Franz Kafka. The Trial, 1925-1937.

“Someone must have slandered Joseph K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.”

Franz Kafka. THE TRIAL. Victor Gollancz, London, 1937.

Franz Kafka. THE TRIAL. Knopf, New York, 1937.

Franz Kafka. DER PROZESS. Verlag Die Schmiede, Berlin 1925.

Current Selling Prices
$500-$13000 /£250-£6500

CLASSIC LITERATURE / DYSTOPIAN FICTION
Major world classic. When people use the word 'Kafkaesque' they are referring to a kind of powerlessnes in the face of a faceless bureaucracy, with vague suggestions of impending doom- marked by a 'senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity' (Wikiman)-as in a 'Kafkaesque nightmare' or as indeed in Kafka's posthumously published masterpiece 'The Trial' ('Der Prozess.') Everybody can identify with his chilling tale- with its surreal ending and dark humour. 'He sounds like my kind of guy!" said Bill Gates on being told his corporate trials (Microsoft's monopoly) were like the ordeals of Joseph K. Terry Gilliam's 1985 movie 'Brazil' is all Kafka--starting with a Joseph K type arrest. The trial of Stephen Ward, the hounding of the BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan for accusing Blair of 'sexing up' the evidence on weapons of mass destruction, the whole phenomenom of 'extraordinary rendition' and 'Gitmo' itself are all 'Kafkaesque.'

Nabokov, sometimes grudging in his praise of other writers, described Kafka as "the greatest German writer of our time. Such poets as Rilke or such novelists as Thomas Mann are dwarfs or plaster saints in comparison to him." W.G. Sebald, in an interesting essay on Kafka's Jewishness (and also his moviegoing habits) states that there are more books about Kafka than any other writer. He is reviewing Hans Zischler's 'Kafka Goes to the Movies'--an interesting piece of forensic Kafka scholarship by the great Wim Wenders ('Kings of the Road') Godard, Chabrol and Spielberg actor. Sebalds's claim is possibly a Germanocentric exaggeration--Kafka must surely be in the top ten, but as a bookseller I have seen more books on Shakespeare, probably more on Joyce. Others in the top ten would be Proust, Byron, Virginia Woolf, Lewis Carroll, Rilke, Pound, Eliot and maybe the beloved Samuel Beckett.

VALUE? 14 copies of the Schmiede 1925 German first have appeared in terrestrial auctions in the last 2 years making between $400 and $13200. Obviously the book is not scarce but it is hard to find in 'fresh' condition--a pretty decent copy made $1800 in Germany 2006 and at Christie's New York last year $13200 was paid for a copy described thus:

'8vo. Original cloth and printed paper label; original pictorial dust jacket (very minor chipping to ends of spine panel, minor splitting to edges of panel).FIRST EDITION, A FINE COPY of Kafka's unfinished masterpiece, edited by Max Brod and published posthumously. In the original dust jacket designed by Georg Salter.'

The British 1937 edition, first translated from the German by Willa & Edwin Muir, has a five page epilogue by Max Brod. It is scarce in the jacket and less so without. Copies can be found for about £200 and 10 times that or more for examples in the yellow Gollancz jacket. The U.S. Knopf edition seems to go for $500 to $1000 in jacket depending on condition and is also translated by the Muirs--it is easier to find and is less desired than the London edition. First editions are sometimes bound up in leather and sold as fine bindings, possibly to insensitive lawyers. The book is sometimes criticised by lawyers for being poorly researched in the legal department; however Kafka is not John Grisham. Outlook? Kafka is steadily on the rise, his work is just as timely now as 90 years ago + the books are becoming hard to find, especially 'The Castle', "The Trial' and to a lesser extent 'Metamorphosis.'

A while back on a house call in Norwich I came across yet another critical work on Kafka. The seller told me it was by her ex-husband and that, in the course of writing it, he had tracked down a clutch of Kafka letters. I asked where they were (that old dealer instinct!). The writer had worked out that the daughter of an old love of Kafka's (presumably Dora Diamant) was living in Yorkshire(?) and he had visited her and she had given the letters to him. He had, after his researches, donated them to his college library--generous acts all round as a one page letter to an actor (oddly enough mentioning Dora) sits on ABE now at £17K. It says:-

"Hardt, vielen Dank für das Telegramm; 'im Geistersaal' lesen Sie, heisst es dort, nicht ganz ohne Verstand. Nun so fern ich von Berlin auch bin, so fern doch nicht, dass ich von den Vorträgen nicht auch ohne Telegramm gewusst hätte, nur leider, nur leider, ich kann nicht kommen. Nicht nur, weil ich heute nachmittag übersiedelt bin mit dem ganzen Krimskrams der mächtigen Wirtschaft, die ich führe (die Übersiedlung war noch einfach genug dank der Hilfe der freundlichen Überbringerin dieses Briefes Frl. Recha Fertig) sondern vor allem deshalb weil ich krank bin, fiebrig und die ganzen Berliner 4 Monate abends nicht aus dem Hause war. Aber könnte ich Sie hier in Zehlendorf einmal sehn nach so langer Zeit? Zum morgigen Abend kommt ein Frl. Dora Diamant, um diese Möglichkeit mit Ihnen zu besprechen. Leben Sie wohl und Segen über Ihren Abend. K."

Wikipedia states that all Dora Diamant's letters were seized by the Gestapo in 1933, however, unless this tale is apocryphal, it appears some got away and also never got into the hands of dealers either.

MANUSCRIPTS The manuscript of 'The Trial' sold for $2 million in 1988, which adjusted for inflation is higher than the recent 7 page Potter MS and well in advance of the $2.4 million paid for the Kerouac 'On the Road' scroll sold by Christies in 2005. "I would place Kerouac in the same league as Kafka, Joyce and Proust, and we have sold manuscripts of all of those authors for substantial sums," said Chris Coover, senior specialist in manuscripts at Christie's. Auctions are a world where price confers status --so Kafka, Proust and Joyce are lumped in with a vastly lesser writer like Kerouac. Kerouac is now rated as a world shattering genius because a guy possessed of a football stadium forked over a couple of million dollars. Likewise a laughably bad painter like Bouguereau is rated higher than, say, Max Beckman, Chritian Schaad, Simeon Solomon or Nicholas de Stael because a thick movie star (Stallone) paid two million dollars for one of his kitsch pix of a flock of flying nudes. I prefer the flower fairies of Cicely Mary Barker. I append a Bouguereau image below. In New York there is a movement afoot to get him known as the greatest painter who has ever lived (and Ron Paul will be the next president!)

Thomas Browne. Religio Medici, 1642/1643

As for those wingy Mysteries in Divinity, and airy subtleties in Religion, which have unhing’d the brains of better heads, they never stretched the Pia Mater* of mine. Methinks there be not impossibilities enough in Religion for an active faith...I love to lose my self in a mystery... ’Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, with Incarnation, and Resurrection. I can answer all the Objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, Certum est, quia impossibile est.** I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest point; for to credit ordinary and visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. Some believe the better for seeing CHRIST’S Sepulchre; and, when they have seen the Red Sea, doubt not of the Miracle. Now, contrarily, I bless my self and am thankful that I lived not in the days of Miracles, that I never saw CHRIST nor His Disciples. I would not have been one of those Israelites that pass’d the Red Sea, nor one of CHRIST’S patients on whom He wrought His wonders; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to all that believe and saw not. ’Tis an easie and necessary belief, to credit what our eye and sense hath examined. I believe He was dead, and buried, and rose again; and desire to see Him in His glory, rather than to contemplate Him in His Cenotaphe or Sepulchre...

*A membrane surrounding the brain.
**It is certain because it is impossible




Thomas Browne. RELIGIO MEDICI. . [London]: Andrew Crooke, 1642.


