To Drop a Dime: The Mafia Hit Man's Uncensored Story

A good comment came in this morning about Leon Krier's book on the Nazi architect Albert Speer. The person told of finding a copy and gave good info about how to get a copy and added that it was in English and French. This is the kind of input I hoped for when I started Bookride in November last year. Of course comments can be anything you like, except spam or flames, but something helpful about how to find the book and anecdotal evidence as to its rarity and value will always be especially helpful. Also any further useful observations about the work, like obscure points or other collectable editions.

So far most comments have been from teeny Rowling collectors with 33rd editions of the Goblet of Fire. Got to start somewhere and these readers are always welcome, one day they will move on to Kafka, King, Kierkegaard and Kerouac. Today it's the cosa nostra.



Current Selling Prices
$280-$480 /£140-£240 Want level 25-50 Highish


Paul Hoffman & Ira Pecznick: TO DROP A DIME. [The Mafia Hit Man's Uncensored Story]
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1976.

TRUE CRIME
Darn expensive but not especially rare book about a squealer who spilled the beans on New Jersey Campisi family. To 'drop a dime' refers to making a phone call from a phone booth. Probably the most expensive true crime book, although some JFK assassination theory books can just about match it. It was also a paperback by Jove Books, 1977. From the blurb on the back of the paperback:

"Ira Pecznick was a mafia hit man. Captured by the police, this professional killer took the ultimate gamble. He 'dropped a dime' -- turned state's evidence. His testimony sent a mafia family to prison. In return the law gave Ira Pecznick his freedom, a new name and a secret home far from the scene of his criminal life. Now, without apology and in naked detail, Ira Pecznick tells the story of his murderous career, his jungle-like world of fast money, casual sex and shocking violence and the sometimes subtle, sometimes savage operation of the mafia octopus whose tentacle he was. It is not pretty. It is true. And it just may scare the hell out of you."

VALUE? A copy of the paperback described (rather well for ebay) as ' solid and clean. Cover shows no obvious flaws, except spine has slight reader's crease, and is very, very slightly cocked...looks great overall for a 29 year-old paperback" made $180 in early Feb 2007. By the way 29 years is nothing in book life and the commonly used 'looks good for its age' (seldom used by decent dealers) is a bit of a red flag - it usually means 'rather worn.'

Meanwhile the hardback at a start bid of $599 attracted no bids, the jacket looked OK in the pic and was desctibed as slightly shelf worn. Book is not scarce just expensive and it is likely that before long dealers will break ranks on it and the price will gently fall as more copies become available for fewer punters. The book becomes 'net blown' --ABE is littered with once valuable books that the web has exposed as plentiful with the expensive ones hanging on year after year like deposed monarchs. Captain Corelli comes to mind, as always. The guys with copies 'Drop a Dime' at over $1000 are likely to have them until Godfather 8 comes out.

There are some who say that Pecznick shouldn't have done it and the Campisi family were allright but I've seen Goodfellas ( a much better movie than The Departed) and think of them all as petulant sociopaths as portrayed by the great Joe Pesci. Paul Hoffman was the ghost writer. The book 'Deal' by Harvey Aronson tells the same story for a lot less moolah.

Blast. Review of the Great English Vortex 1914 - 1915

Wyndham Lewis (edits.,) BLAST. Review of the Great English Vortex [numbers 1 and 2]. John Lane, the Bodley Head, London, 1914 - 1915

Current Selling Prices
$650-$3000 /£320-£1600



ART / LITERATURE / VORTICISM
The great (and only) literary manifestation of Vorticism, the short lived English art movement. Two art book size magazines published a year apart, the first breath of modernism on our island shores. Showing some influence from Futurism (especially Marinetti's Zang-tumb-tuuum) and arising about the same time as Dada but distinctly London based. Wyndham Lewis called his baby 'the puce monster' and most copies unless hopelessly tarnished still have that Pepto Bismol puce that must, in 1914, have been to current art like Punk Rock was to popular music in 1977*.

The English are not given to manifestos but this is what a manifesto shoud look and sound like. At first sight it seems totally original but there are precedents for the look of the thing in 19th century wall posters, proclamations, evangelical tracts and the style of electioneeering handbills and circus and theatre adverts. For the benefit of Mr. Kite etc., The 1914 issue has articles, and poems by Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, Rebecca West, Edward Wadsworth, Gaudier Brzeska, illustrations by Edward Wadsworth, Wyndham Lewis, Frederick Etchells, William Roberts, Jacob Epstein, Gaudier Brzeska, Cuthbert Hamilton and Spencer Gore.

The second and final number (The War Number) came out in July, 1915 with articles by Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, Gaudier-Breska, Ford Madox Hueffer, T. S. Eliot, Jessica Dissmorr, H. Sanders, 17 woodcut illustrations by Dismorr, Etchells, William Roberts, Gaudier-Brzeska, Kramer, Nevinson, Roberts, Cuthbert Atkinson, Helen Saunders, Dorothy Shakespear, Edward Wadsworth. Spelling and grammar have been criticised - Lewis was a poor proof reader, but the brazen Nietzschean energy behind the project can be felt even today. [Want level 15-25 Moderate ]

Blast was a direct attack on Victorianism, Salon Art, the Georgians, English snobbery, French especially Parisian art, English humour ('putrefaction of Guffaws') 'cosmopolitan sentimentality', 'feeble Europeanism' and the nascent Bloomsbury Group inter alia, advocating in their place abstract, geomentic and mechanical elements in art, and precision and concision in poetry. The Imagist school of poetry had some of the same members and is closely related. The implacable Lewis would return to satirising and attacking the Bloomsburys in 'The Apes of God' (1930).

VALUE? Even distressed and lived in copies especially of the puce issue go for £200. Fresh, bright and clean sets are blasted rare and can make over £2000. A reasonable copy with some palpable wear is on sale in Ireland at £450, we moved a half decent slightly restored 1914 copy on the mighty ebay at about $1100 in 2006.

The first issue is more vulnerable than the second, it is also more desirable. It's the puce. There is a very interesting set on sale at present which were Lewis's own copies and although in somewaht bohemian condition are priced at $6500. A very good reprint came out in the 1980s from Black Sparrow with a third issue in homage and even a record.

The whole of the first issue can be found at the Norton College site. Here is a sample, the Vorts are having a go at Paris:

BLAST APERITIFS (Pernots, Amers picon)
Bad change
Naively seductive Houri salon-
picture Cocottes
Slouching blue porters (can
carry a pantechnicon)

Stupidity rapacious people at
every step
Economy maniacs
Bouillon Kub

(for being a bad
pun)
PARIS
Clap-trap Heaven of amative German
professor.
Ubiquitous lines of silly little trees.
Arcs de Triomphe.
Imperturbable, endless prettiness.
Large empty cliques, higher up.
Bad air for the individual.
BLAST
MECCA OF THE AMERICAN
because it is not other side of Suez Canal,
instead of an
afternoon’s ride from London.

As well as blasting the Vorticists could also bless, here is a long list of those blessed (some online versions have a few footnotes)

BLESS
Bridget
Berrwolf
Bearline
Cranmer Byng
Frieder Graham
The Pope
Maria de Tomaso
Captain Kemp Munroe
Gaby
Jenkins
R. B. Cuningham Grahame (not his brother)
Barker (John and Granville)
Mrs. Wil Finnimore
Madame Strindberg
Carson
Salvation Army
Lord Howard de Walden
Capt. Craig
Charlotte Corday
Cromwell
Mrs. Duval
Mary Robertson
Lillie Lenton
Frank Rutter
Castor Oil
James Joyce
Leveridge
Lydia Yavorska
Preb. Carlyle Jenny
Mon. le compte de Gabulis
Smithers
Dick Burge
33 Church Street
Sievier
Gertie Millar
Norman Wallis
Miss Fowler
Sir Joseph Lyons
Martin Wolff
Watt
Mrs. Hepburn
Alfree
Tommy
Captain Kendell
Young Ahearn
Wilfred Walter
Kate Lechmere
Henry Newbolt
Lady Aberconway
Frank Harris
Hamel
Gilbert Canaan
Sir James Mathew Barry
Mrs. Belloc Lowdnes
W. L. George
Rayner
George Robey
George Mozart
Harry Weldon
Chaliapine
George Hirst
Graham White
Hucks
Salmet
Shirley Kellogg
Bandsman Rice
Petty Officer Curran
Applegarth
Konody
Colin Bell
Lewis Hind
LEFRANC
Hubert
Commercial Process Co.

