Bobby Jones. Down the Fairway (1927) “The best book about golf ever written.”

Bobby T. Jones (& O.B. Keeler.) DOWN THE FAIRWAY. THE GOLF LIFE AND PLAY OF ROBERT T.JONES JNR. Minton & Balch, N. Y. 1927.

Current Selling Prices
$1200-$2000 /£600-£1000
Limited edition (300) $10,000.

GOLF / SPORT
A stirring autobiography by the greatest golfer of the 20th Century and possibly of all time. Jones wrote 'Down the Fairway' after his pair of victories (as an amateur) in the 1926 British and U.S. Open Championships. It was an accomplishment previously unachieved and at 24 he felt he was at the peak of his game and his career. He retired at 28 in 1930 after winning the Grand Slam - all four major UK and USA championships in one year. Tiger Woods is the only other golfer to do this and is shaping up to be an even bigger legend. Jones was playing with low tech clubs (and balls) but still achieved remarkably long drives (over 300 yards) - he can be seen playing a hole with Woody Allen in 'Zelig.'

It is said he never took a lesson and stored his clubs most winters, nevertheless he became the only individual ever to receive two New York City tickertape parades. At the 1925 U.S. Open in Worcester, Massachusetts, Jones's ball moved in the long grass on the steep bank by the eleventh green as he addressed it; he insisted, over official objections, on adding a penalty stroke to his score. When praised for his honesty, he retorted, "You might as well praise me for not breaking into banks. There is only one way to play this game." Because of this penalty he lost the game by one stroke.

This incident is highlighted in 'The Legend of Bagger Vance' where the fallen hero Junah does the same thing in a play off with Jones and Hagen. This book, part of a mystical trend in golf writing, is based on the Bhagavad Gita with the caddy/ guru Bagger as Bhagavan/ Lord Krishna and Junah as Arjuna and the golf course the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Not to be outdone Deepak Chopra put out a golf book 'Golf for Enlightenment: The Seven Lessons for the Game of Life'- fine jacketed firsts can be still had for $4.

Jones was a hotheaded perfectionist who once, after missing an easy shot, took a full pitcher's windup and threw his ball into the woods, and another time chucked his putter (nicknamed "Calamity Jane") over the heads of the gallery and into the trees. The influence of O.B. "Pop" Keeler, an Atlanta sportswriter some call the first sports psychologist, helped settle him down. The older man became a mentor, friend, confidant, and publicist for Jones, traveling 150,000 miles with him and witnessing all 13 of his major championships. Keeler is the guiding hand in Jones's classic book. These days they might say 'as told to O.B. Keeler' but Jones was not some thick footballer, he had trained as a lawyer and studied English at Harvard and was an admirer of Cicero. Of the great Roman orator he wrote: "I remember also envying Cicero because he evidently thought so well of himself... If only I thought as much of my golfing ability as Cicero thought of his statesmanship, I might do better in these blamed tournaments."

VALUE? The big money with this book is for the signed edition from Minton & Balch which was limited to 300 copies. It is signed by Jones and Keeler. It has made as much as $14000 in auction (2005) and there are several on ABE at above $10,000. A copy sold last month at auction at PBA for $9000 in a lacklustre sale. Apparently golf collecting (clubs, balls, memorabilia, books) is not what it used to be and may have peaked. Good books still make hefty prices but the glory days have faded for the moment. Observers of the scene are waiting for 'the finest golfiana sale in recent memory' - the sale of the collection of Jeffery B. Ellis in NY Septemer 27/ 28. If this makes good money ($4million +) things may revive. It seems that there are too many golf libraries appearing in auction as collectors die, need to raise money or lose interest. There may be too much Golfiana for the punters to absorb and it is possible that new collectors are not being created in sufficient numbers.

STOP PRESS The Jeffery B. Ellis collection, mostly rare golf clubs, made a useful but not priapic $2.1 million including premium, about half what was expected with some biggish buy-ins. There don't appear to have been many books. By no means a tragedy bu a little below par. Ellis is the autor of the authoritative ' The Clubmaker's Art' and also something of a dealer in clubs. This may explain the sale's failure to ignite--collectors (and dealers) prefer to buy at the dispersal of private collections, preferably with the owner safely departed to that great golf links in the sky.

Falls the Shadow. Mark Timlin. 1995.

Mark Timlin. FALLS THE SHADOW. Headline, London, 1995.

Current Selling Prices
$200 -$320 /£100-£160

THRILLER
South London Noir featuring the footloose Sharman. Absolutely unfindable. A paperback--I am not sure that a hardback was issued. Mark Timlin, a prolific many -named writer has been at it for 20 years and produced over 30 books. Other names include Johnny Angelo (Groupies 1&2), Jim Ballantyne, Tony Williams, Martin Milk and Holly Delatour. He is best known for his Nick Sharman thrillers (pic below) of which the Arena critic said: ' "Full of cars, girls, guns, strung out along the high sierras of Brixton and Battersea, the Elephant and the North Peckham Estate, all those jewels in the crown they call Sarf London." Loaded called him 'Well fucking hard.' I say this book is well hard to find but of course could be reprinted. The title is possibly from well hard poet TS Eliot's 'The Hollow Men': 'Between the idea/ And the reality / Between the motion/And the act/Falls the Shadow...' Timlin used to work in the rock and roll industry as a roadie for T-Rex and The Who and occasionally uses the rock world as a background. The charismatic Clive Owen played his tec Sharman in a TV series in 1996. The plot is summed up on a Sharman website thus:

'...Sharman has decided to knock being a barman on the head... He manages to get his office back, redecorated and decides to start up the PI business again. He is first job is to find a missing dog, not to hard but this is Sharman. He is also hired by Sunset Radio to find out who is sending turds to one of their presenters. Prime suspect is Sector 88, a gang of Nazis. The presenter Peter Day is also getting calls from a bloke called John, now is he just an obsessive fan? Chas makes an appearance in this one. This is one of best of the books, and for once Sharman solves the case by detecting rather than by asking questions and waiting to see who slaps him first.