Current Selling Prices
$4000-$10000 /£2000-£5000


CLASSIC LITERATURE/ MEDICINE/ RELIGION
The supreme literary achievement by an English doctor. Possibly any doctor, although Chekhov was a doctor, Somerset Maugham too, William Carlos Williams wielded a stethosccope, also the mighty Conan Doyle, but surely none wrote better prose than Sir Thomas Browne. Virginia Woolf said of his Religio Medici ('The Religion of a Doctor') that it paved the way for all future confessionals, private memoirs and personal writings. Browne's playful conceits, his intimacy with the reader and his psychological self examination are noticeably modern in tone. Browne, a great favourite in his day, was rediscovered by the Romantics - Charles Lamb introduced his work to Coleridge, who after reading it exclaimed, "O to write a character of this man!" Thomas de Quincey praised the 'sublimity' of his style. In our time he was again discovered by the great German writer W.G. Sebald who taught in Norwich, where Thomas Browne had practiced as a physician three centuries earlier. Sebald's 'Rings of Saturn' refers to Browne (who was born under the sign of Saturn on October 19, 1605 and curiously died on the same day he was born on October 19, 1682.) This is said to be a Saturn-like thing to do, there is a suggestion he may have planned or foresaw it, but really it's only a 365-1 chance.

The curious thing about first editions of Religio Medici is that they were not authorised by Browne and two such editions came out in 1642. An old auction catalogue (sorry source temporarily lost) declares:-

'Written in 1635, it was not published until 1642, when two unauthorized editions appeared from the same printer, one of 80 leaves and one of 96. The earliest bibliographical authorities---Wilkin, Greenhill, Williams---judged the longer version to be the earlier edition. Geoffrey Keynes in his standard bibliography of Browne (1924) reversed the order on the basis of the amount of wear to William Marshall’s engraved title, calling the shorter version the earliest. In 1948, Elizabeth Cook argued for a second reversal on the basis of textual analysis, re-establishing the longer version as the first edition. The matter of priority may be said to be still unsettled... Religio Medici describes the religion and philosophy of a tolerant, humorous and latitudinarian mind" (DSB)... (he) had an active interest in a wide range of subjects, from archaeology and philosophy to physics and biology. Religio Medici, his first published work, was a philosophical tract as much as a religious one, a Platonist's contemplation on the world. Its publication met mixed reactions; in Paris it was published by a Roman Catholic; in Rome it was listed on the Index Expurgatorius.'

Always a good sign to have your book banned in Rome. The first authorised edition appeared in 1643- it was titled: "A True and Full Copy of that which was most Imperfectly and Surreptitiously Printed before under the Name of: Religio Medici." Effectively the third edition, it was also published by the Andrew Cooke who had issued the two surreptitious editions. One imagines that Browne was an unlitigious, relaxed sort of cove--you couldn't pull that trick off with many modern authors. The authorised edition corrected printing and textual errors, but also modified the tenor of some of the more dogmatic assertions. The book was a great success, reprinted eleven times during the author's lifetime and translated into Latin, Dutch, French and German.

VALUE? A copy of the unauthorised 1642 made $20K in 2001 described thus- "contemporary blind-ruled sheep - extremities rubbed, tightly bound - title page dust-soiled; a few pencil marks in margins; library stamp.' The 1643 'authorised' edition made $4K in NY 2004 'with a bit of loss from a rust hole and cut close with a few catchwords clipped; repaired worming in final gathering affecting a few letters; some browning' - obviously not quite full size - buyers still prefer tall copies with good margins, although this is less of a fetish than it was 100 years back.

As a great classic it is always going to make goodly sums and can also be sold as a medical book to the many collectors who have made fortunes in medicine. A great copy would probably make £10,000, a copy turned up at the Macclesfield sale (2005) and made £2000 but it lacked the engraved title page (above)- the cataloguer gamely suggested that it had never been bound in, but a book without a title page unless larded with wonderful colour plates, is a pitiful thing. Whether it is much read anymore is doubtful. If I had a copy I would put it on the shelf with other pompous quartos bang next to my late 1628 Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy' (sadly sold to raise funds.) With the unfortunate death of Sebald (auto accident near Poringland, Norfolk) Browne may again be slightly forgotten; as Virginia Woolf said 'few people love the writing of Sir Thomas Browne, but those that do are the salt of the earth.'

Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn, 1885.

Mark Twain. ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Charles Webster, New York, 1885.

Current Selling Prices
$13000 - $20000 / £6500 - £10000



CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE / JUVENILE FICTION.
Enduring US classic, up there with Moby Dick, Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Scarlet Woman. Hemingway (not necessarily reliable as a guide) opined: "All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain...It's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." Quite a high print run so not especially scarce and there are points to determine early states of the first edition, the most obvious of which are that the title page and page 283/4 are cancels (i.e. page has been replaced on a stub) and that at page 155, the final 5 is slightly dropped, or slightly bigger or entirely absent also the word 'was' for 'saw' at page 57. Much argument about that five depending on which copy the dealer is attempting to sell. There are other points and a good deal of literary detection has gone into them, precedence is now fairly clearly established. Talking of which the 1884 British edition precedes the American by 4 months but is worth less -- presumably under the rules of 'follow the flag' (i.e. prefer the edition from the author's country.)

VALUE? The UK first is worth about a third of the US, but serious collectors like to have both. There is the story of the dealer who bought a copy privately lacking the front endpaper, when he remarked on this to the seller the chap said 'Yeah that had to go, some guy called Clemens wrote his name on it.' (An old chestnut-- sometimes it's Alice and 'some guy called Dodgson.') A first state copy in superior condition made $33,000 in 2003 ( "A splendid, well-preserved copy.") Most very high records are reserved for signed presentations from the author. The great L.A. dealer Biblioctupus forked out $85,000 in 1988 for a presentation copy from Twain to his wife dated Christmas 1884, also signed again on front pastedown. Fittingly it was the Doheny copy - among the points noted was that the engraving of Silas Phelps's trousers fly was in original state with "definite curve". Much is made of the bulge or lack of it in Silas's trousers and it was later replaced with a straight vertical flat fly. A question of decency. Twain's own signed copy came to auction in 2005 making circa $100K in the original publishers sheep binding. These have generally not lasted well - this one was chipped & cracked along joints & extremities. It can also be found in original three-quarter leather. Webster bound up 500 copies thus and 2500 in sheep.

There are facsimiles of the first that occasionally turn up online with persons trying to sell them as the real thing; the first clue that something is wrong is that they are in unnaturally fine condition with bright white fore edges, don't be fooled. Last word on Twain--I recall that when he was hanging out with the cannibals (to write an article) he said something like 'I suppose you would like to eat me too' and was politely informed that the flesh of a heavy smoker and drinker was unpalatable to them.

Poe. The Murders in the Rue Morgue. 1841/ 1843/ 1932

Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion... I felt my soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination. ..It was at length arranged that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain... Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.

'There is assuredly much to be said for Joseph Wood Krutch's brilliant over-simplification: "Poe invented the detective story that he might not go mad."
Men still read them for the same reason to-day.' Howard Haycraft. 'Murder for Pleasure.'



Edgar Allan Poe. THE PROSE ROMANCES OF EDGAR ALLAN POE. No. 1. (Murders in the Rue Morgue, and the Man That Was Used Up.) William H. Graham, Philadelphia, 1843.

Current Selling Prices
$200,000 +/£100,000+

Edgar Allan Poe. THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE AND OTHER TALES OF HORROR... Illustrated with Scenes from the Universal Photoplay. Grosset and Dunlap, New York. (1932)

Current Selling Prices
$800-$1600 /£400-£800

CLASSIC DETECTIVE FICTION
Edgar Allan Poe wrote only three detective stories: 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue,' 'The Mystery of Marie Roget,' and 'The Purloined Letter.' The appearance of 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue,' in 1841 is often cited as the first detective story. The word 'detective' was not even in use then and the only thing available were the racy reminiscences of policeman (especially the 1827 'Mémoires de Vidocq, Chef de Police de Sûreté' which Poe is known to have devoured). 'The Divine Edgar' as Nabokov calls him, had immediately established the archetypal detective and Doyle and Christie are very much in his debt. The ingenious deductive (and reductive) mental processes, the admiring narrator as sidekick and foil , the strange and brilliant detective, the bumbling constabulary, locked rooms etc. were all there. He also initiates the storytelling device where the detective announces his solution and then explains the reasoning leading up to it. You can still see this almost any night on T.V.