* In fact there was something of a revival of Vorticism at this time with a coterie based in Fulham loosely known as the Neo-Vorticists who produced the fanzine 'Dat Sun' which blasted and blessed current London figures such as Malcolm McLaren, Emperor Rosko and Monty Modlyn. Now highly uncommon.

The Lion's Paw. Robb White. 1946

After yesterday's highspot of highspots something more modest. I had an email from someone who seemed to know his (or her) onions suggesting other works of 19th Century literature of greater or comparative value to Emily Bronte's masterpiece - they suggested another Poe from 1843 'The Prose Romances' which apparently made $230K in 2000. Must look out for that one. Also Yeats's Mosada (1886) which made twice as much as Wuthering Heights when they were in auction together in the late 1990. Autres temps, autres moeurs. Looking back at that sale it appears that the playing field was not even - Mosada was pretty nice, 'Heights' was a bit crap. Also the Communist Manifesto which can make £100K but to my mind isn't a work of literature. A good read however.

On the subject of Russia it is conceivable that with the oligarchs on the prowl Tolstoy or Dostoevsky ('the supreme novelist') could make massive sums. However a runner who sells to their buyers says that they favour blingy books that are beautifully illustrated. A first of Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal (one of 22) was also suggested and that impossible and most likely non existent book that Joyce is said to have written when he was 9 - the bitter broadside poem against Parnell's betrayers entitled "Et tu Healy," which John Joyce said he had printed - the holy grail of rarities. Et tu Healy? A likely story.*

Robb White. THE LION 'S PAW. Doubleday, NY 1946.

Current Selling Prices
$250-$400 /£120-£200 Want level 25-50 Highish

CHILDREN"S LITERATURE
Good yarn of two children, Nick and Penny, who escape from an orphanage and help Ben, a boy who refuses to accept the status of an orphan. The three sail away on Ben's father's ship to the Gulf of Mexico, in search of an elusive shell, the lion's paw. They find Ben's missing father, who has been rescued from "the Japs"; they discover the shell they are seeking; and they are all very happy -- reminiscent of Arthur Ransome , lively children, adventures and sailing.

Robb White based it on his travels as a naval officer in the Phillipines WW2. He wrote about 20 books incIuding PRIVATEER'S BAY (1939) an autobiographical book about buying a small island in the British Virgins, reissued in 1953 as OUR VIRGIN ISLAND. Many of his books are fairly common, even in Britain.

VALUE? An ebay special. A jacketless reprint from 1992 signed by the great man is a BIN at $200 as we speak and 3 copies are on ABE at $300 - $575. one of which would appear to be a reprint. Doubleday books almost invariably state 'first edition' on the back of the title page. Nota Bene -- the dust jacket picture is courtesy of Grove Antiquarian specialists in the works of Robb White. Many thanks!

*The Joyce family always insisted they sent a copy to the Vatican for their library and some keen runner actually tried to find it there but failed. The intriguing thing is that there is said to be a printer's receipt for the item. Thomas J. Wise would have run up a copy if Joyce had been valuable in his time!

A Book of Bargains. Vincent O' Sullivan. 1896.

"What a midnight his soul seems to walk! And what maladies he draws from the moon." Oscar Wilde on O'Sullivan.

Vincent O' Sullivan. A BOOK OF BARGAINS. Leonard Smithers,, London 1896.

Current Selling Prices
$650-$1000 /£320-£520






DECADENT LITERATURE / 1890S/ HORROR / FANTASY
Several of O'Sullivan's books are much wanted. "A Book of Bargains' does show up at a price but his equally wanted but much rarer 1907 David Nutt published 'Human Affairs' is highly elusive. An American born writer who spent much of his life in Europe at first living well but ending up in the direst poverty. His parent's fortune was mismanged and misappropriated, one of his brothers killed himself over the loss but 'Sullivan carried on stoically. 2 of his books were published by the 1890s decadent publisher of Wilde and Beardsley Leonard Smithers, now a much collected publisher.

"A Book of Bargains' is a collection of morbid studies and stories somewaht in the line of fellow yank Poe but as Clute and Grant put it 'distinctly fin de siecle in their sin-soaked diabolism.' One of the stories, the after-death nightmare "When I Was Dead" is considered a minor masterpiece. He was a key figure in the decadent movement that was loosely based around 'The Yellow Book', Smithers, Wilde, the Cafe Royal and poets like Dowson and Lionel Johnson. Several of his early works like 'Houses of Sin' (1897) are decadent poetry. They are also wanted and worth money.

A good collection of his short stories 'Master of Fallen Years, Complete Supernatural Stories of Vincent O'Sullivan 'was published in 1995 by Ghost Story Press (London), 1995. There is a very good essay on him by Jessica Amanda Salmonson of Violet Books.It has many details of his amazing life. [ Want level 15-25 Modest ]

VALUE? Several online at between £300 and £600, one dealer holding 3 which is not encouraging. To get serious you either want a superb copy or an association copy. The text is prone to foxing. A copy inscribed to Swinburne's friend and protector Theodore Watts Dunton made £420 8 years ago.

As mentioned above his 1907 work 'Human Affairs' which has some fantasy stories is more difficult, much wanted and probably of equal or greater value. 'Houses of Sin' isn't especially scarce - in fact I think I have a copy online somehere.

Decadence is one of those movements where each writer tries to take it a little further. Front runners usually include Wilde, Huysmans, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Wedekind, Viereck, Wratislaw, Kuzmin, Gumiliev,Jean Lorrain, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Catulle Mendès, Rachilde, Robert de Montesquiou, Edmund John, Stanislas de Guaita, Count Stenbock, Andre Raffalovitch, Dowson, Ada Leverson, Vernon Lee, Olive Custance and the Eckhart Tolle of the decdent movement Walter 'hard gem like flame' Pater. The leader is usually Lautreamont with his staggeringly decadent Les Chants de Maldoror. In a catalogue entry for this outfit in 2005 Martin Stone came up with a chap who would seem to outdo even Lautreamont. It's Edouard Dubus author of 'Quand Les Violons sont Partis' (Paris 1892) MS wrote: 'A crucial book of symbolist verse, sulphurously decadent. Much admired by fellow poets, Dubus was plagued by insanity, occult delusions and drug addiction, and, on release from an insane asylum, was found dead from a morphine overdose in the pissoir of Place Maubert in the Paris Latin Quarter..." A current description in French echoes Martin's 'sulphurously decadent' - "Figure extrême du mouvement décadent, opiomane et morphinomane...' Dubus takes the biscuit when it comes to decadence.

The last word on decadence comes from no nonsense people's poet Robert Service:

Oh Wilde, Verlaine, and Baudelaire,
their lips were wet with wine,
Oh poseur, pimp, and libertine!
Oh cynic, sot, and swine!
Oh voteries of velvet vice! . . .
Oh gods of light divine.

The Naked Lunch. William S. Burroughs. 1959

William S. Burroughs. THE NAKED LUNCH. Olympia Press, Paris, 1959.

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


MODERN FIRST EDITION / DRUG LITERATURE
Key work of beat and drug literature. Burroughs drug of choice was heroin. Smack and sodomy. He was outspokenly gay, something uncommon in the fifties. His frankness in dealing with these issues and the sureness of his prose style won him great respect among fellow beats. The book is a green paperback like most Olympia Press books. It can come in a mauve and white stiffish jacket. The first issue of the book should have the 'old franc' price on the rear cover i.e. 1500 Francs and a green border around the title page.

VALUE? 5000 copies were printed so it isn't scarce but bright fresh first state copies in jacket can get catalogued at up to 5 even 6000 dollars. Whether this is achieved is difficult to say. Used and well read copies can make a $100 and over, we sold a loathsome copy on ebay for $200 ( the guy never paid but that's another story.) The US Grove Press that some optimists want over a $1000 for is, in fact , a bit of dog and decent copies can be had in the low hundreds. 3500 were printed ('a tiny printing' proclaims one online duffer.) With Burroughs nothing is predictable - a copy of a Grove first inscribed to Paul Bowles was said to have changed hands in 2005 for the price of a very high end Mercedes, kind of a freak not to say bananas price and likely never to be repeated until the year 2525. Apart from a taste for bangh and boys there is little to connect the two cats. Meanwhile slightly duff copies of the Olympia edition are traded daily on ebay at modest prices. There are 6 of the Olympia and 5 of the Grove up there this very day.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Roald Dahl, 1964.

