____
My thanks to Stuart Fanning for providing images of the two earliest editions of Girodias' Seven Minutes.
The facts concerning the case of Wallace & Simon and Schuster v Girodias/Olympia Press are drawn from the Introduction to Patrick J. Kearney's A Bibliography of the Publications of the New York Olympia Press (Privately Printed, Santa Rosa, 1988).
By pure coincidence, it has been my good fortune to participate in the re-dedication of two libraries recently, the Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M in March--which I wrote about in this space a couple of weeks ago, and which will be the subject of my next Fine Books & Collections column--and the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale, Ill. just last week. Especially heartening in both instances is the fact that each institution has made clear an unequivocal belief that books as we know them still matter a great deal, and that the library remains the center and soul of their universities.
At SIU, the commitment involved the appropriation of $56 million five years ago to take a building that had been built in the 1950s and make it suitable for use in the twenty-first century, quite a courageous stand for a publicly supported institution to make at a time when so many others feel that computers are the only way to go. The 235,000-square-foot structure is the central repository for the university's three million volumes--SIU is an Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member--and maintains an extensive battery of terminals and laptop connections to satisfy all electronic needs. Fully accessible to the 25,000 enrolled students, the library also serves the general public, giving the taxpayers a mighty bang for their buck.
An attractive building located at the virtual crossroads of the campus, the Morris Library has been newly fitted with common rooms that make it particularly inviting as a gathering place; there is a coffee and food gallery, of course, but also eleven nicely appointed group study areas that are ideal for reading and contemplation. During a walking tour provided by Dean of Libraries David Carlson, I was especially taken by what he called the "time out" room--a soundproofed cubicle where students can take a break from tedious routines without annoying others.
Carbondale is in the extreme southern section of the state, just 96 miles from St. Louis, 330 miles from Chicago. To be expected, special collections are strong in the history of the Middle Mississippi Valley, but there are outstanding holdings too in American philosophy, twentieth-century world literature, British and American expatriate writers of the 1920s, the Irish Literary Renaissance, and freedom of the press and censorship issues. Rare Books Librarian Melissa Hubbard provided a nice introduction to some of her favorite items, including a Kelmscott Chaucer, several of the nine first-edition copies the library has of James Joyce's "Ulysses," and a few incunables that any curator would be pleased to have in the vault.
In anticipation of my visit to SIU, Gordon Pruett, editor of Cornerstone, a quarterly publication of the Morris Library, did a lengthy Q&A with me that was published in the current edition of the magazine on pages 4-5 and 11; click here for a PDF.
All in all, it was a very busy trip, but there was still time for a whirlwind visit to the local second-hand/antiquarian book store, a terrific place called The Bookworm, conveniently located at the Eastgate Shopping Center on East Walnut Street, owned and operated by Carl and Kelly Rexroad. I found three books from their stock of 50,000 volumes that added to the weight of my suitcase, and thank them for the terrific job they did to make for such a successful signing following my public talk.
At SIU, the commitment involved the appropriation of $56 million five years ago to take a building that had been built in the 1950s and make it suitable for use in the twenty-first century, quite a courageous stand for a publicly supported institution to make at a time when so many others feel that computers are the only way to go. The 235,000-square-foot structure is the central repository for the university's three million volumes--SIU is an Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member--and maintains an extensive battery of terminals and laptop connections to satisfy all electronic needs. Fully accessible to the 25,000 enrolled students, the library also serves the general public, giving the taxpayers a mighty bang for their buck.
An attractive building located at the virtual crossroads of the campus, the Morris Library has been newly fitted with common rooms that make it particularly inviting as a gathering place; there is a coffee and food gallery, of course, but also eleven nicely appointed group study areas that are ideal for reading and contemplation. During a walking tour provided by Dean of Libraries David Carlson, I was especially taken by what he called the "time out" room--a soundproofed cubicle where students can take a break from tedious routines without annoying others.