Howard Haycraft writes in 'Classic Crime Fiction' that Poe 'had no precedent for his "tale of ratiocination." The closest example is Voltaire's Zadig (1748), with a main character who performs similar feats of analysis.' He also cites Dickens's 'Bleak House' (1853) which has detective elements. Wilkie Collins' 'The Woman in White' (serialized in 1859-1860) is often cited as the first (and finest) mystery novel-- but that's another story.

VALUE? Loadsamoney. Quite worn and even defective copies have achieved the price of a footballer's Bentley (£100K +). There are only 15 copies known of the 1843 printed but it can surface - it looks like a pamphlet or magazine and is only 48 pages. It is preceded by the 1841 appearnce of the single story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," in Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine (the Casket and Gentleman's United). Volume XVII. Philadelphia: George R. Graham, January-June, 1841. Note that it has an engraved frontispiece and 5 other plates by Sartain after various artists, 2 black-and-white costume plates on one leaf and 5 handcolored costume plates. It is conceivable that some benighted breaker ignorant of the glories of the divine Edgar could have the item and slice out the costume plates and toss the text in the trash. It can go for as much as $10,000 and shows up with some regularity as does his similarly valuable poem 'The Raven' first published in 'The American Review: A Whig Journal of Politics, Literature , Art and Science, February, 1845'. Always worth looking through these dry old periodicals for contributions.

Only three of the known copies are perfect. There have not been many copies of 'Prose Romances' going through auction, the last made $230,000 + commission at Christie's New York in December 2000 described thus '...spine lacking, rear wrap detached, soiled & spotted; repaired tear to blank lower margin of front wrap - Some foxing - "The recently discovered fifteenth known copy".' Another copy made $60,000 in 1990 described as ' foxed & stained; 1st page abraded, costing 5 letters in last line - "One of only fourteen copies known...." Brown-Martin copy...' Rather like the 1887 'Study in Scarlet' punters are able to put up with a good deal of condition problems as waiting for a factory fresh example is a fool's game.

The history of the book in dealer's hands reveals an enigmatic copy in the hands of the Americana dealer Edward Eberstadt who flourished 1930 to 1950s. His puff for a copy he possessed is difficult to top even by the barkers of Ebay. Admittedly this a book where some superlatives are justified--he wrote in his 1954 catalogue:

THE GREATEST RARITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE.

FIRST EDITION OF THE GREATEST RARITY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE. The Murders is by far the rarest book of the world’s most collectible author. It is more than that: it is an important work as well. It introduced to the many thousands of later imitators an entirely new (and ever-increasingly popular) kind of tale---the detective story. The work has been called “the greatest short story in the literature not only of America but of the world.” Even the famous Tamerlane must give precedence to the Murders, both in point of rarity and, of course, literary significance. In the entire history of English and American auctions the work has appeared only twice, the last time in 1909 when J. P. Morgan acquired his copy for the highest price that had ever been paid for an American book.

The curious thing is that Eberstadt was selling the book for $20K in 1946 and eight years later at $5K. It is demonstrably the same book (both had the outer wraps in facsimile) and he may have bought it back off a collector and was looking for a quick sale in a very flat market. Prices can go down as well as up.



The Grosset photoplay edition can make as much as $2000 in great shape and like many of these books often shows up in pitiful condition. The title can turn up as ending in "Horror', 'Mystery' or 'Terror' -nobody seems to care; the value is determined by the state of the wonderful jacket. The stills are from the 1932 Universal film directed by Robert Florey and starring Bela Lugosi (still above) as the villainous Dr. Mirakle.Not a masterpiece, apparently. Lastly it should be noted that the 1843 'Prose Romances' was published at 12 and a half cents and Poe was hoping to make some money to help him out of debt - so it it is possible that a 1000 or more were printed. That 16th copy is waiting somewhere to be unearthed. Poe was much admired in France by decadents and symbolists (he was translated by Baudelaire) and copies could conceivably show up there at, say, a marché aux pouces.

Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte. 1847.

[BRONTE, Emily and Anne]. WUTHERING HEIGHTS. A Novel. By Ellis Bell (with) Agnes Grey. A Novel, by Acton Bell. London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847. 3 volumes.

Current Selling Prices
$120,000-$250,000 /£65,000-£130,000

CLASSIC LITERATURE
The rarest of all 19th century classics. The publishers, finding that Wuthering Heights did not contain enough material to form the customary “three-decker,” added Agnes Grey to make the third volume. According to a letter from her sister Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, of the firm of Smith, Elder and Company, “Mr. Newby undertook first to print 350 copies of Wuthering Heights, but he afterwards declared he only had printed 250.”

Charlotte also later recalled that the 'immature but very real powers' of Wuthering Heights were 'scarcely recognised' at the time, although several critics acknowledged its 'great promise'. Thomas Cautley Newby was notorious for his exploitation of young authors and made very little effort to advertise the work. Bastard.

VALUE? I doubt a copy will turn up online. It is possible by some freak a copy could turn up on ebay - as Cadillac Jack says 'anything can be anywhere'. One of those books that would strain the powers of even the most confirmed overpricer. 3 copies have shown at auction in the last 35 years, none nice. At a terrestrial auction a copy made $216,000 late last year against an estimate of $8000 - $12000 (where do they get these guys?) It was described thus : 'Some marginal repairs and repaired tears mostly to inner margins. Early 20th-century green straight grain morocco gilt. FIRST EDITION, volumes 1 and 2 comprise Wuthering Heights, volume 3 contains Agnes Gray. OF GREAT RARITY, IN ANY CONDITION.' [ W/Q *** ]

The British Library copy pictured above (many thanks) is in the original cloth, the most desirable state and almost occult in its rarity. The 1848 US is comparatively plentiful and can command as much as $10K. The LEC 1993 edition illustrated by the great erotic painter Balthus is one of the most desirable books from that press and can make $5000. 300 only were printed.

One of the most valuable works of 19th Century literature, only surpasses by the freakish 1865 Alice and the poetry pamphlet by Poe 'Tamerlane'. Frankenstein does not compare in status , rarity or price. Jane Austen is not in the same league cash wise and sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre also from 1847 is worth about a third of Emily's masterpiece. Emily died the next year at the age of 30. Much read, much loved, filmed, televised, memorably sung about by Kate Bush, incredibly, destructively romantic, passionate, madly intense, slightly gothic, with unresolved fantasy elements, superstitions and the trackless moors. Take it away Kate:

Out in the wily windy moor we'd roll and fall in green

You had a temper like my jealousy too hot, too greedy

how could you leave me when I needed to - possess you

I hated you loved you too

these dreams in the night told me I was going to lose the fight

leave behind me my Wuthering-Wuthering-Wuthering Heights ....

STOP PRESS 29/3/07. I found an old record from May 2000 of the second edition from 1850 by which time it was published by a decent firm - Smith Elder. It was handsomely rebound in full green leather and we got £3000 for it or thereabouts. I suspect it would be more now with the first being unattainably dear for most people. There are no copies currently for sale, the first British available is 1858 at circa $1000 and even a stroppy £1000. We described it thus:

8vo, pp. xxiv + 504. 16 pp cata at back dated Dec 1850. The uncommon second edition; another edition appeared one year later and that is also seldom encountered. Under the title is printed:- “A New Edition revised , with a Biographical Notice of the Authors, a Selection from their Literary Remains, and a Preface by Currer Bell.“ Currer Bell = Charlotte Bronte, the only one of the Bronte sister still alive in 1850, Anne having died in 1849 and Emily in 1848 two years after the first appearance of her only novel the masterpiece Wuthering Heights. The literary remains appear in this edition for the first time and include poems by Anne and Emily. There is also a single leaf before the title of contemporary reviews of Wuthering Heights.