Roald Dahl. CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Knopf, NY 1964.

Current Selling Prices
$2800+ /£1500+ Want level 25-50 Highish

CHILDREN'S BOOK
An adventure of one Willy Wonka and 'four nasty children + 'his famous candy plant.' Valuable Dahl book about on a par with his earlier Gremlins. Filmed to some success in 2005 starring book collector Johnny Depp. Also in 1971 with Gene Wilder. Depp's brother Dan used to have a bookshop in Santa Cruz, CAL, the late, lamented Frugal Bookman on Mission. It was the 'frugal' that did for it. A good guy, but not quite in the same league as Johnny when they were handing out the visages. But who is? Oddly the US edition of Charlie precedes the UK by 3 years and has a point on it- you need 6 lines of printing info on the last page, later issues have five. And definitely no ISBN number on the rear panel and with the price $3.95 on the front flap. By such trivia we live and breathe.

VALUE? Confusing book-- a very decent one sold in mid 2006 on ebay for $4800. However, one acceptable copy has been on the web at $2700 for so long that the guy is trumpeting it as an investment for when the Jim Carey 2005 movie (sic) comes out. Movies, actually, don't always help and the word investment often says 'Noli Tangere' with a bargepole. A few copies at north of $5000 have been around for a while, it doesnt quite seem to be happening at much more than $5K. Some confusion as to the staining of the top edge, one world renowned dealer calls it puce, another equally stellar dealer calls it chocolate. Can puce fade to chocolate? Or vice versa? A good book inscribed, Dahl signatures are not plentiful - one made nigh on $10K at the Cosmatos sale and later in 2005 another signed made $8k. These prices have flushed out a lot of copies of this once rare book. A book that seems to do best in the white heat of an auction.

Express to Hollywood. Victor McLaglen. 1934.

Sorry have been off the air for 3 days while I completed the complicated process of turning this blog into a website. Please note it's now called www.bookride.com. The name has no real meaning, it was just available at the time, but it seems curiously suitable with its suggestions of horseracing, being taken for a ride, bookies, punters, touts and a merry adventure. Buying books is a bit of a punt and I am here to point out the favourites and the starting prices, the winners, the losers and the outsiders. Can't stretch the metaphor much further...today's hot tip is howling rare - Jarrolds was an interesting publisher.

Victor McLaglen. EXPRESS TO HOLLYWOOD. Jarrolds, London, 1934.

Current Selling Prices
$600-$800? /£300-£400? Want level 25-50 Highish

MOVIES / BOXING / AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Autobiography by Hollywood hard man and ex boxer recalling his wildly adventurous career prior to entering the movies. McLaglen was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. His father, a bishop, moved the family to South Africa when McLaglen was a child. He left home at fourteen to join the army with the intention of fighting in the Second Boer War. However much to his chagrin, he was stationed at Windsor Castle and was later forced to leave the army when his true age was discovered. From 1904 - 1920 he was a boxer and in 1918 McLaglen won the Heavyweight Championship of the British Army. The Wikiman says of this unfindable book "His tale of the road, his odyssey from his native England through Canada and the western United States, details his long-held desire to be a professional prizefighter, climaxing in a no-decision fight with world heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. McLaglen supplements his story with vignettes of life as a farmer, gold and silver prospector, wrestler, policeman, soldier, vaudeville performer, miner, pearl fisher, big-game hunter, and sign-painter. In all likelihood the only Academy Award-winning actor ever, past or future, also to be Assistant Provost Marshal of the city of Baghdad, McLaglen writes a story that reads as though Jack London had written it. He writes with candor and humility, and with style. It is am immensely enjoyable book, and the fact that McLaglen was at the time of its writing only beginning to achieve the fame and popularity that would maintain his career nearly another three decades is both astonishing and a bit disappointing: it would have been wonderful to read his accounts of the next quarter century...." Of course he went on to make "The Informer," "The Quiet Man," and "What Price Glory?". Book is wanted by movie buffs and boxing collectors. I have trod on his name on Hollywood Boulevard where, as Ray Davies has it, his name "is written in concrete."

VALUE? 18 years ago someone paid $120 for a signed photo at Darvick , there is a BIN for an insubstantial clipped note at ebay $250. He wasn't John Wain, who can go very high indeed, but for some reason hard guy's signatures are often pricy.
No record of the book anywhere. Unknown to science. Jarrolds books tended to have funky colourful jackets so it would look good and could be worth a few hundred of your British pounds. Sans jacket still very good, people want to read it.

Book of Mormon. 1830.

Joseph Smith. BOOK OF MORMON. AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MORMON, UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI...Printed by E.B. Grandin for the author, Palmyra, N. Y. 1830.








RELIGION
The sacred text of the Church of Latter Day Saints (The Mormons.) A 590 page 8vo book which according to COPAC is 8 inches tall. Always seems to appear in a leather (calf or sheep) binding (possibly issued unbound). Much wanted. More accessible is the British first edition published in Liverpool in 1841 which is worth about 20% of the US first. Its genesis is probably explained best in this succinct piece from Wikipedia (to which much praise and thanks) "Joseph Smith, Jr. said the book was a translation of Golden Plates he found in a hill near his home, guarded by an angel. Smith had no knowledge of ancient languages, but he said he received the translation from God through the act of looking into seer stones, or a set of crystal spectacles he said were with the plates, which were called the Urim and Thummim. During the translation, Smith obtained the affidavits of Three Witnesses and Eight Witnesses who testified they saw the plates. These affidavits are published as part of the Book of Mormon. When Smith's translation was complete, he said the guardian angel took them back." 5000 copies were printed at a cost of $3000 and they were sold from the printer's building in Palmyra. The Grandin building was bought by the Church in 1978 and is now a museum (see picture.)

Current Selling Prices
$35000-$75000 / £20000-£40000


VALUE? With 5000 printed and being a book that was always valued and preserved, it is not notably uncommon. 31 copies have appeared at auction in the last 30 years making between $1000 and $70000. It is often lacking the 2 page index, something that appears to hardly affect the price. The 2 page preface is sometimes also missing and that can dent the price. Quite a lot of library copies have surfaced, possibly being sold to raise money -- they tend to make significantly less. Copies in poorish condition can still do pretty well, a phenomenon peculiar to religious books. Copies were making under $5000 way into the 1990s but in this century it has almost always made over $40K. It's price seems to have taken of in 1997/1998 -possibly with the rise of the internet or greater general affluence and interest in possessing landmark works. [Want level 50 - 75 High]



STOP PRESS. March 22 2007. A first edition Book of Mormon, in its original binding, that was signed by early LDS apostle Orson Pratt, and with an inscription by its owner, Denison Root, indicating "the book was a gift from Hyrum Smith," brother of church founder Joseph Smith sold for $180,000. A new record for the book and showing the power of provenace and association. Root was married to Phoebe Hale, sister to Emma Hale, who was the wife of Joseph Smith.

Extreme Rock: Great British Rock Climbs

Ken Wilson and Bernard Newman. EXTREME ROCK: GREAT BRITISH ROCK CLIMBS. Diadem Press, UK, 1987 ISBN 0906371368


Current Selling Prices
$450-$800 /£220-£420 Want level 25-50 Highish

CLIMBING / MOUNTAINEERING / SPORT
A now uncommon and quite pricy climbing book. Climbing and mountaineering are good subjects with a large customer base willing to spend money. It is a hard section to keep stocked in a shop. The author's stated aim was to provide a snapshot of the best of what Britain had to offer and to encourage climbers to try different areas. A note on the web by a keen climber who had done every climb in this book states: 'Note that there is currently no access to Chapter 39 - Grea Wall, Craig y Forwyn due to the landowner objecting to the behaviour of some climbers at the crag...' What was going on there? Bernard Newman, the co author appears on one fantasy fiction site with this book and works going back to the 1920s attributed to him. I am certain that this is the other Bernard Newman (1897 -1987) the prolific espionage novelist author of 'German Spy' (1937). The climbing Newman is probably a great deal younger and alive enough to co-write a book. These confusions happen alot.

VALUE? Copy at UK Bookworld for £250 described thus: 'True first printing, not a later print run [which has a ISBN mark on the rear dustjacket]. 11" by 9". Pp xi, 296. Many photographic illustrations. A superb near fine copy in a near fine dustjacket ( price clipped). No inscriptions. Heavy book, photo essays..." One appreciates a dealer who describes what he or she has, some merely give author title and price. Name, rank and serial number-- sometimes with a catchall condition description 'may show some wear.' Copies at ABE at £395 and £495, the latter with a specialist. A reprint could lower the price.