VALUE? Not really known but Timlin, so far, is more read than collected and his highest prices are only up to about 60 quid. However a book as difficult as this could double that. A reissue could mean all bets are off. [ W/Q *** ]

STOP PRESS. The entry above was written in March 2007, since then a slightly lousy paperback copy has turned up on Amazon UK at a gouging £300, described thus: '... Rare copy of this title. An ex-library copy so contains stickers on inside back cover and one of pre-story pages. Apart from this in excellent condition.' In my opinion an ex library copy of a paperback is always very nasty and can never be called 'excellent' except in the callow patter of an amateur bookseller (('pre-story' - what's that all about?.) However the price gives the book a marker and a decent copy would probably now sell against it at £150 (it's a paperback) close to my original guesstimate. Rave on.

On the Road. Jack Kerouac, 1957.

'The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.' (On the Road, 1957)

Jack Kerouac. ON THE ROAD. Viking, New York, 1957.

Current Selling Prices
$4000 - $8000 /£2000-£4000




MODERN FIRST EDITION
Beatnik road novel, something of a cult, now collected by highspot fanciers and regularly traded on ebay sometimes with amusing descriptions like:

" Very nice copy of this rare TRUE 1st printing from one of Americas greatest writers! Book and jacket look terrific; with brilliant ink colors... A wonderful gem for any collection! One of the nicest FIRST EDITION books in the world!"

The great hip beat bible now reduced to --'One of the nicest books in the world!' Sic transit gloria mundi.

Kerouac said that the book was written for his second wife "to tell her what I'd been through... It's directed toward a woman. It's sexy because it's addressed to a woman." Kerouac started as a handsome heroic figure, King of the Beats and the heir to Walt Whitman but became an anti - communist homophobe and ended up a rather scary alcoholic redneck and fan of the Ku Klux Klan. He wrote 'On the Road' in 3 benzedrine fuelled weeks typing uninterrupted on to 12 foot rolls of paper. 119 feet in all. These rolls turned up in Christies' in 2001 and went to Indianapolis Colts owner James Irsay for $2.4 million. Capote famously remarked of his work - 'this is typing, not writing...'


VALUE? A very desirable book signed, especially if signed to someone close or important. At the 2002 Rechler sale a copy inscribed to Joyce Johnson with an autograph letter made $160K, another copy inscribed to William Targ in 2004 made $55K (d/w was rubbed, as is common with this book.) Lesser signed copies around $20K,but they are uncommon- he never did bookshop signings and when the book was a hit was so overwhelmed by the publicity that he went into self-imposed exile with his mother.

7500 copies printed so not scarce, but pretty hard to find a sharp copy for less than $5K, a cheap price for instant hipsterdom. Sometimes seen in fancy leather bindings which seem some how inappropriate for a beat book, next they'll be binding 'Steal This Book.' The etymology of 'beat' is anyone's game but it seems to combine the idea of 'beat' as in defeated, fatigued, surrendered, and 'beatific' or 'beatitude' with the rhythmic 'beat' of music. It still sells 100,000 copies a year and must be the ultimate backpacker classic. A movie has been on the cards for a while, possibly to be shot by Coppola, maybe with Johnny Depp. As I recall at one point in the nineties Depp bought Kerouac's raincoat for $20K. [ W/Q ** ]

ADDENDUM. We first posted this in April 07, but have renewed it due to the brouhaha that is starting about the unexpurgated straight fom the roll edition coming out in September + the news that Russell Brand is doing a TV series where he tours America in JK's footsteps. As 'Hello Magazine' put it:

"Once voted Shagger of the Year by readers of The Sun, Russell Brand is looking to gain some intellectual kudos with his new programme for the BBC. The crazy-haired, make-up wearing lothario is going to take to the roads of America with his Radio 2 colleague, Matt Morgan, as homage to the great beatnik writer Jack Kerouac. Kerouac’s classic On The Road celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and so as a huge fan of the work, Brand will retrace Kerouac’s journey.

So what can viewers expect? “We're going to meet some of the surviving beat poets; we'll go to places of significance, take long car journeys and, you know, just hang out," says Brand. "I'm a fan of Kerouac – not in a thorough and academic way, more inspired by the idea of Kerouac and the style and what he represents...(we) are going to re-create Cassady and Kerouac's adventures.”

Kerouac in his later years became a serious drunk and died aged 47 from cirrhosis of the liver. It is said that he used, whilst 'off his face', to visit local bordellos and pay hookers to read from his works while he whacked off. It has the ring of truth. As mentioned Kerouac became very reactionary and patriotic - many of his collectors are in no way wiggy old beats, but include Hollywood actors, entrepreneurs, bland corporate types or even crazy completists who hunt down every offprint and salesman's dummy. Beats, beatniks and hipsters (now in their dotage) occasionally turn up at Shakespeare and Co in Paris so I have been able to observe them at first hand - they are generally a tiresome, unenlightened and self centred bunch. Gary Snyder and the Brit Alan Watts excepted.

Kerouac prices are steady but not on the rise; recent auction records have been unimpressive. Today's youth, although they like the idea of the man and the book, if actually forced to read the stuff are said to find it it old fashioned, gushing and embarrassing. The book is being turned into a Hollywood film, scripted by Roman Coppola, son of Francis Ford, and directed by Walter Salles who made The Motorcyle Diaries, the story of Che Guevara's road trip across South America. Kirsten Dunst will star as Carolyn Cassady. It is slated for 2009--movies seldom improve book prices but with this, the 50th anniversary and the Russell Brand trip, the improbable scenario is that 'On the Road' becomes a sort of 'Ulysses' for Generation X and prices go 'radio rental.'

Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone

"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense..."





J. K. Rowling. HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE. Bloomsbury, London 1997. ISBN 0747532699

Current Selling Prices
$20000+ / £10000+


SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM (Blue bit) for how to value a copy.

CHILDREN'S BOOK.
A publishing wonder and a book that made reading books OK again amongst kids. For that reason alone JK is a Goddess. Hallowed be her name. It also made her about ten times richer than Madonna. Madonna retaliated by writing her own forgettable children's books. The whole Potter collecting euphoria took off around one trendy Brit dealer on ebay who had sagaciously stockpiled a few boxes of Rowling and a fat packet of genuine Rowling signed Bloomsbury bookplates and started achieving startling results just post millennium. When a Philosopher's Stone hit $15K+, everybody piled in to buy, sell and bid. Issued in illustrated laminated boards and it has no d/w, states first edition and must have 10987654321 on verso of title. Publisher has stated that only 500 were printed and many of those went to libraries, so it is always going to be a difficult book to find and will be collected until Kingdom Come.

I was offered a signed copy of this a few years ago and negotiated a fattish sum for it; however the deal fell through when the sellers father bought the book - to keep it in the family. Kind of frustrating. The chap selling used the money for a deposit on a flat. He had worked in a new bookshop. It turned out many copies of this book came from bookshop workers who had kept copies seeing the incipient phenomenom at first hand. One wily dealer even started advertising for the book in 'The Bookseller' - the organ of the new book trade. Another tiresome one was a jolly chap with a host of signed copies presented to him. He wanted to buy a house with the money. Have you seen house prices recently in this benighted island?


VALUE? Once the book started to get established 5 figure sterling results up market dealers began dealing the book and it appeared at book fairs on the same shelf as firsts of Utopia and Moby Dick. A dealer in LA bought a copy for £18000 in auction 2003, possibly for some star's offspring and in 2004 a copy made nearly £19000 at Bloomsbury Auctions. It hasn't really gone on at all since then and may have flatlined, or even dropped a few percentage points. However every time a new HP appears prices tend to perk up. The US edition ('Sorcerer's Stone') can fetch about $1500 or more (correct number line on copyright page of "1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 8 9/9 0/0 01 02," followed by "Printed in the U.S.A.23" and "First American edition, October 1998", the cloth binding has purple diamond embossed boards and a red spine, "Harry Potter" appears in raised gold lettering on the front panel of jacket; jacket has price of $16.95 on upper corner of the front flap; the numbers "51695" are found above the smaller barcode to the right side.) The first UK paperback is a nice thing to find - with dealers asking £2K+. It is exactly the same as the first hardback just bound up with paper covers. I need hardly add the caveat, don't buy signed Rowlings without provenance (a badly printed certificate of authentication is no good) fakes abound. (Jan/07) [ W/Q *** ]

STOP PRESS. Bloomsbury, the great book auction house in Mayfair just had a bit of a result with a classy signed Rowling -- I quote their publicity release:-

Bloomsbury Auctions set another world record

At the sale on the 24 May 2007, Bloomsbury Auctions set another record with a signed first edition of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Intense bidding in the room and on the telephone pushed the final price to a staggering £27,370 (inc. premium).

The lucky recipient was a private overseas buyer who has obtained a unique presentation copy inscribed 'To David - with best wishes JK Rowling' with the 1 on the number line circled with an additional identification indicating 1st Edition. This was a fantastic result for Bloomsbury and shows that the popularity of the young wizard continues.

More 2007 Results. I can find 3 copies in this sad year of the last Rowling/ Potter- in chronological order at Bloomsbury in April a copy described thus- "... first edition , very light minor browning to the extreme margins, no inscriptions, original boards, very slightly cocked, slightly bumped at upper corners and spine ends, small abrasions to corners near head of spine, light abrading to the thin surface laminate at fore-edge of lower cover, otherwise a very good copy..." made £12495

At Dominic Winter a copy described thus "...a few leaves faintly creased to top outer corner, ms. ownership name to front free endpaper, orig. pictorial boards, sl. rubbed at corners and spine ends..." made £8460

At Bonham's a copy described thus -"... first edition, ownership label inside upper cover, publisher's pictorial boards, slightly rubbed at extremities..." made £9000.

Go figure, but bear in mind these are not books many people are sitting on -every major Children's sale has one. On the other hand there are a finite number out there, condition is king and hope spring's eternal. As for finding one remember the words of Cadillac Jack 'anything can be anywhere' - one turned up at a little bookshop attached to a stately home. Because it was a hardback it was a £1.



.

Caveat Emptor! AUSTRALIAN FIRST EDITIONS ARE OF MODEST VALUE AND QUITE COMMON. If Australia is mentioned on back of title page as place of printing do not book a holiday in the Bahamas! Canada is also bad news.American editions are worth significantly less than UK ones.CHECK ABEBOOKS.COM

Last thing--you have to have 10987654321 to get lift off with this book and the date 1997 and no later date, a dust jacket is impossible because it didn't have one and don't neglect first edition 10987654321 paperbacks from 1997 - they too are valuable.

For Current Values - CHECK ABEBOOKS.COM All questions are answered there -type Rowling in the author field, type Stone in the title field, type Bloomsbury in publisher field, then choose highest price, hit search and from the results work down from there. The prices at the very top are generally excessive, over the top and way too much.

Generally speaking anything after a fourth edition is very mediocre, fourth and third are modestly worthwhile and occasionally some punter on ebay pays too much for one but you need 10987654321 or at least 1098765432 and it must be 1997 and not Australian or Canadian. See also all the comments below which answer every edition question in the known universe.