Carbondale is in the extreme southern section of the state, just 96 miles from St. Louis, 330 miles from Chicago. To be expected, special collections are strong in the history of the Middle Mississippi Valley, but there are outstanding holdings too in American philosophy, twentieth-century world literature, British and American expatriate writers of the 1920s, the Irish Literary Renaissance, and freedom of the press and censorship issues. Rare Books Librarian Melissa Hubbard provided a nice introduction to some of her favorite items, including a Kelmscott Chaucer, several of the nine first-edition copies the library has of James Joyce's "Ulysses," and a few incunables that any curator would be pleased to have in the vault.
In anticipation of my visit to SIU, Gordon Pruett, editor of Cornerstone, a quarterly publication of the Morris Library, did a lengthy Q&A with me that was published in the current edition of the magazine on pages 4-5 and 11; click here for a PDF.
All in all, it was a very busy trip, but there was still time for a whirlwind visit to the local second-hand/antiquarian book store, a terrific place called The Bookworm, conveniently located at the Eastgate Shopping Center on East Walnut Street, owned and operated by Carl and Kelly Rexroad. I found three books from their stock of 50,000 volumes that added to the weight of my suitcase, and thank them for the terrific job they did to make for such a successful signing following my public talk.
click to enlargeA librarian digging through the archives at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford has found the earliest known example of a publisher's dust jacket. The dust jacket, which had been separated from the book it was created for, was found bound with other booktrade ephemera.
It belonged to:
Friendship's Offering for 1830. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1829
Mark Godburn has more on this historic discovery at his website, 19th Century Dust Jackets.
The previous record holder, discovered by John Carter in 1934, was a jacket issued in 1832 on the English annual, The Keepsake for 1833.
Image courtesy of Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
4:26AM : Troubled dreams. No sleep. Toss, turn. Aches, pains. What is happening 2 me?
5:03AM : I feel like I'm sleeping in a carapace. I'd kill for a Tempurpedic mattress.
6:01AM : I awake from troubled dreams into troubled life. Oy, again?
7:12AM : Is it me or is my entire family slathered in insect-repellant? And when did Black Flag get into the scented candle business?
7:34AM : I hear my parents talking about me as if I'm not here. What's a "roach motel?"
7:46AM : WOTFS!*
8:07AM : "U can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," Pop says, intent unclear. Whatever, I'm starving and a nice, fat Diptera Psyhcodidae sounds pretty good 2 me; I've always dug 2-winged head-cases and now I'm simply ravenous for them. But 4 breakfast?
8:26AM : I'm so lonely I could scream. But I can't. I used 2 be able 2 say, "I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit and on that slitted sheet I sit" 3 times fast w/o mistakes but now I can't even express a phoneme much less a syllable.
9:03 : Fight w/Mom. The network of pheromone trails I laid down on walls, floor, ceiling and her side of the bed has upset her. Was it necessary 2 scour all with bleach? How does she expect anyone to find me?
9:05AM : I've left home. It was that or becoming slime on the bottom of Mom's shoe. Y does she hate me so much?
11:14AM : I crawl these means streets in search of social intercourse. I've given up on the other. How would you feel if your partner tried 2 kill you with a sharp axial appendage during afterplay?
11:15AM : Where do I find these nut jobs?
11:19AM : Under rocks.
11: 20AM : Note to self: avoid rocks, sleep under stars. Scarlet Johansson would be nice.
12:04PM : Oh joy! Oh rapture! I have found a colony of like-bodied folks just like me. But I sense something sinister afoot or, more accurately, a-sticky pad
12:59PM : I'm being followed. I can't see anybody but I know, I can feel them.
1:23PM : They're out there, I know it.
1:47PM : They're hanging on my every thought. Constantly. Sucking the goo from my brain and swallowing it, one tiny bolus after another after another. Why, oh why am I being tormented so?
2:13PM : Whoops, my mistake: I'm sending out signals through the rabbit ears on my head. Mea culpa! I loathe myself but only halfway. Sure, it's not enough but half a loathe is better than none.
2:28PM : I'm trying, I'm trying!
2:43PM : Success! I now completely abhor the very thought of me.
Why? President Obama has 100,000,000 hits on Google; me, none. I am such an underachiever I don't even rate the underachiever Top Ten.
3:41PM : Must stop thinking. Thinking leads 2 thoughts and we know what thoughts lead 2: signal broadcasts!