Gadsby. A Story of Over 50.000 Words Without Using the Letter E. 1939

After surfboards and Booker novels something truly odd and rather rare. When I first came into the trade (around the time when Sweet were singing 'Ballroom Blitz' and footballers had long sideburns) a lot of people wanted strange and odd books, the more outlandish the better - now they all want 'The Man with the Golden Gun' and they want look under the wrapper to see if the embossed gilt gun is there. * Sic transit gloria mundi. However all is not lost, a veritable barmy army want Gadsby...

Ernest Vincent Wright. GADSBY. A STORY OF OVER 50,000 WORDS WITHOUT USING THE LETTER E. Wetzel, Los Angeles, 1939.

Current Selling Prices
$4000 / £2200 Want level 50 - 75 High


EXPERIMENTAL FICTION / ODDBALLIANA
A literary curiosity and a legendary rarity. Much sought after. The author E.V. Wright (1872-1939) wrote Gadsby in five and a half months, on a typewriter with the e tied down, "so that none of that vowel might slip in, accidentally". He finished his work about the middle of February 1937, and the typescript was illustrated in The Los Angeles times on 24 March. After seeking a publisher for 2 years Wright finally settled on a vanity press in LA. It is said that the publication of Gadsby coincided exactly with the author's death on 7 October 1939; however a copy is known with an inscription dated two months earlier and the copyright-deposit copy was received five months later. From the introduction:

"People as a rule will not stop to realize what a task such an attempt actually is. As I wrote along, in long-hand at first, a whole army of little E's gathered around my desk, all eagerly expecting to be called upon. But gradually as they saw me writing on and on, without even noticing them, they grew uneasy; and, with excited whisperings amongst themselves, began hopping up and riding on my pen, looking down constantly for a chance to drop off into some word; for all the world like seabirds perched, watching for a passing fish! But when they saw that I had covered 138 pages of typewriter size paper, they slid onto the floor, walking sadly away, arm in arm; but shouting back: "You certainly must have a hodge-podge of a yarn there without *us*! Why, man! We are in every story ever written *hundreds of thousands of times! This is the first time we ever were shut out!.."

A book much admired by the Pataphysicians and Oulipans esp Perec and Queneau who both searched for copies. The rarity is due to one of those warehouse fires that so frequently occur in the history of unfindable books (Nabokov's Despair, Beckett's Murphy, Moby Dick and Forster's Alexandria to name a few -- enemy action is also a great rarity creator...) Wetzel's novelty warehouse went up in a mighty blaze (a fireman died) along with most copies of the ill fated novel, it was never reviewed and only kept alive by the efforts of a few avant garde French intellos and assorted connoisseurs of the odd, weird and zany. It has been reprinted this century. Perec, of course,also wrote an e-less book 'La Disparition' (Paris 1969). Possibly in honour of Gadsby it was also 50,000 words. These books with grammatical restrictions are now known aa 'Lipograms'. Perec's work was translated into English sans e's as "A Void' by the brave Gilbert Adair.

VALUE? 'Gadsby' first editions occasionally surface, seldom in sparkling condition and for jacketless copies dealers tend to try for about $4000 to $5000, less for ropy ones. A reasonable jacketless first sold in early 2006 for $3000. An unpleasant sounding defective copy is listed at £850, signed by the author's sister. A nice copy wearing jacket might go ballistic but interest in such curiosities tends to be among persons unburdened with large amounts of cash, so who knows?

*In re the golden gun under the d/w: Mostly it is not present because the printers ran into production problems but it is said 400 got through with the embossed golden gun on the cover and it can add a £2000 or more to the price, good hunting!

Holiday. Stanley Middleton. 1974.

Stanley Middleton. HOLIDAY. Hutchinson, London, 1974.

Current Selling Prices
$3000-$4000 /£1500-£2000 Want level 50 - 75 High

MODERN FIRST EDITION / BOOKER PRIZE WINNER
Much desired and elusive novel with many collectors after it, some having to put up with second editions. It was the joint winner of the prestigious Booker Prize and will always be a 'stopper' in any collection of them. It shared the prize money (£5000) with 'The Conservationist' by Nadine Gordimer. It is the rarest and most valuable of Booker books, although 'Midnight's Children' runs very close. I am not a big fan of Booker as I find it has a rather dull Waterstone's view of the world, middlebrow, middle class and Middle England. I once bought all the entries for one year off one of the judges, Joanna Lumley, who having not voted for that year's winner was slightly reluctant to autograph it for me to push up its value. It was the dire Keri Hulme book 'The Bone People.' Even with the lovely JL's ownership signature it was hard to shift.

In Middleton's novel a married man returns alone to the seaside town where he used to holiday as a child. Described in a review as '...a multi-layered story of marriage, death, seduction and separation... Holiday is a novel about lives in crisis.' Apparently he is known as 'God's Spy' for his stunning observational powers, also 'the forgotten man of post-war British literary culture.' Book was rejected by 20 publishers.

VALUE? There are currently 2 copies on ABE at circa £1250, both second impressions described as 'First edition, second impression' which you have to do to sell it. I think they have been there a while. A BIN copy sits on ebay at £1050 which the small print reveals as a second impression, another 2nd impression is Buy it Now (BIN) at $2350-- in fact the second impression is not scarce and probably not worth even a grand.A signed decentish 2nd imp was seen at ILAN at $1300 and a true first, signed but in not very nice, ex library condition sits on UK Amazon at a gouging and unrealistic £1500. Best not to buy ex library books unless you need them for study. The real first in very good nick is bloody hard and you could take a holiday with the money. Say £1600 - £2000, but one can easily imagine somebody trying for twice that. Confused by dollars and pounds? Think 2 dollars to one pound.

Hawaiian Surfboard. Tom Blake. 1935.

Tom Blake. HAWAIIAN SURFBOARD. Paradise of the Pacific Press, Hawaii, 1935.

Current Selling Prices
$2000+ /£1100+ Want level 25-50 Highish

SURFING/ THE SEA / SPORT / HAWAIIANA
Early book by a legendary surfer (1902 - 1994) something of a disciple of the great Hawaiian surfer and Olympic swimming champion Duke Kahanamoku, he was the first person to surf the waves at Malibu and the originator of the surfing lifestyle and outlook. A spiritual man, influenced by Duke Kahanamoku's ancient beliefs he formulated a belief system that was based on the pantheistic idea of “Nature=God" he practiced this faith out-of-doors in what he called “The Blessed Church Of The Open Sky.” A recent authorised biography of Blake by his friend Gary Lynch has appeared 'The Uncommon Journey of a Pioneer Waterman' that seems pretty definitive. One review reads: 'If the sport's most influential waterman so much as whittled a breadfruit branch, it's in here. Co-author Gault-Williams painstakingly documented Lynch's words with over 700 footnotes, and the photographic inventory is of Smithsonian-style depth. This is an important book, and in many ways, a landmark. Ignore it at the peril of your heritage.' Chapters in the original book include "Riding the Breakers on this Hollow Hawaiian Surfboard."

VALUE? No copies on the web although 'Hawaiian Surfriders 1935' a renamed reissue is around at circa $100. A copy in its original illustrated tapa cloth, a bit foxed, made $900 at Pacific Book Auctions in 1997, another copy made $2280 at Sotheby's last year with the cloth described as 'Kapa.' Copies, possibly an earlier issue, are known in plain cloth and d/w, the tapa cloth being slightly later but more attractive. A copy in a surf memorabilia auction in Hawaii recently was estimated beteen $3500 and $4500 so it appears to be a book on the move. I am not sure of the strength of surf books as a market, alot depends on the enthusiasm and affluence of the collectors, which is why golf books became valuable. Here in Santa Cruz (where I am currently typing this) surf is anyone's game, young, old, rich and broke - but you see some pretty fancy cars in the car park at Pleasure Point.