STOP PRESS 16 NOV/ 07 Bonhams put out the following bulletin:- 'A rare first edition of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë sold today at Bonhams for £114,000- more than double its pre-sale estimate- in the Printed Books and Manuscripts sale at 101 New Bond Street, London. The book was bought in the room by the Antiquarian Book Dealer Robert Kirkman on behalf of his UK private client, who is a keen collector of Brontë works. Only three first editions of Wuthering Heights have been sold at auction in the last 35 years and today’s price is thought to be one of the highest prices paid for a copy. The vendor of the book, Miss Anne Reid, decided to sell the first edition, which had been in the family for four generations, to help finance her long cherished dream of becoming an artist. Miss Reid, who has just started studying at the London Art Academy, was given the book by her grandfather when she was a child. She had no idea of the value of the book and was overwhelmed when she discovered how much it could fetch. '

No pressure on Anne to be an artist then! No indication of condition, one imagines it was average. This result is almost the same as last years $216,000 which was for a fairish rebound copy. A copy like the BM one above would blow the roof off the saleroom.

Emma. Jane Austen. 1816.

Jane Austen is to me the greatest wonder among novel writers. I do not mean that she is the greatest novel writer, but she seems to me the greatest wonder. Imagine, if you were to instruct an author or an authoress to write a novel under the limitations within which Jane Austen writes!

Suppose you were to say, "Now you must write a novel, but you must have no heroes or heroines in the accepted sense of the word. You may have naval officers, but they must always be on leave or on land, never on active service. You must have no striking villains; you may have a mild rake, but keep him well in the background, and if you are really going to produce something detestable, it must be so because of its small meannesses, as, for instance, the detestable Aunt Norris in 'Mansfield Park'; you must have no very exciting plots; you must have no thrilling adventures; a sprained ankle on a country walk is allowable, but you must no go much beyond this. You must have no moving descriptions of scenery; you must work without the help of all these; and as to passion, there must be none of it. You may, of course, have love, but it must be so carefully handled that it very often seems to get little above the temperature of liking. With all these limitations you are to write, not only one novel, but several, which, not merely by popular appreciation, but by the common consent of the greatest critics shall be classed amongst the first rank of the novels written in your language in your country."

Lord Grey of Falloden - The Falloden Papers

[ Jane Austen.] EMMA. A novel. In Three Volumes. By the author of "Pride and Prejudice" &c. &c. John Murray, London 1816.

Current Selling Prices
$15000-$40000 /£7000-£20000

CLASSIC LITERATURE
The lightest of her works and often cited as her most accomplished, fulfilling, as it does, her own formula for a successful novel - '3 or 4 families in a country village..the very thing to work on.' Many editions are wanted apart from the expensive 3 decker first, including the still valuable one volume Bentley (1833) fancy illustrated editions (Hugh Thomsom, Chris Hammond) Avalon Society, Limited Editions Club, Folio, Easton etc., Possibly the most wanted and easiest assimilated book of the divine Jane. A bibliographic warning note comes from Geoffrey Keynes:

'...The collation of the first volume of Emma is peculiar in that the first sheet consisted only of the title-page and the dedication to the Prince Regent, while the half-title was printed on the last leaf, which would otherwise have been blank. If the binder has omitted to transfer the half-title to the beginning of the volume, it will appear, at first sight, to be imperfect.'

Strictly speaking the half-title should be at the back of the book to be in its correct position.

The novel has such a strong and true storyline that it easily transposed into an acclaimed movie set in a modern US high school in Beverly Hills ('Clueless.' ) Also filmed 3 other times and done on TV about once a decade. 2000 copies of the 1816 first were printed -- it is uncommon to find the half titles and final blanks still present as it is more often rebound in leather lacking these.





VALUE? Has twice made £25,000 at auction this century, both times in original boards (usually slightly repaired/ restored.) A 'very fine' copy bound in 'half , calf gilt, extremities worn' made $24000 in 2002. Recently it has made as little as £5000 several times with a few disappointing 'buy-ins' at carriage trade auctions--usually for less than limpid examples. It can be found in handsomely bound state at most high end book fairs and is not scarce. The Bentley one volume 1833 edition can make well over £500; people try to make sets of the Bentley editions which complete can go for several thousand pounds. Jane Austen books in reprint often attract buffoon like over pricing. One chancer in Atlantic City has a whole series of basically old and used turn of the century pocket editions, none worth more than $20, at $200 to $400. They don't appear to ever sell so there are pages of them on the net -once again belying Blake's maxim that a fool will persist in his folly until he becomes wise. William Blake could never have foreseen the imbecility of the internet bookseller. What possibly happens, and this is true of many manic over pricers, is that just very occasionally some poor bastard buys one of their books thus justifying the whole enterprise. If a bookseller had a shop on the street with these prices fights would break out. One Mid West bookseller anticipating such problems has a shop with a sign saying 'No Visitors' and any customer venturing into the shop is immediately wrestled to the floor and then forcibly ejected.

Sets of Austen are the most rebound of all sets in history. The reason is that unless you put an absolute 'mind at the end of its tether' price on them, they will always sell. They make the perfect gift, prize, reward or inducement. Hard to find a decent set of 19th century (albeit late) leather bindings for less than $1000. Modern 6 volume sets from Easton in a sort of spam leather can be had on ebay at between $300 and $500. Below is Gwynneth Paltrow as Emma - 'clever, pretty and self-satisfied...'

BOCCACCIO. IL DECAMERONE. 1471. (Part 2)

I concluded the last Boccaccio entry by mentioning the connection of the divine Diana to the Decameron. The copy that sold in 1812 for the gigantic sum of £2260 was bought by the Marquis of Blandford (another name from the tabloids.) It seems to have passed into the hands of Lord Spencer--Lady Diana's great, great grandfather. In the 1878 'Notes & Queries' it is noted: 'When the members of the British Association visited Althorp last September they inspected, amongst other unique specimens of early printing, the "lion of Althorp," the celebrated 'II Decamerone' of Boccaccio, printed in 1471 by Valdarfer...' It is probable that the young Diana (who described herself as 'thick as a brick') may have been shown the 'Lion of Althorp' or seen her father displaying it. The book is no longer mentioned amongst the glories of Althorp and may have been 'deacquisitioned' or, in our post literate age is not worth mentioning any more.

The Decameron is often cited as the first great work in the humanist tradition; it's publication coming at a time of intense religiosity, Godbothering and repression was viewed very dimly by the church. There is some suggestion that copies of early editions were burnt in Florence on the orders of Savonarola which may account for their great rarity. They may have also been burnt by his followers in the 'bonfire of the vanities.' The excellent Via Libri which searches the world's major library databases reveals 4 copies--the British Library has a rather defective one, also Manchester, Paris (imperfect) and Milan. Jackson (below) notes that there is one at the Vatican and another in the Magliabecchi at Florence. Possibly there is one in America. The anonymous scholar at N & Q goes on:-

Although this is the earliest known edition of the ' Decamerone' bearing a date (1471), it is by no means certain that it is actually the " editio princeps," the date of the "Deo Gratias " edition (so called from these words appearing in the colophon) being as yet unknown, the question remaining just as it was left by Dibdin, who at first thought it was printed in 1472, but on further and more careful examination inclined to the belief that it was printed in 1470.