4:19PM : Still being followed. My followers have grown into an army but who the hell are these strangers and why are they bugging me?
4:21PM : Alright, already, I'm sorry: Why am I bugging them?
4:52PM : Multi-lensed eyes: I can read so fast, now! I run across the lines of text and just absorb them. I read War n' Peace in 4 minutes flat. Fell asleep between the lines and almost missed the short, French guy's retreat. (Comprehension has suffered).
4:57PM : ...Attention span, 2. Often, I begin 2 read and the next thing I know I'm wandering all over the page, aimlessly. My textual orientation is all mixed up.
5:11PM : Yikes! First edition of Der Verwandlung (1915) selling for $14,000; Der Prozess (1925) for $1800. I earned bupkis. Where were these damned book collectors when I needed them?
5:12PM : Identity crisis! I have become a bookworm.
6:03PM : I engage in marginal worming, not affecting text. But the word "paranoia" looks tasty; I smell dessert.
8:17PM : "Funny, you don't look chewish" - just what are you trying to say, what do you mean, who told you to say that?
9:32PM : Having completely digested five of ten volumes of the complete works of Poe (Tamerlane Edition, limited to 300 numbered sets printed on delicious Ruisdael hand-made paper), I have now distended to 1000 times my original, post-human size.
9: 55PM : Having completely digested the final 5 volumes of Poe, I am now back 2 my original, human size. I look remarkably fit and am feeling my old self again.
10PM : Suicidal ideation!
10:16PM : Someone is trying 2 kill me: Me. I'm out to get me. Or am I being irrationally afraid, perceiving threats where none exist? Is that a gun in my pocket or am I just sad 2 see me?
10:18 : My followers - Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. I need my audience to affirm my existence. I'm a 'skeeter on a scum pond.
10:59PM : Rumblings in the boiler room; time 2 lose the Poe.
11:03PM : Hey, get outta here, all 10,000 of ya, wherever you are. Can't you see I'm trying 2 take, uh...Just leave. Now.
11:04PM : Another 5,000 followers. What am I, Mr. Popularity?
11:06PM : Was it as good for you as it was for me? I love Poe.
11:22PM : "Get one yourself" is not an appropriate response to "get a life."
11:59PM : The world is closing in on me. I can't take it anymore. I wriggle up the steps, all six feet, one inch of me, stand up tall, wipe the loam off all of my svelte segments, and ring the doorbell.
12Midnight : "Hi, Mom, it's me, Franz. I'm home! Set a few extra places at the table. I've brought all 15,000 of my followers home for dinner. Aren't you glad to see me? Mom? MOM!?"
______
*Writhing On The Floor Squealing
5:03AM : I feel like I'm sleeping in a carapace. I'd kill for a Tempurpedic mattress.
6:01AM : I awake from troubled dreams into troubled life. Oy, again?
7:12AM : Is it me or is my entire family slathered in insect-repellant? And when did Black Flag get into the scented candle business?
7:34AM : I hear my parents talking about me as if I'm not here. What's a "roach motel?"
7:46AM : WOTFS!*
8:07AM : "U can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," Pop says, intent unclear. Whatever, I'm starving and a nice, fat Diptera Psyhcodidae sounds pretty good 2 me; I've always dug 2-winged head-cases and now I'm simply ravenous for them. But 4 breakfast?
8:26AM : I'm so lonely I could scream. But I can't. I used 2 be able 2 say, "I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit and on that slitted sheet I sit" 3 times fast w/o mistakes but now I can't even express a phoneme much less a syllable.
9:03 : Fight w/Mom. The network of pheromone trails I laid down on walls, floor, ceiling and her side of the bed has upset her. Was it necessary 2 scour all with bleach? How does she expect anyone to find me?
9:05AM : I've left home. It was that or becoming slime on the bottom of Mom's shoe. Y does she hate me so much?
11:14AM : I crawl these means streets in search of social intercourse. I've given up on the other. How would you feel if your partner tried 2 kill you with a sharp axial appendage during afterplay?
11:15AM : Where do I find these nut jobs?
11:19AM : Under rocks.