Lethem / Plagiarism / The Litigator in the Rye

Having now finished the article by Jonathan Lethem in January Harper's ''The Ecstasy of Influence. A Plagiarism' l finally get the drift of his banter. Much of the article is a collage of pieces from other writers. It is, as signalled in the title, a plagiarism in itself - this is explained in copious footnotes of attribution at the end. It is a sustained attack on our litigious, over proprietorial culture. A classic example give by Lethem is this:

A few years ago, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced a retrospective of the works of Dariush Mehrjui, then a fresh enthusiasm of mine. Mehrjui is one of Iran's finest filmmakers, and...opportunities to view his films were—and remain—rare indeed. I headed uptown for one, an adaptation of J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey, titled Pari, only to discover at the door of the Walter Reade Theater that the screening had been canceled: its announcement had brought threat of a lawsuit down on the Film Society. True, these were Salinger's rights under the law. Yet why would he care that some obscure Iranian filmmaker had paid him homage with a meditation on his heroine? Would it have damaged his book or robbed him of some crucial remuneration had the screening been permitted? The fertile spirit of stray connection—one stretching across what is presently seen as the direst of international breaches—had in this case been snuffed out. The cold, undead hand of one of my childhood literary heroes had reached out from its New Hampshire redoubt to arrest my present-day curiosity.

I guess the one thing a litigious geezer like Salinger cannot sue for is for someone calling him litigious. Think about it. That line of Lethem's about the 'cold, undead hand' reaching out, although unattributed by him certainly rings a bell. Lethem's article is almost a manifesto, and having worked in a bookshop for 10 years the dude has paid his dues (see post of 15 February). As Eliot said "Immature poets borrow, mature poets steal." Rave on.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Beatrix Potter.

Beatrix Potter.THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT
Privately printed for the author by Strangeways, London, (1901 and 1902)

Current Selling Prices
$15000-$80000 /£8000-£45000 Want level 25-50 Highish

CHILDREN"S LITERATURE
In 1893, a young Beatrix Potter, on holiday with her parents in Scotland, composed a letter to cheer up the child of her former governess, ill with rheumatic fever. "My dear Noel," she began, "I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits, whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter." The Tale of Peter Rabbit was born. When the manuscript was rejected by several publishers (inc Warne), Potter published the first two private editions of Peter Rabbit at her own expense. It helped that she had money and she was soon to make a great deal more. Both editions totalled only 450 copies and sold out immediately. The first was 250 and the second 200, neither are dated. They are distinguished by the first having a flat spine and the second state a round spine + some minor textual changes. Publisher Frederick Warne agreed to print the first trade edition of Peter Rabbit and presented for the first time the now-familiar format of the book; the earlier black-and-white line drawings were replaced with full-colour illustrations, and the famous prancing image of Peter was mounted on the front cover. First state of the published text has "wept big tears" on page 51, the white dot in the "o's" on the cover and leaf patterned end papers, also the first trade edition contains four colour plates that do not appear after the fourth impression. By the way "wept big tears" was changed to "shed big tears" in the 4th printing, such minutiae can mean goodly sums of money. The real firsts are 5.25 inches x 4 inches in size. Margaret Lane noted: "The size of the book being in accordance with Potter’s own ideas of what a child’s books should be like - small enough for little hands to hold, and printed on stout paper." There is a colour frontispiece, (showing Peter in bed and Mrs Rabbit feeding him Camomile tea) and 41 b/w line drawings, each opposite a page of text. Potter first editions are notoriously difficult to recognise, often relying on recondite 'points', pictorial endpapers, publisher's addresses etc., The date on the title page is often a good start and condition is important as they can turn up pathetically worn.

VALUE? True first state firsts have made as much as $90K in auction this century (the Schiller copy in 2004) a signed one made $80K in 2000, second states about half that. A 'slightly shaken' second state copy made $22K 10 years ago with the ownership signature of Noel Moore, the little boy for whom the story was written. The most remarkable result said at the time to be the highest ever price for a 20th century first edition was in May 1994 - £63,250, achieved at Sotheby's, the copy was given by the author to Zipporah Robinson, a member of the domestic staff at her grandfather's Hertfordshire home. It carried the inscription, "For Zipporah from Beatrix Potter, Christmas 1901". Warne's trade firsts of Peter Rabbit can make over £8K and it makes good money right up to the 4th state. The movie 'Miss Potter' starring Renee Zellweger has been well received and the book seems to be holding its own financially. Some of it was filmed around Cecil Court, the bookseller's row of London. There is talk of an Oscar...

Lamont the Lonely Monster. Dean Walley.

I was sounding off yesterday about an egregious web price and later in quiet reflection tried to work out how a person who is probably otherwise a pleasant individual, not giving to chewing carpets or shouting at bus queues, could come up with £800 for a recently out of print insubstantial and slightly obscure academic book (Lady with a Mead Cup.) It dawned on me that this is how it came about.
Firstly copies start appearing at about £300 and actually sell. While they are still around a RELISTER (the villain of the piece) relists the genuine copies at £900. Slightly dim guy flown with greed and ambition gets a genuine copy and sees the £900 price and not realising that it's a relister's price and puts £800 on his. All cheaper copies sell, pragmatic relister takes his off with no copies except the slightly risky £800 one to re-sell. £800 left now on its own looking rather silly. This process happens alot and explains many a daft price on the web. One might call it a 'ghost price.' The clue is that relisters almost always go for a treble up. They list 100s of thousands of books on many sites and wait for some poor bastard to come along and order at their inflated price and then they (the relister) buy the book from a dealer who has it at a fraction of theirs. I doubt it's the kind of business that gets you a new Porsche but it might support an unglamorous SUV. As they say in France Je m'en fous.

Dean Walley. LAMONT THE LONELY MONSTER. Hallmark Editions, Kansas 1970.

Current Selling Prices
$90-$180 £50-£100 Want level 15-30 Quite High



CHILDREN'S BOOK
USA kid's book for the very young, prob desired by people who grew up with it who now want to read it to their nippers. Lamont was very lonely and had knocked on 77 doors 'without finding even one friend' but his social life got alot better when a little boy took him to Monster Mansion. Ebay special (true of most US children's books.) "A Hallmark Play-Time Book With Lift-and-Look Surprises" says the blurb and the lift flaps are often in less than great shape, so a super copy with all flaps fine would probably get well into 3 figures.

VALUE? Copies around from $100 to $200 depending on condition. A half decent copy sold at ebay auction for $210 mid 2006.

Lady with a Mead Cup. Ritual, Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Téne to the Viking Age

Michael Enright. LADY WITH A MEAD CUP. RITUAL PROPHECY AND LORDSHIP IN THE EUROPEAN WARBAND FROM LA TENE TO THE VIKING AGE. Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1995.

Current Selling Prices
$350-$750 /£200-£400 ISBN 1851821880



MEDIAEVAL HISTORY
Celtic influence on Teutonic culture; scholarly work without 'New Age' or 'Goddess' trappings - odd that it is so much wanted -- possibly it's on college reading lists. 'This title is currently out of stock' is the notice at the Four Courts website. Their puff for the book goes:-

Lady with a Mead Cup is a broad-ranging, innovative and strikingly original study of the early medieval barbarian cup-offering ritual and its social, institutional and religious significance. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology and philology and medieval history, Professor Enright has produced the first work in English on the warband and on the significance of barbarian drinking rituals. Taking Beowulf as his point of departure, he studies the place of these rituals in the Germanic warband, their importance in terms of status creation, and the role of women in their administration.

They also quote a pertinent review-'Enright goes further than most authors in terms of both scope and detail, tracing the role of the lord's female companion back to the beginning of La Téne culture ... What eventually emerges is a surprisingly consistent picture of the leader and his lady in whom we find much of the ritual and prophecy of the book's title' J.A. Tasioulas, Medium Aoeum. Last year we bought a few boxes of books published by this expensive and estimable Irish scholarly press and they went, as they say in Canada, 'like snow off a dike.' I trust the lady with the cup was not among them!

VALUE? There were several used copies at Amazon between $300 and $500 about 9 months ago. They have all sold and only one remains at a slightly barking $1600. They have managed to find that grail of buffoon booksellers - the price at which no one will buy the book. Possibly if Robbie Williams or Donald 'Badhair' Trump suddenly get interested in La Tene it will sell. Before the net when booksellers had to price by instinct a bookseller might put £30 on this max, half of its putative in print price. I suspect that copies come and go against the madhatter price possibly for as much as $800. It will probably get reprinted at some point, the author himself is quoted as saying it is not worth more than $200. [Want level 25-50 Highish ]

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. C.S. Lewis, 1950.

C.S. Lewis. THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Bles, London, 1950.