P.H. Emerson. Marsh Leaves. 1895

P.H. Emerson. MARSH LEAVES. David Nutt, London, 1895.

Current Selling Prices
$4000-$8000 /£2000-£4000

PHOTOGRAPHY
As I live in East Anglia and occasionally scout the remaining bookshops I am always on the lookout for photobooks by P.H. Emerson (1856 - 1935). He is something of a local hero and his 'bootiful' photos of the Norfolk broads in the Victorian era are still well known in the area and often exhibited. They even had a show at the Getty in Malibu recently.

I have turned up about half a dozen of his books in 20 years (not all in Norfolk and Suffolk) and only one was asleep (i.e. not priced by someone who knew what it was.) Three of them have been 'Marsh Leaves'. I described the last one that came through (2005) thus:

"Large tall 8vo. (11.25 inches x 7. 50 inches). pp vi, [2] 165.Original publisher's decorative light blue cloth. Illustrated with 'sixteen photo-etchings from plates taken by the author.' Major photobook with 60 short prose pieces and 16 photos both by Emerson, as Martin Parr says 'as a fusion of text and imagery it is entirely successful.' Covers somewhat worn and soiled with some staining at front top and corner, spine browned and a little mottled, spine ends sl frayed; sound vg- with clean text and photos in excellent state. It is said 300 copies were printed."

It sold quite quickly to the States at £1600. Our copy was a variant, the copy above with leather spine and white decorated boards is preferred. The book, and several other Emersons, is covered by the magisterial Martin Parr in 'The Photobook: A History 1.' He writes of Emerson's affinity with Whistler:

"...the mood, if anything is much bleaker than Whistler's. 'The expression of a landscape is as mutable and as fleeting as the flash in a woman's eye,' Emerson writes in the book's text, but it is a cold and distant woman indeed that he embraces in Marsh Leaves. Most of the images are minimalist to the point of nothingness - a distant tree or boat, the smudge of a distant shoreline...most were taken during winter or on damp, misty mornings. It is one of the most beautiful books about isolation and solitude, perhaps death, ever made, and Emerson's spare evocative pictures were seldom equalled by the later Pictorialists.'

VALUE? A copy in used condition sold for £1950 at Key's auctions (Norfolk) last year, a framed up set of the 16 photos made $14000 in California and at photo-mad auction house Swann Galleries in NY an impressive $19,200 was achieved this year, for a vellum copy described thus:

"...Illustrated with 16 photogravures after Emerson's atmospheric and proto-modernist photographs, with the original printed tissue guards. Tall 4to, morocco-backed pictorial cloth, rebacked; offsetting and discoloring on free endpaper, small gouge on rear pastedown; bookplate. deluxe edition, one of 50 copies on japanese vellum of a planned edition of 100."

Basically decent regular copies now command north of $5000, special copies $10K+. An inscribed 'Marsh Leaves' made $2000 in 1977 during the first boom in photo books. Condition is paramount and they are seldom limpid. I swapped a decent one with the late, much missed David Ferrow of Yarmouth for a car full of books in the mid 1990s, about two grand's worth. He had customers waiting - said to be well off Norfolk farmers.

Top price for any Emerson is this year at Swann - $84,000 for his 1886 'Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads' - 'Illustrated with Forty Beautiful Plates from Nature Executed in Platinotype.' It was helped by being one of 25 copies. Even the regular edition is a beautiful and sumptuous object and a stunning technical achievement. I have seen it in auction but, sadly, never owned one. A decent, complete copy had not been seen in the rooms since the late 1970s when it made $25K. The book, a definite break with the then current 'faux painterly' style, was reviewed at the time as "...an unanswerable refutation of those who say there is no art in photography." Ironically Emerson came to the conclusion that photography was not, and could never be, art and in 1890 published a pamphlet entitled 'The Death of Naturalistic Photography' in which he gave his reasons for this volte face. He never used the word 'art' again in relation to photography. In 2007 this may seem quaint but there are still those who support him. My own view is that it is an art, but Emerson (and possibly Thomas Frederick Goodall - his partner in some of the photos) is one of the few photographers who can be called artists. Photo below from (I think) "Wild Life on a Tidal Water' (1890) showing the river at Norwich at dawn.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 1900

"...a century after this book’s first publication, few Americans are unfamiliar with the image of Dorothy being carried by a Kansas cyclone into the magical land of Oz, where she meets the scarecrow, the tin woodman, and the cowardly lion. Their adventures looking for the Emerald City and the wizard have become a permanent part of American popular culture... its popularity now is largely based on the 1939 film, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. In his introduction to the book, Baum argued that ‘the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as ‘historical’ the time has come for a series of newer ‘wonder tales.’ Modern education includes morality, therefore the modern child needs only entertainment in its wonder-tales.' " (The New York Public Library’s Books of the Century/ Utopias & Dystopias)

Frank L. Baum. THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ. Geo. M. Hill, Chicago and New York, 1900.

Current Selling Prices
$12500-$40,000 /£6000-£20,000

CLASSIC CHILDREN'S LITERATURE / FANTASY
Wnen I first started to visit American used bookstores 20 years ago, if they had a glass cabinet it was usually stuffed with Baum--you don't see these books much over here and I occasionally bought them as a curiosity. About 2005 we went to a house in an unpretentious part of East London filled to the rafters with SF, fantasy and Baumiana. Sadly the Baum books had been left to a university library along with boxes of Oz ephemera CDS, figures, games, DVDs & Videos. The nearest I got was 2 boxes of Judy Garland records that took an age to sell. The SF kept our customers happy for a few months.