11: 20AM : Note to self: avoid rocks, sleep under stars. Scarlet Johansson would be nice.
12:04PM : Oh joy! Oh rapture! I have found a colony of like-bodied folks just like me. But I sense something sinister afoot or, more accurately, a-sticky pad
12:59PM : I'm being followed. I can't see anybody but I know, I can feel them.
1:23PM : They're out there, I know it.
1:47PM : They're hanging on my every thought. Constantly. Sucking the goo from my brain and swallowing it, one tiny bolus after another after another. Why, oh why am I being tormented so?
2:13PM : Whoops, my mistake: I'm sending out signals through the rabbit ears on my head. Mea culpa! I loathe myself but only halfway. Sure, it's not enough but half a loathe is better than none.
2:28PM : I'm trying, I'm trying!
2:43PM : Success! I now completely abhor the very thought of me.
Why? President Obama has 100,000,000 hits on Google; me, none. I am such an underachiever I don't even rate the underachiever Top Ten.
3:41PM : Must stop thinking. Thinking leads 2 thoughts and we know what thoughts lead 2: signal broadcasts!
4:19PM : Still being followed. My followers have grown into an army but who the hell are these strangers and why are they bugging me?
4:21PM : Alright, already, I'm sorry: Why am I bugging them?
4:52PM : Multi-lensed eyes: I can read so fast, now! I run across the lines of text and just absorb them. I read War n' Peace in 4 minutes flat. Fell asleep between the lines and almost missed the short, French guy's retreat. (Comprehension has suffered).
4:57PM : ...Attention span, 2. Often, I begin 2 read and the next thing I know I'm wandering all over the page, aimlessly. My textual orientation is all mixed up.
5:11PM : Yikes! First edition of Der Verwandlung (1915) selling for $14,000; Der Prozess (1925) for $1800. I earned bupkis. Where were these damned book collectors when I needed them?
5:12PM : Identity crisis! I have become a bookworm.
6:03PM : I engage in marginal worming, not affecting text. But the word "paranoia" looks tasty; I smell dessert.
8:17PM : "Funny, you don't look chewish" - just what are you trying to say, what do you mean, who told you to say that?
9:32PM : Having completely digested five of ten volumes of the complete works of Poe (Tamerlane Edition, limited to 300 numbered sets printed on delicious Ruisdael hand-made paper), I have now distended to 1000 times my original, post-human size.
9: 55PM : Having completely digested the final 5 volumes of Poe, I am now back 2 my original, human size. I look remarkably fit and am feeling my old self again.
10PM : Suicidal ideation!
10:16PM : Someone is trying 2 kill me: Me. I'm out to get me. Or am I being irrationally afraid, perceiving threats where none exist? Is that a gun in my pocket or am I just sad 2 see me?
10:18 : My followers - Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. I need my audience to affirm my existence. I'm a 'skeeter on a scum pond.
10:59PM : Rumblings in the boiler room; time 2 lose the Poe.
11:03PM : Hey, get outta here, all 10,000 of ya, wherever you are. Can't you see I'm trying 2 take, uh...Just leave. Now.
11:04PM : Another 5,000 followers. What am I, Mr. Popularity?
11:06PM : Was it as good for you as it was for me? I love Poe.
11:22PM : "Get one yourself" is not an appropriate response to "get a life."
11:59PM : The world is closing in on me. I can't take it anymore. I wriggle up the steps, all six feet, one inch of me, stand up tall, wipe the loam off all of my svelte segments, and ring the doorbell.
12Midnight : "Hi, Mom, it's me, Franz. I'm home! Set a few extra places at the table. I've brought all 15,000 of my followers home for dinner. Aren't you glad to see me? Mom? MOM!?"
______
*Writhing On The Floor Squealing
Storytime was part of this year's White House Easter Egg Roll festivities. Here's a 5 minute video of President Barack Obama reading Maurice Sendak's "Where The Wild Things Are" on the South Lawn of the White House.
The first lady and children followed by reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond.
C-Span has more video here.