In June, 1819 the library at White' Knights, formed by the Marquis of Blandford, then the Duke of Blenheim, was dispersed, and the ' Decameron' again came into the auction room. This time Lord Spencer (who had underbid the book in 1812) stopped at £700 and the dealer Longman obtained the prize for £750. They sold it again for £750 to Lord Spencer. Holbrook Jackson in his monumental work 'Anatomy of Bibliomania' (1928) discusses the whole thing as a supreme manifestation of the disease of bibliomania. 'Anatomy' is a weighty, slight OTT book -a pastiche of Robert Burton's 'Melancholy' masterpiece-- but if Burton is, say, Lennon then Jackson is Meatloaf. I think this analogy works. Basically it is a good mix of Dibdin, a large dose of Andrew Lang (the finest of all writers on book collecting) a splash of Leigh Hunt, Lord de Tabley, Richard de Bury, Rosenbach, Isaac D'Israeli, Gellius and a couple of shelves of books on book collecting, bibliomaniacs and rare books. Book collecting books were quite prevalent at the turn of the century with emotive titles such a "Shadows of the Old Booksellers' and 'Books in Bottles and 'Enemies of Books.'

Jackson writes:

Bibliomania scorns all that is cheap, except to hope that it may become dear. They are like those reprehended by Seneca, who loathed the very light because it was free, and who are offended with the sun's heat, and those cool blasts, because we buy them not. They gloat on prices, and nothing pleases them but what is expensive. If one appraises a shabby but rare little pamphlet of no intrinsic value at a high price, they will covet it for that reason alone: it's value is wholly a scarcity value; but it is the same with books of nobler status, as those rare edition of classical works which no one heeds until someone bids high for them.

Take, for example, the story of the copy of the First Edition of Il Decamerone di Boccaccio, 1471, which was sold by auction at the dispersal of the Roxburghe Library, in 1812, for £2,260, which up to that time was the highest sum of money ever given for a book. The copy had long been coveted by bookmen, both sane and insane; it was perhaps the most notorious volume in existence; and Nicol, in his Preface to the Sale Catalogue of the Library, described it as one of the scarcest, if not the scarcest book in existence, for it had preserved its uniquity for over three hundred years; it had been a bone of contention among collectors in the reign of the first two Georges: Lord Sunderland and Lord Oxford had both coveted it, but it became the property of the Duke of Roxburghe, for the gallant price of 100 guineas; which Marchand, in his Histoire de L' Imprimerie (1740) notes among the excessive prices up to then given for rare books. When the record price of 1812 was known among collectors, a craze for the books set in; bookmen were afflicted with a desire for copies as thought they had been stricken by some infectious disease: every man pretending to some information about books was set-a-hunting for it: from the half-ruined mansion on the summit of the Vosges to the castellated heights along the Rhine, a search was made; some supposed copies might lurk in Swiss chalets, and Berne, Basle, and Zurich were examined with the sedulous pertinacity of an excise officer; Italy was ransacked; all the cradle-towns of the art of printing were explored; a copy might still be lurking in the Subiaco monastery; Perugia, Brescia, and Bologna, places then rarely visited by Englishmen, were minutely examined, in vain; and the only result of all this mighty hunting was a glimpse of the copies in the Magliabecchi at Florence and the Vaticano at Rome, which were public property, and could not be removed.

That this craze was irrational cannot be denied; these hunters had no desire to read Boccaccio in the First Edition, or to study its bibliographical or typographical parts: they were moved by its high price, and such pleasure as they might have procured from the discovery of another copy would have been related to its monetary rather than its literary value. Aldous Huxley argues, a picture may give aesthetic pleasure, and in buying a picture one buys the unique right to feel that pleasure; with a book it is different; nobody, he says, can pretend that 'Venus and Adonis' is more delightful when read in a fifteen thousand pound unique copy than in a volume costing one shilling; on the whole, the shilling edition is the better, so he concludes that the purchaser of the fabulously expensive old book is satisfying only his possessive instinct, and, doubtless, I would add, his vanity.

There are many italicised passages in this piece that I haven't the time to put in, but the above should give a flavour of HJ's highflown, not to say overblown, style.

VALUE? Surely several millions of dollars. A 1494 Decameron with many minor faults and a leaf missing made $375,000 in 1994. The 1471 first printing is one of the most valuable books in the world, potentially superior in value to a decent Shakespeare First Folio or even a 'Canterbury Tales' [Westminster: William Caxton, c.1478]. Chaucer of course translated Boccaccio's 'Palamon and Arcite' for part of the 'Knight's Tale.'

Fashions in collecting have greatly changed since 1812 and fashion is, according to Jackson, the great determiner of prices. Boccaccio's name does not excite in the way it might have done 200 years ago and the taste for continental literature may have become slightly flaccid. A Bay Psalm Book might make more money because it is American and America is still the richest country.

The only places these books will show up unrecognised are very old houses--you need the family to have been there about 500 years. There are a surprising amount still standing - mostly in unravaged parts of Europe. Come to think of it there is one that I drive by occasionally in Old Suffolk. Next time I might cross the moat and hand them my card ('Vast Libraries Purchased.')

The British Library seems to have a copy but from the description it sounds incomplete--presumably it can be ordered up. It lacks the leaves 1, 8, 9, 109, 110, and 241. The illustration above shows Boccaccio pointing to the goddess Fortune who stands beside a wheel upon which her victims rise and fall. It is miniature from Boccaccio, De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, trans. Laurent de Premierfait (Paris, 1467). (Reproduced from Glasgow University Library Special Collections. Many thanks.)

BOCCACCIO. IL DECAMERONE. 1471. (Part 1)

Boccaccio. IL DECAMERONE DI BOCCACCIO. Printed by Christofal Valdarfer. (Venice) 1471.

Current Selling Prices
$4,000,000+ /£2,000,000+

CLASSIC LITERATURE/ RARE & VALUABLE
Ultra rare book that caused a sensation in its time and then 350 years later caused Bibliomania to break out in England and parts of Europe. This week I was slightly surprised to see a header for the book at Ebay:

'Decameron, 1471 by Giovanni Boccaccio'

I clicked it with the faintest of hopes that it was an incunable. Not only was it a modern book but you could not be sure you would even get any of Boccaccio's 100 amazing tales as it had the caveat '...You will get the item ordered based on ISBN, NOT based on the auction title or stock picture due to eBay and Muze catalog errors.' So you might get a biography of Barry Manilow or a treatise on war reparations. It lead me to looking in the last 30 years of ABPC auction records for any 1471 Decamerons. There were none and also none in a bunch of older BAR records, lacking a few years, going back to 1938. I suspect there hasn't been a copy through the rooms for 100 years (unless 'the lion of Althorp' copy was at some point put on the block.)

Dibdin writes of seeing this book at the Royal Library in Paris in his 1831 epistolary work 'A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ANTIQUARIAN AND PICTURESQUE TOUR...' He talks of a time in the late 1820s when he spent many weeks looking throught the early books and illuminated manuscripts at the Bibliothèque du Roi in the Rue de Richelieu '...Months and years may be spent among them, and the vicissitudes of seasons (provided fires were occasionally introduced) hardly felt. I seem, for the last fortnight, to have lived entirely in the "olden time;" in a succession of ages from that of Charles the Bald to that of Henri Quatre: and my eyes have scarcely yet recovered from the dazzling effects of the illuminator's pencil. "II faut se reposer un peu." ' After the illuminated books he moved on to the incunabula, books 'likely to afford all true sons of BIBLIOMANIA and VIRTU the most lively gratification.' Here he finds the Valdarfer Decameron:

'This is the famous edition about which all the Journals of Europe have recently "rung from side to side." But it wants much in value of THE yet more famous copy which was sold at the sale of the Duke of Roxburghe's library; inasmuch as it is defective in the first leaf of the text, and three leaves of the table. In the whole, according to the comparatively recent numerals, there are 265 leaves. This copy measures eleven inches and a half, by seven inches and seven eighths. It is bound in red morocco, with inside marble leaves.'