An inscribed copy at Christies New York in 2005 made $120K. It was described thus:

"4to (212 x 162 mm). Pictorial title-page; 24 color plates, numerous text illustrations by W.W. Denslow. Original pictorial green cloth, blocked in dark green and vermillion, pictorial endpapers (very slight wear to spine ends, some very minor discoloration, otherwise fine).
A FINE PRESENTATION COPY OF BAUM'S MASTERPIECE. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, in Hanff & Greene's binding C, with publisher's name in serifed type in red at foot of spine. INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR on the front free endpaper: "To my 'old' friend Mrs. W.C. Foster with kindest regards. L. Frank Baum. Chicago 1901."

Comments: Lyman Frank Baum began writing 25 years before The Wizard of Oz was published, when he founded a newspaper in Bradford, Pennsylvania. After leaving the paper, "he went on to manage opera houses, act in the theater, and establish a magazine for window dressers" but the success of The Wizard of Oz "kept him writing Oz books for the rest of his life: and even beyond his life, for after he died in 1919 others were commissioned to write more books about the Wizard" (introduction, Maurice Hungiville, The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was, Gardner and Nye, eds., East Lansing, 1984).

Along with his writing, Baum dabbled in related creative enterprises, such as a never realized Oz amusement park, on Pedloe Island off the coast of California, which he had purchased for this purpose; and a film company, founded in 1914, which produced the first two Oz film versions. (The 1939 landmark film adaptation starring Judy Garland was actually the third cinematic portrayal of Oz.) PRESENTATION COPIES OF 'THE WIZARD OF OZ' ARE VERY SCARCE.

Blanck, Peter Parley to Penrod, pp. 111-113; Hanff & Greene (1988) I.1; Morgan/Early Children's Books 214."

VALUE? Signed presentations are not especially scarce but they are certainly valuable. 10,000 copies of the first edition were printed. It is a book with a multitude of points on it and to establish which edition you have you need Bibliograpia Oziana.To have the publisher's name at the foot of the spine in plain unserifed type and stamped in green is an excellent start (Variant A.) If the publishers ads are enclosed in a box on page 2 and it is a clean copy it is time to up the house insurance. Variant B with Geo Hill's name in red is still a very valuable book in decent condition. Variant A is exceedingly difficult and was mainly handed out to friends and family. Variant C which has Geo Hill serifed and stamped in red with C of Co encircling the O is also serious money. 'Serifed' means with a few fancy twirls, as opposed to plain no nonsense typography.

There is currently a decent but not fine Variant B for sale at $36,000. The book can turn up in horrendous condition and even unsightly repaired, refurbished copies from 1900 are much treasured. Mixed states of the first are often found --even Bibliograpia Oziana doesn't cover the full panoply of variations-- for that you need Blanck and his Baum entry in Peter Parley to Penrod.[ W/Q **** ]

TRIVIA. There are theories and interpretations all over the infobahn -- the Wizard of Oz is meant to symbolize the President of the U.S. When finally revealed, he is nothing but a man who, like all politicians, exists through smoke and mirrors. There is a theory that it is an an allegory for the political battle over the Gold Standard (the Yellow Brick Road) and the little people of the United States are the Munchkins. They have been held in bondage for years by the Wicked Witch of the East who in turn, is supposed to be the thieving industrialists and large corporations of the East, all of whom support the Gold Standard. Dorothy frees them from their bondage. Here's the clincher - the standard abbreviation for the measurement of an ounce, which is how Gold is most often measured, is "oz." It is known that Baum was a believer in 'Free Silver' and anti the Gold Standard - so theories that Oz was some form of political tract are rife.

Lastly, a fan of the Wizard of Oz decided to watch the film with the sound off and the CD version of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon as the soundtrack. One assumes he was stoned. Apparently it is perfectly matched to the film. ("You've got to start them both together, man.") Scholars have done detailed studies of this myth. Another school asserts that if you start to play the CD when the lion roars for the third time in the credits, everything will then be perfectly matched. Details to note are A) When Elvira Gulch appears on her bike, the famous chimes on the CD kick in; B) When the Wizard tells Dorothy to go home, the Floyd start singing "Home, home again", and C) as the tornadoes starts, the Floyd begin the amazing track "The Great Gig in the Sky."

Pics above 1. Front Cover. 2. An early poster for the book. 3 (below) Early Baum poster. Nota Bene. Baum's 1904 sequel 'The Marvellous land of Oz' did not feature Dorothy and she was only re-instated after many children wrote to Baum to express their disappointment...the pattern of children writing to Baum about characters was a major impetus for the creation and continuation of the Oz series. It persists in this age with the young wizard Harry Potter. 'Munchkins' have become 'muggles.'

Cyril Connolly. Bond Strikes Camp.1963

Cyril Connolly. BOND STRIKES CAMP. Privately Printed at the Shenval Press, London 1963.

Current Selling Prices
$1800-$3000 /£900-£1500

PARODY/ MODERN FIRST EDITION
With a new original James Bond adventure being planned for release in 2008 to coincide with the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth it is worth noting this early Bond parody/ tribute. Connolly was a friend of Fleming and was commissioned to write this for the London Magazine run by another pal of Fleming--poet, sportsman and man of letters Alan Ross. As I recall Ross would occasionally sign the issue that contained the story as 'Cyril Connolly' - mainly because he had almost the same handwriting. We sold a copy of the signed limited edition - a 16 page booklet, in 1998 described thus:

"Royal 8vo., green paper wraps, title label, frontis. Fifty copies only were issued for sale. Signed presentation copy to the publisher, Alan Ross, this being one of two copies out of series,so designated in the author's hand and signed on the colophon:" one of two- other for Dennis Craig sold at Christies-1973, May." Inscribed on title-page:"Alan with love from Cyril the onlie begetter from the misbegotten." Additionally inscribed beneath the lascivious frontispiece:"A torpedo-shaped Larranaga," Originally published by Alan Ross in the London Magazine, Connolly's scurrilous pastiche in book-form is one of the greatest rarities of Bondiana, here found in unsurpassable association. Trivial faint mark lower wrap else fine copy."