Current Selling Prices
$8500-$16000 / £4200-£8200 Want level 25-50 Highish




CHILDREN'S BOOK / MODERN FIRST EDITION
The first, the most desirable, the most expensive and the rarest of the 7 Narnias. The Silver Chair is sometimes held to be the most difficult but only by those holding it, as it were. Fellow inkling J R R Tolkien was a little dismissive of the work at the time, disliking its overt religious message and its overly avuncular style. I have heard it said that he advised his old mate 'Jack' (as Lewis was known) not to publish it! It is also said that Lewis got the idea from a little girl (part of a bunch of evacuees who had stayed at his house during the war) who became fascinated by an old wardrobe and wanted to explore inside it. The wardrobe theme turns up in other Children's stories notably Edith Nesbit's 'The Aunt and Abel' and Lynne Reid Banks 'The Indian in the Cupboard.' As George Sayer says in his Lewis bio "From the very beginning, despite all the reviewers’ apprehensions, children loved the Narnia stories. More than any stories that I can think of, they appeal to all sorts of children. It is easy to find children who are left cold by Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows; it is rare to find those who enjoy reading yet are not delighted by the Narnia stories." Right on. Many thanks to the sage of Henley and the hermit of Marlow for some of the above.

VALUE? In the white heat of the dot com days a copy made £13000 in a sale in New York, one imagines it was a spiffing copy but the price has not been repeated. Can turn up in restored jackets at about half what a very nice unclipped jacketed one might make which is probably about £8K. The cloth under the jacket tends to fade so a fine one would have to have lead a very sheltered life. A limpid, fresh and fault free one would be v valuable but still might not repeat the 2001 result, esp with the dollar at 2 to a pound.

American Psycho. Brett Easton Ellis. 1991.

There is an amusing video clip 'How to Use a Book' from a Scandinavian comedy show at the myfinebooks blog on the lines of the old joke that was going round in early web days about 'the new Built-in Orderly Organized Knowledge device, otherwise known as the BOOK.' Not unamusing. Also an excellent blog. Today's book is not massively wanted because fairly easily tracked down but a great writer who should rise in value or at least stay slightly ahead of inflation.

Brett Easton Ellis. AMERICAN PSYCHO. Picador, London 1998.

Current Selling Prices
$100-$180 /£60-£100 Want level 15 - 25 Quite High

MODERN FIRST EDITION
Designer ultra-violence, skillful and relentless, a Clockwork Orange for the blank generation. Few writers have concerned themselves with such callow and callous characters; his 1999 novel Glamorama, about the deeply shallow world of male and female models, also betrays an in depth knowledge of those exquisite corpses and their habitats. One of the truly great.



VALUE? First was a paperback and can be found for less than $30, unless signed. The 1998 Picador UK edition was the first world hardback and is quite desirable at a shade over $100. It was at one time remaindered and a Cecil Court dealer chap bought a few boxes but has now sold the lot. Signed would be rather good and possibly worth as much as $400. Apparently the reason it never appeared as a hardback in New York was that Simon & Schuster were alarmed by the controversial buzz surrounding the book prior to release and forfeited a $500,000 advance to Ellis in order to cancel the book. Shades of EMI. McLaren and the Sex Pistols. Vintage quickly signed him and became the new publisher of 'American Psycho", but since Simon & Schuster owned the rights to the hardback edition, the book had to be released as a paperback only. As always you want a 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 sequence on the back of the title page. The author recently went on a signing tour but didn't get further than Beverly Hills due to a foot injury.

The Bayonet Book. John & Peter White Watts, 1975.

John & Peter White Watts. THE BAYONET BOOK. Privately Printed by the Authors, UK 1975. ISBN 0950457302

Current Selling Prices
$350-$750 / £200-£400

COLLECTABLES / MILITARY
What it says on the tin. Guide to all bayonets of all countries of all times. Art book size. 504 pages with an index. 1052 plates in black and white.




VALUE? 4 copies were on ABE in mid 2006 at $500-600, now there are 2 at similar prices. meanwhile at Amazon 2 copies have also sold with an arrant relister sitting on Biblio at an unhinged $1200 and a BIN on Ebay as we speak at $475. Looks like a $400 minimum book and thanks to ebay lister for this fine pic. The ebay one should go although I have never met or chatted with a bayonet collector. Perhaps it's a hereditary thing, like 'this family has always collected bayonets.' Collecting is a mysterious and wonderful thing.
Want level 25-50 Highish

The Baader - Meinhof Group. The Inside Story...

Stefan Aust. THE BAADER - MEINHOF GROUP. THE INSIDE STORY OF A PHENOMENON. Bodley Head, London 1987. ISBN 0370310314

Current Selling Prices
$200 - $350 /£110-£180

EUROPEAN POLITICS/ TERRORISM
Fat octavo with 20 photos. The German original 'Der Baader Meinhof Komplex' is, like many modern German books, dead common; the English translation by Anthea Bell is decidedly uncommon. The Baader gang ( Red Army Faction) have been in the news recently with parole being considered for a couple of them Brigitte Mohnhaupt & Christian Klar. Corresponding roughly to the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army in America and the Angry Brigade in UK, the Red Army Faction intensified its guerrilla campaigns in northern German cities during 1970-72, setting department stores afire, raiding banks, kidnapping industrial magnates, stealing Mercedes-Benzes, shooting police and bombing the printing plants of the press plutocrat Axel Springer and the headquarters installations of the United States Army in Frankfurt and Heidelberg.

VALUE? One ambitious chap had it on Amazon at $1000 which to add insult to injury is flagged by Amazon with a yellow flash 'LOW PRICE.' It can usually be picked up at the esteemed ABE at around $250 and possibly less in a bookshop. Bookshops are sometimes found in the centre of populous towns. [Want level 15 - 25 Quite High]

The Art of Seeing and Painting. Hensche, 1987.

Henry Hensche. THE ART OF SEEING AND PAINTING. Portier Gorman, Louisiana, 1987. ISBN 0962138207

Current Selling Prices
$550-$750 / £300-£400

ART
Subtitled 'for the color visualist painter.' Although short, the book was apparently 50 years in the making. Portier Gorman is basically a vanity press which might accont for the book's rarity. Hensche (1899-1992) was a student of Charles Hawthorne who was a student and follower of Monet. Hensche's teachings and influence are evident in the work of the current Cape (Cod) School style painters including Hilda Neilly, Mary Giammarino, Lois Griffel, Heather Bruce and many others.

VALUE? One copy on web at $450 vg in vg d/w appears to have sold, another copy from a breathtakingly expensive re-lister remains there at $1500, and has been joined by another at same price. There is also a copy on Amazon at the frankly unhinged get lost price of $2400. The book is 95 pages and at such prices it becomes worth xeroxing at 6 cents a page rather than rather than paying 300 times the price. Do the math. The $450 copy took a while to sell btw. Also, for about $4 you can get 'Hensche on Painting' (Dover) which has very similar stuff from the great teacher. STOP PRESS. A BIN copy sits at ebay at $2500 - the Mississippi seller misspells Hensche's name but has this unique selling point "Local artist Bobby Burst uses Henseche's ideas and methods of painting which he sells to the public." Seller's other items are Billy Joel and Bee Gee's albums. Burst, the artist, appears to be unknown to Google which these days basically means - he is unknown.' It's a mad world my masters' as Tom Middleton said. Want level 25-50 Highish

The Jurassic System in Great Britain. W.J. Arkell.

W. J. Arkell. THE JURASSIC SYSTEM IN GREAT BRITAIN. Oxford University Press, 1933 & 1970. ISBN 0198543719

Current Selling Prices
$450-$850? / £230-£450?


SCIENCE / PALAEONTOLOGY
Much wanted and unfindable book. First appeared in 1933. 671 pages. Palaeontology is not normally a subject that inspires great passion but they sure want this book. Fossicking about on related blogs it seems that the late 'Bill' Arkell (1904 - 1958) is something of a cult hero among the fossil crowd. Simon Winchester the handsome chap who wrote about the making of the Oxford Dictionary cites the book with others that he used in his 'The Map that Changed the World' and says of it - " The greatest of all the works noted here -- aside, of course, from Darwin -- is the majestic tome (no other word can possibly do justice) written in 1933 by W. J. Arkell: 'The Jurassic System in Great Britain.' This utterly beautiful book, elegant in design and writing, represents the life's work of a man who was passionately fascinated by the most celebrated and, one might say, looking at the rocks and villages along its outcrop, the most English -- of all the geological periods. It has long been out of print, and a clean copy will cost a good deal of money. But to anyone whose interest in geology at its best may have been piqued by this short account, I urge them -- find yourself an Arkell, buy it, and treasure for yourself and for your descendants. There are all too few books of its like." Rock on. [Want level 25-50 Highish]

VALUE? Sorry I have no idea of price. Simon W's valuation 'a great deal of money' is my only clue. An imprecise and subjective phrase, possibly referring to a sum over a £1000. No copies on web in 2006. I have never knowingly handled it and imagine it is a big Oxford possibly blue but mebbe brown or even green or possibly slate grey. It is likely that a decent copy would need a price of around 400 quid to stop it selling there and then. However none of Arkell's other geological works command very much -- works on the Geology around Weymouth and Oxford Stone. Lastly there is a v good article on him in the DNB and a photo (copyrighted) showing a donnish dude, formidable but pleasant. The oil that I found (above) is not dissimilar.