Dibdin refers to a perfect copy sold by auction at the dispersal of the Roxburghe Library, in 1812, for £2,260, which up to that time was the highest sum of money ever given for a book. It caused dealers and amateurs to madly scour the bookshops and book collections of Europe. Nearly 200 years later a sort of low grade Bibliomania broke out here when it became known that 'The Philosopher's Stone' (Potter!) was worth £10,000 +. The Decameron had made at least a million sterling in today's money. (To be continued.)

More coming about Holbrook Jackson's take on it 'The Anatomy of Bibliomania', Princess Diana's connection to the 1471 edition, Aldous Huxley's theory of collecting aesthetics and more pedantry that you can shake a stick at...

The illustration above shows a scene from the Decameron painted by the female PRB Marie Spartali Stillman- "Messer Ansaldo Showing Madonna Dianora his Enchanted Garden". Pursued by Ansaldo, the married Dianora told him she would never grant his suit until he made her midwinter garden bloom with midsummer flowers. Aided by a magician, Ansaldo did it. Her husband ordered her to honor her promise. Not to be outdone in courtesy, Ansaldo released her from her promise. (Boccaccio, Decameron, day x. 5.)

Joseph Conrad and 'Heart of Darkness' 1902

"He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision - he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath - '"The horror! The horror!"'



Joseph Conrad.YOUTH: A NARRATIVE & Two Other Stories [Heart of Darkness]William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1902



Current Selling Prices
$2500-$3500 /£1200-£1800

LITERATURE
3 stories including 'Heart of Darkness' from which Eliot took the epigraph "Mistah Kurtz. He dead' for his 'Hollow Men'. Coppola took some of the plot, mood and theme for his portentous, not to say pretentious, movie 'Apocalypse Now' and a decent blend of roasted coffee in the celestial California town of Santa Cruz also uses the name. A whole lot of trivial and semi serious cultural phenomena seem to derive from it. Basically it's a bleak tale of brutalisation in the Belgian Congo, the title hints at about six meanings, racist tones have recently been detected (notably by Chinua Achebe) but it is primarily about the unknowable human heart, about imperialism, exploitation and barabarism. Kurtz,the superman figure at the very heart of the tale is as Cyril Connolly says:

'...A Dorian Gray whose picture gets a little more frightening with every brush stroke until in the final scenes everyone within reach - but one - is contaminated.'

Orson Welles tried to make a film of it in 1940 but had to abandon the idea. Coppola's very watchable movie with its doomy long opening song ('The End') has revived the fortunes of Conrad's great work and there is even a movie 'Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse' about the making of the film. Conrad said of himself in a letter to his French translator 'I am neither clever nor very eloquent. I have a certain feeling for far-off things, a taste for analysing simple emotions and a turn of phrase that strikes the English. Please note that I do not say which pleases. I don't believe I please anyone here...' He saw himself as different from Kipling whom he regarded as a 'national writer.' Kipling, Conrad wrote, was interested in his subject, whereas Conrad was interested in the effect he produced. On the subject of Kipling - his "The Man Who Would Be King" has an identical premise to Heart of Darkness—a white trader sets himself up as God-King to an remote tribe, but he is no Kurtz and is exposed as merely mortal by a woman in the tribe.

VALUE? Connolly lists 'Youth' in his 100 Key Books of the Modern Movement' and there is evidence of a revival of interest in collecting from his list. A high profile sale of a collection comes in June 2007 and the list is frequently invoked by dealers, who are holding any of the books, to add gravitas. It still works. There are three states of the book, each a little better than the other.The best is ads at rear dated 10/02, next ads dated 11/02, lastly no ads. Decent clean copies have made between $1500 and $3500 in the last two years at auction, an inscribed family copy made $20000 in 2002. Seems to be a book on the move - 5 years ago it was a $800 book in sharp condition, now a superior copy could make nearly 5 times that. 'Lord Jim' is a better book moneywise and it looks similar, 'Typhoon' is sometimes quoted as his greatest work. Lastly 'Heart of Darkness' (inevitably) shows up in 'Lost', someone is seen reading it on the beach, and along with 'The Third Policeman' it is a significant key to its myriad mysteries.[ W/Q * ]



ADDENDUM. A friend in California emailed to say that as well as the coffee in Santa Cruz, they produce a 'big' red wine called 'Heart of Darkness' pictured below.It comes from just outside Santa Cruz at Bonny Doon, home also of the excellent 'Cigare Volant.' Also someone took umbrage 'cos I called 'Apocalypse Now' pretentious. Pour moi there is nothing wrong with being pretentious - Brian Eno, often accused of it, answers that children are pretentious and Anthony Burgess felt the English were far too afraid of pretentiousness. I have a feeling he left England in a 'chauffeur driven huff' after appearing in 'Pseud's Corner'...

The Anatomy of Melancholy. Robert Burton. 1621.

'' I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, firs, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged, in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c., daily musters and preparations, and suchlike, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances, are daily brought to our ears.

New books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of Princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical then tragical matters. Today we hear of new Lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed. And then again of fresh honors conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned, one purchaseth, another breaketh; he thrives, his neighbor turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, &c.”


(Robert Burton.) THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, What It Is with All the Kindes, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Severall Cures of It- Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up. By Democritus Junior [pseud.]-. J. Lichfield & J. Short for H. Cripps., Oxford, 1621.

Current Selling Prices
$20,000-$35,000 /£10000-£17000

CLASSIC LITERATURE / SCIENCE/ MEDICINE / SCHOLARSHIP
Robert Burton’s marvellous miscellaneous masterpiece. Not a book to sit down and read for hours, more to dip into or surf (browse) on a regular basis. Dr Johnson said it was the only book that took him out of bed two hours earlier than he intended, Sterne's 'Tristram Shandy' was shot through with it, Charles Lamb modelled his style on it and Milton was influenced by the verses prefixed to it. In our time Anthony Powell used it to great effect in his roman fleuve and named one of his early novels ('Afternoon Men') after it.

Some dealers, possibly in an attempt to sell it have tried to re-position it as a medical treatise, or early psychiatry and it fits quite suitably in these categories but is more a work of literature in the wake of Montaigne, a tour de force of intense scholarship and finely written prose from a great age. One day some one will write a self help book based on it. Thomas Moore has already profitably mined this and earlier works for his own considerable work 'Care of the Soul'. There was an exhibition in Paris 'Melancolie' at the Grand Palais in the dark winter of 2005/ 2006 where Bocklin's Isle of the Dead and "The Death of Chatterton' happily co -existed. There were several editions of Burton's masterpiece on show. A great exhibition but these themed shows are possibly too pretentious for UK and US sensiblities. I don't think it travelled on. The catalogue is, however, worth having (below.)



It is not an impossible book to own, large handsome 17th century editions can be had for less than $1500. As Pforzheimer says- "As the author continued to make augmentations and a few corrections to each edition published in his lifetime and even left notes which were incorporated into the sixth edition, published after his death [in 1640], all early editions are of interest textually." The splendid title page (illustrated above) does not appear until the third edition. I had a handsome 1628 edition at home for about a decade, to dip into and impress friends but had to sell it at a book fair to raise money. In a way I made a good move because it hasn't increased in value. It is possible with a renewed interest in depression that it could start becoming more desirable.

Burton believed depression to be both a physical and spiritual ailment. He had his own bouts with the affliction and some say that in writing the work he was able to deal with it - "I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy". He cites nearly 500 authorities (Galen more than any other) in the course of classifying the myriad causes, forms and symptoms of depression, and describing its various cures. It also has a satirical vein running through it and can be humorous.

As Norman says - 'The work is also a literary tour-de-force in the tradition of Renaissance paradoxical literature. ' One of his recommendations was to leave the city and espouse the country life. To live in the right part of the world for one's humours, was one of the best ways of avoiding melancholy. It is listed in Printing & the Mind of Man where it is described thus - "...one of the most popular books of the seventeenth century. All the learning of the age as well as its humour -- and its pedantry -- are there."