The humour of ‘Bond Strikes Camp’ (1962) depends on the contrast between its use of Ian Fleming’s butch style and the events it describes—James Bond’s undercover entrapment of a Soviet agent at a drag club:

‘One more question, sir. I have no wish to weary you with details of my private life but I can assure you I’ve never dressed up in “drag” as you call it since I played Katisha in “The Mikado” at my prep. school. I shan’t look right, I shan’t move right, I shan’t talk right; I shall feel about as convincing arsing about as a night-club hostess as Randolph Churchill.’

VALUE? With 50 copies only being issued it is necessarily scarce. We sold our copy in 1998 for £850, there is one on the web now at £1950 (not fine)--the kind of price it takes to stop it selling. A copy of the magazine with the contribution signed by Fleming to Hugo Pitman made £1350 in 1992 at Sotheby's. Obviously he took the squib in good humour. Serious Bond completists have to have the book - but unless they are rich or ridiculously keen, they make do with the contribution (The London Magazine, Vol 3, No. 1, April 1963) which can be picked up for less than 20 quid. Pics above from the 1967 movie 'Casino Royale' with David Niven as Bond - said to be a sort of surreal parody and slightly camp. [ W/Q * ]

Jim Crace. Continent, 1986. ('Netblown')

Jim Crace. CONTINENT. Heinemann, London 1986.

Current Selling Prices
$20-$200 /£10-£100

MODERN FIRST EDITION
I checked this book up recently on the various internet book malls (Bookfinder etc.,) and found that, although it is the first book of a rated writer, it can be bought in fine condition for $20 and for not much more signed. In Ahearn's guide to the prices of author's first books it is rated at $75 in 2000, up from $60 in 1995. The book's value has now been blown away by the internet ('Netblown') - like many other books that were once thought to be scarce, valuable and hard to find.

I looked up Crace's book when I read about the murder of his greatest fan and greatest collector - a 70 year old Springfield attorney named Rolland Comstock. Comstock was a serious book collector (profiled in Basbanes' 'A Gentle Madness') shot by a person or persons unknown. Police checked his collection of 50,000 books against his catalogue and found none missing. The case, like something out of John Dunning, is covered over at the excellent Philobiblos.

Crace writes: 'I first encountered Rolland in 1987, when 1,086 copies of my first novel, 'Continent' were remaindered...Rolland bought the lot, utterly convinced that given time they would become valuable.' The perspicacious Basbanes notes- 'Rolland sure guessed right on him...' Possibly they will become valuable, but with prices at an all time low and 1,086 copies waiting in the wings it may take 100 years. With quantities like this you need an author with a vast customer base underpinning him or her - a Fleming, Rowling, Harper Lee or Hemingway.

At the turn of the century we bought 300 copies of Fleming's 'Octopussy' --all firsts and all fine in jacket. It took about 5 years to sell the lot on Ebay, the net and in the shop--none went for less than $40 and some made $200. The book was remaindered in the early 1980s at 5p (10 cents) and is still ridiculously common. The difference between the excellent 'slipstreaming' novelist Crace and the smoke wreathed Fleming is that Ian has about 20,000 collectors and Jim probably has less than 50.

VALUE? Not a lot. Hope to cover a few other netblown books soon--Corelli, English Patient, Leaving Las Vegas,Girl on a Swing, In Patagonia--suggestions welcome.

Learning From Las Vegas. 1972

Current Selling Prices
$1250-$3000 /£650-£1500

Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour. LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS. Cambridge, Mass. & London: The M.I.T. Press, 1972 ISBN: 0262220156

ARCHITECTURE
Cult classic -architecture / urbanism...a revolutionary case study that opened the world's eyes to vernacular architecture and iconography-the "ugly and ordinary" structures and signage born to satisfy the needs of regular people, not architects. Venturi Scott Brown are now an important Architectural firm with buildings at Harvard, Michigan, Yale and Tsinghua University Beijing. Robert Venturi is often referred to as the "father of Post Modernism."

The book is a large quarto of 188 pages and can turn up in a translucent glassene printed jacket that adds considerably to its value. In an interview by Melissa Urcan last year with the two surviving authors we get a look at the work 35 years on:

"Melissa Urcan: I would first like to ask you about the weight of Learning from Las Vegas, now almost 35 years old. Do you feel tied to the association of your work to this book, or is it something you continue to draw from?

Robert Venturi: Since then we have written an essay called "Las Vegas After Its Classic Age," which emphasizes that Learning from Las Vegas in the context of now is completely historical. If you had written a book on the Renaissance in Florence, it would have taken maybe 100 years to say, "Oh that's historical." Now you can say 35 years have gone by very fast. But Learning from Las Vegas is still relevant in many ways, such as in its recognition of the relevance and significance of iconography and signage more than of space. Las Vegas got us in a lot of trouble, but we learned a lot from it.

MU: The Strip in Las Vegas appears to be where you spent the most research time. In this book you had the premonition of the building and sign eventually merging. Did you have any idea how big the entire city would become?

Denise Scott Brown: We did concentrate on the Strip, but not only on the Strip. We studied patterns of land use throughout Las Vegas. And we mapped all the strips of Las Vegas, not just the famous Strip.

RV: In the essay "Las Vegas After Its Classic Age," we say the obvious-that the Strip evolves into the Boulevard. The former Strip is now officially "the Boulevard." I love the use of the word "scenography"-in a sense Las Vegas is now City as Scenography; it's a Disneyland. Most cities are to some extent scenographic, but few are as explicitly theatrical.