The Lord Peter Wimsey Companion

Reading an article by Jonathan Lethem (author of Motherless Brooklyn etc.,) in Harper's on 'The Pleasures of Plagiarism' called within the mag 'The Ecstasy of Influence.' Basically he sees plagiarism as necessary, acceptable and common in current art, literature etc., 'Collage, says Lethem, was the art form of the 20th Century.' Great article and worth the slightly stroppy $7.55 the mag costs. The net, of course, is all about plagiarism and collage, everybody cutting and pasting from one another. Alot of it is not art, in fact artless. The other day a guy listed a book on Lincoln on ebay with a vast bio lifted without attribution and with all the links from Wikipedia - it looked v crass. The general rule is to keep borrowings short and acknowedge them - a bite, not a 3 course meal. Also not to just recycle info but to introduce new and original information from reading, media, research, observation, experience, personal knowledge, inspiration, original thought, anecdotal evidence, listening to wise treachers, bores and madmen, guesswork, dreams, hallucinations or possibly by channelling it from the great spirits of the past*.

The whole question of internet plagiarism has impacted education - with software now available to detect student lifters and borrowers. Easier to call it collage, post - modernism, conceptual or 'open source' etc., My point (and I do have one) is that Lethem is a brother of the book - he spent 10 years in Berkeley, working first at Pegasus Books on Solano and then at Moe's on Telegraph. Both large used bookshops with good stuff coming in by wagon load. He would have seen the incredible variety of interests and obsessions out there; in Berkeley he was at the epicentre. I must have seen him, even cajoled him into giving me 20% discount (especially hard at Pegasus.) Lethem spends a while discussing the legal problems of 'culture as property' and the litigiousness of those who consider themselves robbed; in the used book web world there is at least one dealer, possibly possessed of a hair trigger temper, who threatens to prosecute anyone who uses his book descriptions with the full force of the law. Rave on, it's a crazy feeling.

Today's book is about a true original - Dorothy Sayers (where did she get Wimsey from, was it Wodehouse or Oppenheim?)



Stephan P. (Stephen) Clarke. THE LORD PETER WIMSEY COMPANION.Mysterious Press,New York 1985. ISBN 0892968508

Current Selling Prices
$350-$750 / £200-£400 Want level 25-50 Highish

CRIME FICTION /AUTHOR GUIDE
500+ pages quarto size concordance and companion to all the Dorothy L Sayers novels and short stories featuring the toff detective Lord Peter Wimsey. Hardback limited to 500 copies. Like Anthony Powell, C.S. Forester, Christie, Rosamund Pilcher and Pratchett, DLS has inspired a full blown guide for the completist. Much wanted, 4 buyers waiting at Amazon, fought over on ebay etc., Sayers marvellously literate style and attractive hero make her still highly collected. BTW they make great audio tapes for a long journey - try the unabridged ones with Carmichael reading. Last point Wimsey collected incunabula (books before 1500, dontcha know) and joins a very select bunch-- tecs who collected books.

VALUE? A less than stellar copy sits on ebay right now at a BIN of $629. Hard to find for less than $500 except by a fluke. A tiresome and tireless relister from a surfing town wants $1495. A reprint would cool the price a bit and there is nothing to stop the still extant Mysterious Press. Sayers also wrote a couple of pamphlets about Wimsey's antecedents 'An Account of Lord Mortimer Wimsey. The Hermit of the Wash.'. The first was privately printed in 1937; in 1936 also privately printed and written with Helen Simpson she produced 'Papers Relating to the Family of Wimsey' (500 copies.) These whimsical pamphlets can make over 500 quid each on a good day. Her own largish library was dispersed early in this century. Signed Sayers material although desirable is still fairly thick on the ground.

* You could form quite a collection of books written by their authors posthumously ( i.e. channelled or received by spiritualistic messages etc.,) One from the 1920s received from Oscar Wilde asks what he thought of 'Ulysses', his opinion was that it was 'heated vomit.'

Northern Lights. Philip Pullman.

Philip Pullman. NORTHERN LIGHTS. Scholastic Press, London 1995.

Current Selling Prices
$2500-$4000 /£1300-£2200 Want level 25-50 Highish

CHILDREN'S BOOK / FANTASY FICTION
Much loved and much prized children's fantasy featuring Lyra a young girl brought up in the cloistered world of an Oxford college and her 'Daemon' Pantalaimon. With the novel's anti dogmatic, anti fundamentalist leitmotiv, PP has been unfairly accused of being irreligious. However he has attacked C S Lewis (blasphemy in itself!) The first of a trilogy and commonly sold with the other two. You want the word 'Point' on the book's spine and the address 7-9 Pratt Street on the copyright page. Often signed on a special Pullman bookplate.

VALUE? Trumpeted as an investment often by those wanting well over the odds. Pristine and mint are words sometimes used by the trumpeteers. One seller with a perfect copy at a celestial £7K states that he 'had the chance to get this copy signed by the author but preferred to leave it in it's completely pristine state.' A new one. Always a bit worrying, the 'I' word and something of a red flag especially with the book demonstrably 'softening' price-wise. However the book still seems to command at least £2000 or more in 'as new' nick. It has fetched over £4,500 back in 2003 at Bloomsbury and £3500 for all 3 inscribed in 2004. The trilogy available in 2/2007 at ABE at a shade under £3K all fine and signed. On ebay there were 28 bids for a signed copy that made $2,795.43 late in 2005 and described as 'unread.' Although there was a photo of PP signing the book some bidders were worried that he had signed in in blue instead of his customary black. This week a signed near fine BIN copy at £1100 sits on ebay touted as: 'One of the best investments for 2007." There are not a worrying amount of for sale currently - with some books that are losing their lustre copies tend to foregather on th web, sometimes in embarrassing numbers and the price slides precipitously - vide 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin.' The good Captain is worth less than half the price he was fetching 4 years ago. A lot of hope that the coming movie (slated for 2007) will jump start Pullman prices back to former levels. It can happen if the movie is truly wonderful, in the case of Corelli the lousiness of the movie caused the books decline. It all makes sense.

Decorative Designs of Donald Deskey

David A. Hanks. DONALD DESKEY: DECORATIVE DESIGNS AND INTERIORS. E.P. Dutton, NY 1987. ISBN 0525243607

Current Selling Prices
$300-$500 / £140-£260



DESIGN
Lavishly illustrated monograph on the preeminent modernist designer in 1930s USA. Art Deco etc., DD did the interior at Radio City Music Hall and Crest toothpaste still use the package he designed. An art book that came and went in a flash as some applied art monographs will do. There are guys walking around in Comme des Garcons shirts and Prada shoes who know the names and value of every one of those vanished books.

VALUE? Not common. Copies seen at a little less than $300, the ones at $300 and a bit over have been sitting there for a few moons. This leads me to advance a sound but obtuse economic theory that the right price is the wrong price -- i.e. if you put the right price on a book it will not sell, at least not with alacrity - the trick is to put it at a bit less than the right price. This is especially true of the net where most people are looking for deals, if not screaming bargains. Some books have been sitting on the net since the dot.com bubble. One seller with an 'exquisite' copy wants $550. 'Exquisite' is not a word used much in book dealing, except with bindings where it was once used so often they became known as 'squizz bindings.' Pic above show one of Deskey's most excellent table lamps.

Want level 25-50 Highish

Peter West. D.E. Stevenson. 1923

Back in the USA for the bookfair in San Francisco. This book is an enigma, although one sees D.E. Stevenson's books around (that's her left.) Can't do highspots all the time, although I will tackle the case of Philip Pullman and his flattening prices this week, also maybe the case of Clive Staples Lewis and his valuable Narnia books. Odd bedfellows.





D.E. Stevenson. PETER WEST. Chambers, London 1923.