Event doubles as a tremendous plug for the upcoming film adaptation of "Where The Wild Things Are"
Here's the trailer for that:
Thanks to the LibraryThing blog for the lead
First off, the proper provenance for those words--that "anything can be anywhere"--is the Larry McMurtry novel, "Cadillac Jack" (which I regard as his most entertaining work), attributed there to the antiques and rare books scout Zack Jenks. I liked the line so much--and found it to be an axiom of the universal book hunt--that I used it as one of my epigraphs for "A Gentle Madness."
What occasions its use today is the discovery I made this week of a nine-volume work by one Robert Waln Jr., titled "Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence," published in Philadelphia in 1823 by J. Maxwell and R. W. Pomeroy. Each volume is bound in lovely marbled paper boards with calf-skin spines, and all are in remarkably fine condition. There is no foxing to speak of, no loose hinges, no missing plates, all of the steel engravings are present, with original tissues in place. Each volume bears the elegant signature of a prior owner, "Robt. Winthrop," who I hope, in time, to learn more about through further research.
In the meantime, I did due diligence on the title, running a quick ABE search, and coming up with a number of dealer quotes and descriptions for individual volumes, finding only one for the entire set, which leads me to believe this is an item of some scarcity. I'll obviously have to do more work on this baby, but what is fun about it right now--indeed, what prompts the writing of this entry--is the circumstance of its discovery.
It happened that a couple of days ago I was in a tizzy about locating my first-draft manuscript for "A Gentle Madness," this being part of an ongoing effort to put some order in my sprawling archive of research papers. My best recollection was that I had put the thing in a cardboard box and stored it in my bedroom closet, a walk-in affair that contains its share of objects that have nothing whatsoever to do with my wardrobe, including a bunch of nineteenth-century Harper's Weekly prints, my old Navy sword, some superannuated cameras that I don't have the heart to part with, altogether a pack rat's paradise. Well, it was in this closet where my wife, who was participating in the frenetic search, located the box with the manuscript, underneath which was another box, containing some books.
And the books? You guessed it--this splendid set, which I immediately recalled having bought some years ago on Cape Cod at Titcomb's Book Shop in East Sandwich, but misplaced, and forgot about entirely over time. Why I put them away back then in the closet remains a mystery to me, but there they were--and I am thrilled to welcome them back into the fold. Score another one for Zack Jenks. Anything, indeed, can be anywhere.
What occasions its use today is the discovery I made this week of a nine-volume work by one Robert Waln Jr., titled "Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence," published in Philadelphia in 1823 by J. Maxwell and R. W. Pomeroy. Each volume is bound in lovely marbled paper boards with calf-skin spines, and all are in remarkably fine condition. There is no foxing to speak of, no loose hinges, no missing plates, all of the steel engravings are present, with original tissues in place. Each volume bears the elegant signature of a prior owner, "Robt. Winthrop," who I hope, in time, to learn more about through further research.
In the meantime, I did due diligence on the title, running a quick ABE search, and coming up with a number of dealer quotes and descriptions for individual volumes, finding only one for the entire set, which leads me to believe this is an item of some scarcity. I'll obviously have to do more work on this baby, but what is fun about it right now--indeed, what prompts the writing of this entry--is the circumstance of its discovery.
It happened that a couple of days ago I was in a tizzy about locating my first-draft manuscript for "A Gentle Madness," this being part of an ongoing effort to put some order in my sprawling archive of research papers. My best recollection was that I had put the thing in a cardboard box and stored it in my bedroom closet, a walk-in affair that contains its share of objects that have nothing whatsoever to do with my wardrobe, including a bunch of nineteenth-century Harper's Weekly prints, my old Navy sword, some superannuated cameras that I don't have the heart to part with, altogether a pack rat's paradise. Well, it was in this closet where my wife, who was participating in the frenetic search, located the box with the manuscript, underneath which was another box, containing some books.
And the books? You guessed it--this splendid set, which I immediately recalled having bought some years ago on Cape Cod at Titcomb's Book Shop in East Sandwich, but misplaced, and forgot about entirely over time. Why I put them away back then in the closet remains a mystery to me, but there they were--and I am thrilled to welcome them back into the fold. Score another one for Zack Jenks. Anything, indeed, can be anywhere.