VALUE? The book has been reprinted and can be picked up for $30 but the 1972 first is now quite scarce. There are 4 copies on ABE at between $1800 and $4500. A copy appeared in auction at Bloomsbury in London last week, singly lotted for the first time in its book auction history. It was a reasonable copy in d/w and made £950 in a rather costly art book sale.

Captain Joseph W. Kittinger "The Long Lonely Leap" 1961

In an open gondola hung beneath a shimmering cloud of plastic, a man ascends to the awesome height of 102,800 feet. He looks about him at a world that is not the world of man. The atmosphere of his planet lies beneath his feet. The velvet blackness of space is close enough to reach out and touch. He is absolutely alone. Then he jumps . . . ( From the blurb of 'The Long Lonely Leap' 196i)


Captain Joseph W. Kittinger, Jr., USAF (with Martin Caidin.) THE LONG, LONELY LEAP. E.P. Dutton & Company, N.Y. 1961.

Current Selling Prices
$350-$600? /£180-£300?

AVIATION / SPACE TRAVEL
Highly uncommon regularly published book that is much sought after. There are no copies currently for sale online. Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, well before liquid-fuel rockets were fully operational, a small group of military men made the first exploratory trips into the upper stratosphere to the edge of outer space in tiny capsules suspended beneath plastic balloons. They are sometimes referred to as 'the pre-astronauts.' Doctors, physicists, meteorologists, engineers, astronomers, and test pilots, they made great personal sacrifices and took great risks for the promise of high adventure and the opportunity to uncover a few secrets of the universe. One of their number, Capt. Joseph Kittinger, rode a balloon up to 103,000 feet in an open gondola and then stepped out and freefell to Earth, becoming the only person to break the sound barrier without a vehicle. Kittinger wrote the book with Martin Caidin, aviation writer, pilot, and author of over two dozen books, the two men flew and spent months together to re-create the amazing events of this story.



A good summary was posted on the Corinth Information Database in 1995:

"Beginning with his boyhood and youth in Florida, where he explored wilderness waterways and was a professional speedboat racer, Captain Kittinger describes his experiences as an Air Force aviation cadet, fighterbomber pilot and test pilot. In 1957 he soared to 96,000 feet in a sealed capsule as test pilot of Project Man High, the high-altitude balloon program studying man's ability to function usefully as part of a man-machine system in a near-space environment. Then, after work with the Escape Section of the Aerospace Medical Laboratory, Captain Kittinger became Chief and volunteer test subject of Project Excelsior, the program aimed at developing a parachute by which a man could survive escape at extreme altitudes. To put the new Beaupre chute, and related equipment developed by the team, to practical test, Captain Kittinger made his three great jumps-Excelsior I, II, and III.

These courageous jumps reached their climax in his famous record leap from the very edge of space itself, almost 20 miles above the earth. This drop included a free fall lasting more than an incredible 4 1/2 minutes, during which Captain Kittinger reached a falling speed of 614 miles per hour before his parachute finally opened at 18,000 feet. Captain Kittinger describes the preparations for the balloon ascent, and the actual ascent itself. He tells of floating for eleven minutes in the alien world of space, 102,800 feet up. Then . . . the descent. Using an actual tape recording of his words as he fell, Kittinger relates his impressions, vividly re-creating this magnificent and terrifying experience."

In later life Joe Kittinger served three combat tours during the Vietnam War, flying a total of 483 missions, On March 1, 1972, he shot down a MIG-21 in air-to-air combat, and was later downed himself on May 11, 1972, just before the end of his tour. He spent 11 months as a prisoner of war in the "Hanoi Hilton". He was not a good prisoner.

VALUE? I hesitate to say 'sky high' but this appears to be an unfindable book. Wikipedia, which posits a reprint in November 2005 (didn't happen) says that 'surviving copies are expensive.' A National Geographic from December 1960 has an article about his jump and that can command $50. His signed photo can go for between $150 and $240. In the hands of a dealer from Ventura one could imagine a four figure price. No copies appear to have passed through ebay. A reprint could still happen- but try $500 for a fab copy of the 1961 first. [ W/Q ***]

Awesome Book Wants list from 1920s

BOOKS AND PRINTS
SPECIALLY WANTED TO BE PURCHASED

WALTER T. SPENCER,
27, NEW OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C.
(Opposite Mudie's Library and near the British Museum).

Telephone No. 5847 Central. Telegraphic Address- "Phiz, London."
Private Address- CULVER HOUSE, THE ESPLANADE, SHANKLIN, ISLE OF WIGHT.
Bankers - LONDON & COUNTY (New Oxford St. Branch).

Any Parcels of Books sent, I willingly pay carriage both ways, if we do not come to terms.

Cash always sent by Return Post. Established 1884

→ Shall be glad to hear of Imperfect Copies or Odd Vols of any Books or odd plates in this List.


We recently found this closely written 24 page catalogue of 'books wanted' put out by London bookseller Walter T. Spencer in about 1920 (date taken from BM copy.) We are publishing it online almost in its entirety (long lists of Scott, Ainsworth and Dickens have been abbreviated.) Some of the books are now impossible to find, a lot were very rare even then - especially anonymous pamphlets put out by the Romantics and items such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning's impossible first book 'Battle of Marathon'. Spencer's list encapsulates bookseller wisdom of his age and rarities passed down from 19th century book sellers. These were the 'sexy' books of his day and some of them are still appearing on wants list, some no longer wanted or easily found (e.g. Charles Lever, Frank Smedley, Walter Scott.)