Current Selling Prices
$350-$700? /£180-£350? Want level 25-50 Highish


FANTASY FICTION
270 page novel apparently with fantasy elements. Bleiler and Locke only note her 1936 novel 'The Empty World: A Romance of the Future: ' (in USA 'A World in Spell') . It is in Bleiler under the code 'uU8' which translates as Catastrophes / Future Primitivism. It was set in 1973, the year of her death. 'Peter West' is the first of over 40 novels by the popular writer. Her sister married into the Chambers publishing family, and Ms Stevenson got this novel serialized in 'The Chambers Journal', and published by them in book form in 1923, but it wasn’t a success. Dorothy Emily Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1892, she was related to Robert Louis Stevenson, who was her father's first cousin.She was 24 when she married Captain James Reid Peploe of the 6th Gurkha Rifles in 1916. Created the immortal characters Mrs Tim and Miss Buncle published by Herbert Jenkins. Can find nothing on 'Peter West' except that it is much wanted and highly elusive. However there has to be a ceiling on the value, this isn't Beatrix, or even Harry, Potter. No copies on web, no catalogue entries, nada.

VALUE? Generally not a big money author, but steady. Someone is asking over £800 for an inscribed copy of her first book - a work of poetry entitled 'Meadow Flowers'. This price seems un peu steep for a popular romance writer as they do not tend to inspire the sort of waving of credit cards or check books you might get with a thriller or horror writer. However it is not unthinkable that at least one punter might step forward for this novel at 400 dollars even pounds and more than one if it were wearing a bright jacket. Pure speculation. Her one SF novel The Empty World (see above) gets listed by Currey without jacket at $250.

Little Black Sambo. Helen Bannerman. 1899

Helen Bannerman. LITTLE BLACK SAMBO. Grant Richards, London, 1899.

Current Selling Prices
$8500-$13000 £4000-£6500 Want level 75 - 100 Very High

CHILDREN'S BOOK
The fourth Dumpy book. Dumpy books were still going until recently but this is by far the most valuable. Only 500 were printed. Written during the author’s journey to India. Her intention was to present the tale and its charming pictures to her children, who had remained at a Hill Station while she travelled with her husband- an army doctor. It was an immediate hit with them and a friend took it the next year to Grant Richards who bought the copyright for £5, something of a bargain. Its success is partly due to the attractive and innovative format, and also its vivid no nonsense 27 colour illustrations. Although often accused of racism ( the title doesn't help) it was something of a break from former stories featuring black children in that it portrayed the character as clever and resourceful rather than an impassive simpleton as so often before. Endless editions have appeared with different illustrators, moveables, pop ups, cut outs, miniatures, parodies and paint by number jobs.

VALUE? Fairly vulnerable little book with Victorian gutta percha binding so that the spine often needs replacing or strengthening. Also it tends to have been read, handled and chucked about by young children, who along along with 'fire, water, librarians and servants' must be numbered among the enemies of books. Fine copies are highly prized, 2 decent copies on ABE in late 06 at over $10K with the highest at a slightly stroppy but not absurd $15,500. In Feb 2007 another one has appeared with 2 others in so-so condition. Bit of an ebay favourite where even late reprints are fought for in mortal combat. In terrestrial auctions a decent copy hit $12000 in 1996 and several have breasted $6500. The US 1901 ed from Stokes is not be sneezed at, occasionally commanding over $1000. In terms of scarcity the net has revealed it as being difficult but not impossible; the toppermost dealer in this subject Justin Schiller wrote: "Should a census eventually be attempted, there would probably be fewer copies located than of the notoriously rare and suppressed 1865 Alice."

Where Troy Once Stood. Iman Wilkens.

Yesterday I mentioned Wikipedia and their piece on Arthur Bernard Cook which was rather thin. Wikipedia is, of course commendable and vast and we have occasionally contributed to it. As a bookseller you occasionally get obscure info or can make a hitherto unnoticed connection and Wikipedia is great as a residuary for such facts that otherwise would drift into the air like Woodbine smoke in a betting shop. The DNB is good on dead Brits especially the new 60 volume work. In almost every case of 20th Century individuals it states how much money they left. E.g. George Harrison left £98,916,464, Arthur Bernard Cook left £14,249 9s. 8d in 1954 and Bram Stoker left £5269 12s. 7d. in 1912. Agatha Christie in 1976 left £147,810, which doesn't seem enough but was probably a useful sum at the time. They also tend to get an expert or even friend to write the piece and occasionally they wax anecdotal, eg with Bernard Cook there are stories of a couple of amusing remarks he made on his death bed. He would probably have uttered a loud 'Harrumph' at today's work...

Iman Wilkens. WHERE TROY ONCE STOOD: THE MYSTERY OF HOMER'S ILIAD AND ODYSSEY REVEALED. Rider, London, 1990. ISBN : 0712624635

Current Selling Prices
$200-$400 /£120-£200


ANCIENT WORLD/ REVISIONIST HISTORY
A curious and much wanted work with an entirely new theory about Homer's works. Arguing that the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" do not fit the topography, geology, climate and oceanic tidal patterns of the eastern Mediterranean, Wilkens relocates the Homeric scene in western Europe and the northern Atlantic. He claims that the Trojan War was fought on a far larger scale than previously thought, by Celts from regions as far apart as Scandinavia and Spain. Troy was, in fact, in East Anglia! Slightly difficult to swallow but apparently fairly convincing. Also not entirely new, theories like this have been around for 200 years now. [Want level 50 - 75 High]

VALUE? Hard to find a decent copy for less than $150 (paperback) and jacketed hardbacks twice that, but never much more. A revised reprint appeared in Holland in 2005 but is expensive and oddly uncommon. 1990 a US ed appeared in 1991 and goes for similar money. Not especially scarce. At one point a relisting GOPWO from Texas was asking $5000 for the book. The devout young man appears to have vanished (or been sent to Bedlam.)

*GOPWO = Grossly over priced web operator, from a phrase my Dad used from the RAF in WW2 for 'Grossly over promoted warrant officer' -a type that annoyed him greatly. Another acronym that actually has some currency is UNCLE --for books which cannot, as yet, be found listed on the web. The letters stand for Unique No Copy Located Elsewhere.

Zeus. A Study in Ancient Religion. Arthur Bernard Cook.

Arthur Bernard Cook. ZEUS. A STUDY IN ANCIENT RELIGION. 3 VOLS IN 5. Cambridge University Press, 1914 - 1940.


Current Selling Prices
$1200-$1500 / £750-£900 Want level 25-50 Highish

ANCIENT RELIGION / PAGANISM
Fabulous, substantial work in mythological and religious scholarship published over a quarter of a century by Cambridge Professor of Classical Archaeology (1868 - 1952.) The first vol is subtitled 'God of the Bright Sky', the other 2 vols (both in 2 parts) are entitled 'God of the Dark Sky' and deal with Zeus and Thunder, Lightning,Earthquakes, Wind, Dew, Rain and Meteorites. In England, as elsewhere at that time, the history of religion excited interest as perhaps never before or since. Cook, a friend of JG Frazer, was part of the scholarly set known as 'The Cambridge Ritualists' whose members included F.M. Cornford, Gilbert Murray and Jane Harrison - they felt that the origins of myth lay in ritual. They are not forgotten and this is a much sought after and valuable book.

VALUE? Although the work was reprinted by Biblio and Tannen in NY 1965 dealers till ask around £1K, sometimes in mixed sets. Ask but don't necessarily get - most high price copies have been sitting there since George Bush was still popular. There are several odd volumes at about $200 a pop. It tends to end up with important bookshops (the kind of guys who get called in to make offers on the libraries of great academics) who also tend to price with a heavyish hand so it is unlikely to show up at cheap as chips prices, sorry. Myth and folklore, is to my mind a fascinating area of collecting and large collections of the stuff occasionally turn up in odd places but, sadly, pretty infrequently.

The Wikipedia bit on Cook is woefully thin, the DNB (only £200 a year online) has a charming picture and a long, clever and affectionate bio from which I quote "This study shows a fabulous command of every kind of material which could be brought to bear on the subject—ancient literature, monumental evidence, the Near Eastern background, and folklore and folk-ways from all parts, all presented with supreme accuracy and so indexed as to be instantly available. Zeus would be indispensable to students in many fields, even if every single conclusion of its author were rejected. Perhaps no one has equalled Cook in his ability to present the views of others with generous fairness and to state objections to his own; no one has surpassed him in awareness of the fact that the ancients took their gods seriously."

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.