VALUE? Not necessarily a brilliant investment--the Manney copy turned up at Sothebys in 1991 and made $23000 ((prob about £15 K at the time) 14 years later the same book made $15000 (then about £8k). Depressing. Not one of the great investments although there are signs thanks to blokes like Stephen Fry, Thomas Moore and Robbie Williams of a much greater interest in melancholy, depression, bipolar disorders etc., so prices may rise. It's the age we live in. At the ill fated Garden sale in 1989 a copy (not notably fine) made $45000, the price of a small flat in New York at the time. The highest price on the web is a Eurotastic €40K for the 1621 first in what sounds like a fab contemporary binding -'In-4; veau brun, triple filet d'encad. et fleuron central à froid sur les plats, dos à nerfs (Reliure de l'époque).' Another pretty smart one can be had for $50K. Both have been on sale for a while. Meanwhile the handsome 1628 edition can he had from a 'carriage trade' dealer at £2K and a very nice 1621 first basks in Santa Monica at $28K. It is actually a book where the later editions are better, the 1621 being a sort of fetish object (the 'true first') and it will always trump later editions but unless you are absolutely loaded you don't need it.

Marcel Proust. A la Recherche du Temps Perdu...Forget about Madeleine biscuits & cork lined rooms...

Marcel Proust. A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU. 12 VOLS. Grasset & N.R.F. Paris 1913-1928.

Current Selling Prices
$18000+ / £10000+

The supreme classic of 20th Century European literature, the ultimate roman fleuve, although Powell runs him a close second with his 'Music of Time' also 12 vols. A paperback or paper wraps, at least- I don't have a set about my person at present and have never had all 12 or any 'tetes', although we always have a few sets of the Scott-Moncrieff translation. Admired by Graham Greene, Gianni Versace, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Logan Pearsall Smith, Arnold Bennett, Sam Beckett, Tuesday Weld, Will Self etc., Alain de Botton wrote a pretty useful self help book based on the master's life and work 'How Proust can change your Life.' Even Nabokov liked the early volumes.

Forget about Madeleine biscuits and cork lined rooms and persevere with the first 200 pages, or start with a later book, or download it to your Ipod and walk 100 blocks with it. As Joseph Conrad said: ‘It appeals to our sense of wonder and gains our hommage by its veiled greatness. I don’t think there ever has been in the whole of literature such an example of the power of analysis.’ You don't need to be an intellectual, an epicene snob or a pseud but it might be unwise if your usual fare is shopping and fucking novels. The audio version by John Rowe btw is the one, NOT Neville Jason who doesn't appear to understand what he is reading.

It is on record that James Joyce met Proust at a midnight supper in the fashionable Majestic Hotel in May 1922, the two great men did not speak more than a few words with each other. "Of course the situation was impossible," Joyce recalled later. "Proust's day was just beginning. Mine was at an end." They shared a cab home but again hardly exchanged a word. It seems a pity - Joyce once said 'I never met a bore' and Proust had a similar outlook finding an evening with unimportant provincial burghers no more or less interesting than the most fashionable ball with aristos and jeunesse doré.



VALUE? Btw this is a rejig of an earlier posting with more info, the disco version as it were. Above is a very desirable item, a review copy of the very first book. Decent French sets in the original paper wraps or in attractive and exquisite bindings with the wraps bound in can make (at auction) $18000 or more, it gets much more serious with 'editions du tete' eg one of 12 of just one vol (Du Cote de Chez Swann) made $50,000 in 1999, another inscribed to Anatole France made $70000 way back in 1989. A one of 5 of the same volume on Japon with an ALS loosely inserted made $300,000 in 2001. This was the Calmette -Le Garrec -Blaizot - Meeus - Hayoit copy and you can be pretty sure it didn't turn up at a boot fair. A 13 vol set in a Paul Bonet binding with inlaid letters across the spines and a staircase motif made $50K. The paper on the ordinary editions can become brittle, especially in hot climates and the 'editions du tete' last a lot better. English editions are reasonably easily found, the Scott Moncrieff translation being limited to 1300. Inscriptions help -- usually to toffs and grandees in his circle e.g. the ubiquitous Princesse Marthe Bibesco. Being a French book condition is vital, shagged out copies get thrown in the Seine. [ W/Q ** ]

A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens, 1843.

Charles Dickens. A CHRISTMAS CAROL. Chapman and Hall, London 1843.

Current Selling Prices
$8000 - $18000 / £4200 - £9000



CLASSIC LITERATURE / GHOST STORY
A Dickens classic, possibly his most famous. Correct firsts must have the words 'Stave 1' at the heading of the first chapter (NOT 'one' - people often confuse this and it's an expensive mistake to make.) There are other points but if you have the number 1 stave you're almost there. Endlessly filmed, cartooned and trotted out every Christmas.

Sometimes seen in pompous bindings, including the unpleasant but dear Cosway binding (which also gets trotted out every Christmas) and often in full red calf with the other 4 Christmas books. Not scarce, but limpid copies are very difficult to find and command serious dosh.

VALUE? 2 copies made $15000 at auction in 2005, both nice but neither in breathtaking condition. There are 3 copies on net at just over £20K and reasonable copies of the 1843 later issue at $4000 or so and some decent rebound early issue sets of all five Christmas books in the low thousands o' dollars. A copy inscribed to Thomas Hood sold for $50K in 1997, a year earlier a copy inscribed to Walter Savage Landor made $160,000.

Highly expensive 'fresh' copies often get sold to 'carriage trade' customers and don't get dumped on the internet. Great copies tend to turn up in odd places; watch out for repaired, tarted up, sophisticated and ringed copies. Reasonable but slightly worn copies and rebound ones can be bought for less painful sums than the above.

Our photo left is of a copy stolen in a heist at the Dickens Museum London August 2002. Note the slight black mark on the front cover at about 3 o'clock. The museum estimated it's cost at beteen £20,000 and £30,000. The museum is at 48 Doughty Street, Bloomsbury, where Dickens lived from 1837 to 1839. If offered it please call the police or the A.B.A. It was reported by the BBC 'Audacious raid on Dickens museum' and there are other pics of the book at their site. Andrew Xavier the curator said:'It is really sad and rather ironic that it is Dickens' book of goodwill to all men. ' [Want level 25-50 Highish ]

The Age of Innocence. Edith Wharton, 1920.

Edith Wharton. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. Appleton, NY 1920.

Current Selling Prices
$800-$8000 /£450-£4000


AMERICAN CLASSIC FICTION
A masterpiece set among New York's elite of the 1870s - 'The Gilded Age'. Well filmed in 1993 in the Visconti style by Scorsese who plays up the gilt and opulence. In 1924, a silent film version was released by Warner Brothers, directed by Wesley Ruggles, and starring Beverly Bayne and Elliott Dexter. In 1934 a talkie came out from RKO (1934) that starred Irene Dunne and John Boles. Still read, even by kids of the ringtone generation.

Her first publication was Verses (1878), a book of poems privately printed in Newport, Rhode Island when she was sixteen and known in her family as 'Pussy.' Please offer all copies to moi - it's very valuable. The clue is it doesn't say Wharton on the title page -she was then Edith Newbold Jones. Vita Sackville West produced a similarly scarce volume (Chatterton) privately printed in 1909 when she was 16, that is also rather valuable but not in the same league as Edith. Author's first books are a rich and fascinating collecting field - often negligible in themselves and sometimes anonymous or pseudonymous or written under a maiden name they can be true 'sleepers', not all of which can be awoken.

Like her close comrade 'The Master' (Henry James) Edith Wharton plays with themes of innocence and experience, old decadent Europe and innocent America, themes that launched a 1000 dissertations - 'From Countess Olenska to Humbert Humbert' etc., [Want level 25-50 Highish}


VALUE? Nice copies sans jacket can occasionally be had for circa $800, with a jacket it gets a bit more serious. 1920 is the cut off point for jackets in some guides (i.e. they are not assumed to be there before that, pretty much my assumption too.) Jackets in fact have been around since 1830, but not on every book, by the 1870s they were ubiquitous but usually unillustrated.

The copy shown at the venerable Wikipedia described as a first is in fact a reprint from Grosset and Dunlap, with very few exceptions Grosset didn't 'do' first editions. A decent citizen should change it. Like many Appleton firsts this book must have a [1] after the end of the text in the book. The jacket should have no mention of the Columbia (Pulitzer) Prize. It can often be found placed in an early jacket as it sold 66,000 copies within the first year.

In 2002 at auction a copy in a jacket made $9000 with a few repairs and slight dampstaining. Between the Covers had a copy in a fab jacket in their Catalogue 61 a while back and sold it, possibly for more than this record, I have no details but there prices are invariably serious. A copy at circa $2000 in a worn jacket listed late in 2006 appears to have sold.

The Arion Press, San Francisco, 2004 photo illustrated and limited edition is desirable and worth circa $800 - "Truly a thing of beauty" according to Forbes magazine. Look out also for a facsimile jacketed issue (in slip-case) by the First Editions Library (1990ish) almost indistinguishable from the 1920 first but unnaturally fine. An LEC 1973 edition of 2000 copies signed by the illustrator, Lawrence Beall Smith can be had for $100 and change. A slightly unpleasant leathery Easton edition about the same.

You can also get audio tapes, CDS, Videos and DVDs, there are even copies around signed by Scorsese. To my mind 'House of Mirth' was a better movie with the wonderful X files woman Gillian Anderson. Lastly - a decent copy made $25 in 1968 in a jacket. Like Janeway says '.. this isn't an exact science.'

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 1885.

Have been away from my desk attending the sale of the books of a 1930s society person who seems to have known everybody including Lord Berners, Robert Byron and Paddy Leigh Fermor - I got some good things, which will appear in a pretentious catalogue come April. The auction was in Essex and they didn't take cheques. My remark that there must be a lot of villains in the area didn't go down too well. Credit cards or cash only. Today's book is by the great Twain. I recall that when he was hanging out with the cannibals he said something like 'I suppose you would like to eat me too' and was politely informed that the flesh of a heavy smoker and drinker was unpalatable to them.



Mark Twain. ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Charles Webster, New York, 1885.

Current Selling Prices
$13000 - $18000 / £6500 - £9000 Want level 50 - 75 High



CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE / JUVENILE FICTION.
Enduring US classic, up there with Moby Dick, Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Scarlet Woman. Hemingway, not necessarily reliable as a guide, opined: "All modern literature comes from one book by Mark Twain...It's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." Quite a high print run so not especially scarce and there are points to determine early states of the first edition, the most obvious of which are that the title page and page 283/4 are cancels (i.e. page has been replaced on a stub) and that at page 155, the final 5 is slightly dropped, or slightly bigger or entirely absent. Much argument about that five depending on which copy the dealer is attempting to sell. There are other points and a good deal of literary detection has gone into them, precedence is now fairly clearly established. Talking of which the 1884 British edition precedes the American by 4 months but is worth less -- presumably under the rules of 'follow the flag' (i.e. prefer the edition from the author's country.)

VALUE? The UK first is worth about a third of the US, but serious collectors like to have both. There is the story of the dealer who bought a copy privately lacking the front endpaper, when he remarked on this to the seller the chap said 'Yeah that had to go, some guy called Clemens wrote his name on it.' (An old chestnut-- sometimes it's Alice and 'some guy called Dodgson.') There are facsimiles of the first that occasionally turn up online with persons trying to sell them as the real thing; the first clue that something is wrong is that they are in unnaturally fine condition with bright white fore edges, don't be fooled.

The Arabian Nights. Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night.

I am trying to limit the number of multiple volume works. Often there are several different desirable editions. However we have done Proust so today are going for a Burton. John Simpson (our fearless white suited warzone reporter) in a recent article on book collecting reckons he hit a shop in USA with shelves of Burton firsts but the owner said "he wouldn't sell them to me for a dollar under their market value" because he thought Burton was Elizabeth Taylor's husband. What?!


THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night. A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. Translated and Annotated by Richard F. Burton. Burton Club (no place noted) (1903) 17 Volumes


FANTASY FICTION/ FOLKLORE /EROTICA
Much wanted in any edition although the 17 vol Burton Club edition is possibly the most fancied and appeared in 1000 copies only with the now rare 99 copy issue with a page of RFB's holograph manuscript (often missing) and some hand colouring. It can also appear in a handsome wooden traveling box for the touring roué. This is sometimes referred to as a 'mahogany casket.' The Benares edition and the Kamashastra edition which both precede the Burton Club edition are also much wanted, the latter being a Smithers production. Later sets include an unpleasant Easton edition in 'sumptuous' leather and a decent cloth facsimile in 17 vols lettered in gilt, and silver for the supplements. This edition used to be in almost every US used book shop for around $100. A good read.

Current Selling Prices
$3000+ / £1500+

VALUE? The Burton Club 1903 limited edition (1000) set is seldom less than $2000 and limpid sets rise to several K, the limited with the MS page about $20K and nice Kamashastra sets at well over $1000. Often elaborately rebound. Want level 50-75 High

Finnegans Wake...riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay

I went up to Berkeley (CAL) the other day and bought a few books at Moe's and the redoubtable Serendipity. Also bought some cheap DVD's at the enormous record shop Rasputin which is just down the road (Telegraph) from the equally enormous Amoeba. Those 2 shops have probably got more records in them than every record shop in Oxford and Cambridge and York. I bought the DVD for $12 of Fortunes of War (408 minutes) with Kenneth Branagh and the lovely Emma T, his then consort. My point (and I do have one) is this. KB alias Guy Pringle is teaching Finnegans Wake to his war torn students and at one point comes up with a slightly Joycean line 'when I hear the word gun I reach for my culture'. Whether it is in Olivia Manning's novels or not I am not sure, but it's a good motto and I am now living by it....


James Joyce. FINNEGANS WAKE. Faber & Faber,1939.

CLASSIC LITERATURE / EXPERIMENTAL FICTION
Landmark work of literary modernism, the greatest work in the canon, the key book... it opens thus: 'riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.' Riverrun btw is now the name of a decent California wine. Although trumpeted along with the infinitely more accessible Ulysses as one of the great unread books, many readers have read it several times and there are list - service groups on the web devoted to discussing it, sometimes word by word. Championed by Connolly and Burgess, the latter edited a shorter version of the work and the former described it as having 'passages of unearthly beauty.' Sometimes compared to The Beatles 'Revolution Number 9' - a brave work in the experimental realms but something of a cul-de-sac ( Connolly compared it to 'the unfinished obelisk which lies on its side at Assuan'.) The book is, however, collected and revered and also eagerly bought and dealt in by chaps who are usually handling Fleming, J K Rowling and Dick Francis. Joyce felt that the ideal reader would be someone who devoted his/her life to understanding the many meanings of the book (like the Koran.) His wish may be being fullfilled, even now on the infobahn.

VALUE? The signed limited edition is the most sought after and valuable with the highest prices for copies that still have the original publisher's yellow folding box. Can make over £8000 thus, the regular trade edition goes for about a £1000 nice in its maroon jacket. Jacketless copies are sometimes seen doing rather well on ebay, one sold recently at £400 from a seller who seemed to think Joyce was a woman (called Joyce?) The signed limited is constantly traded in auction at around the £5000 mark, the highest record being $15000 in 2002 for retired dealer Maurice Neville's copy described as 'unopened.' I have never heard of a signed presentation from Joyce and assume such a thing would go ballistic. JJ died in Zurich a year and a half after the book came out and was said to have been disappointed by its lacklustre reception. He felt that the ordinary man in the street would understand the book if it was merely read aloud to him. Might work on the right street in Berkeley.

Current Prices £1200+/ $2000+ Want level 25-50 Highish