I may add a few notes in but time forbids me from identifying every anonymous and pseudonymous item. Occasionally he offers money for a book and one can multiply that by about 100 to get his modern price. It is to be assumed with some books that they are there because a valued customer had asked for them.



Spencer, known in the trade as 'Tommy', wrote a memoir "40 Years in my Bookshop" (London 1923) that reveals part of his story. Spencer's dates were possibly 1866-1964, he is unknown to Wikipedia and the DNB but these old booksellers lived long lives. He was a major book seller of his time, a friend of forger Thomas J. Wise and appears to have dabbled in forgery himself. His shop was at 27 New Oxford and he dealt in prints, plate books, bound sets, the Romantics, Americana, first editions of his time (Wilde, Conrad, Galsworthy, etc.). A big Dickens man, popular with visiting American plutocrats like pickle king Henry J. Heinz and numbering among his customers, Sir Henry Irving, Gladstone, George Meredith, Andrew Lang, Gissing, Pater, Swinburne, and Richard Jefferies. Tim D'Arch Smith recalls Spencer trading from Upper Berkeley Street in the late 1950s. He even remembers his bookseller code - 'TWICKENHAM' with T standing for one, W for 2 etc.,

Marc de Vaulbert Chantilly in his excellent survey of bookseller's memoirs (in 'Out of Print & Into Profit' 2006) quotes O.F. Snelling '...much of what he knew has certainly gone into limbo...some of the best tales I ever heard of Spencer's dealings never got into his book.' He was a constructor of false provenances, involved with some fake Shaw letters, a maker up of questionable sets of Dickens in the parts and would also 'sophisticate' books with unacknowledged facsimiles. His 1920 wants list (undoubtedly effective) could, to a great degree, have been the source of his fortune. It partly answer bibliophile A.E. Newton's remark- 'How he does it, where he gets them, is his business.' There is often a clever trick or stratagem behind fortunes made in the book or art trade.

The first book mentioned 'Absurdities In Prose & Verse' is illustrated by Alfred Crowquill (pic by him above) with 13 hand coloured paltes and now goes for £150 + in nice condition, for the ninth book in the list- 'A Declaration of the State of Virginia' (1620) you might get £15000. It is likely that Spencer put many standard collector's books in his list to hide the occasional devastatingly valuable book.

Absurdities In Prose Verse, 1827
Account of New South Wales, 1804
Actors by Daylight, 1838-9, 55 Nos.
Actors by Gaslight, 1838, 37 Nos.
Adair (J.) History of American Indians, 1775
Adam (R. and J.) Works in Architecture, 3 vols, folio, 1778, &c.
Addison (J.) Damascus and Palymyra, 2 vols, 1838
A Day's Ride, second edition
A Declaration of the State of Virginia, 1620
A Dialogue in the Shades, 1766
Click for the complete pamphlet...

The Principles of Knitting

June Hemmons Hiatt. THE PRINCIPLES OF KNITTING. Simon and Schuster, NY 1988

Current Prices $160-$300 /£80-£150

KNITTING /FASHION.
Much sought after especially with a strong rebirth of interest in knitting. Considered almost an inspirational work in the canon and it leads knitters to the unimaginable stage of actually knitting to their own designs. It could well be reprinted and there seems to be a growing clamour to get this done with some knitters petitioning S & S for a reprint. Ms Hiatt is apparently esp good on wools and yarns etc., The book is seriously discussed over at Library Thing. She is against circular needles, feeling they produce "barrel sweaters" - this is now considered an unfashionable view and these needles are popular. Some knitters consider Ms Hiatt dictatorial. However there are 80 people wanting this book at ABE alone.

VALUE? 2 copies on ABE at $210 and $290, several on Amazon UK from $350 to $500 meanwhile copies change hands almost daily on ebay at around $100 - $200. Not scarce and a legendary library sale find. It's a big art book size hardback; some knitters are intimidated by its bulk. Can wear a jacket. It is not growing in value, although all the grossly overpriced copies of last year (highest $800) have disappeared or been reduced to merely unreasonable...[ W/Q **** ]

William Golding. Lord of the Flies, 1954.

"... a very serious book ... written with taste and liveliness, the talk is natural, the descriptions of scenery enchanting. It is certainly not a comforting book. But it may help a few grown-ups to be less complacent and more compassionate, to support Ralph, respect Piggy, control Jack and lighten a little the darkness of man's heart. At the present moment (if I may speak personally) it is respect for Piggy that seems needed most. I do not find it in our leaders." E.M. Forster , introduction to Lord of the Flies 1962.


"I have lived for many years with small boys, and understand and know them with awful precision." William Golding, 1965.




William Golding. LORD OF THE FLIES. Faber and Faber Ltd, London 1954.

Current Selling Prices
$6000-$10000 /£3000-£5000

MODERN FIRST EDITION / FANTASY / HORROR
A dystopian 'Coral Island' and a great classic of the Atomic Age. Not at all easy to find in superior condition as the book was read, especially by younger readers, and the yellow jacket is easily soiled and often fades. Many copies went to libraries.
Famously rejected by a slew of big name publishers, it received this damning reader's report at Faber:

"Time: The Future. Absurd and uninteresting fantasy about the explosion of an atomic bomb on the colonies and a group of children who land in jungle country near New Gunea. Rubbish and dull. Pointless."

However it was Faber (due to the perspicacity of Charles Monteith) who published it after quite radical revisions to the first chapter, changes which Golding was happy to make. It was at that point called 'Strangers from Within' - the actual title was thought up by Alan Pringle at Faber. 3040 copies were printed and they sold slowly until good notices started to appear and E.M. Forster chose it as his book of the year for 1954.

Rick Gekoski has a good chapter on the book and Golding in 'Tolkien's Gown.' WG thought Gekoski and Grogan's bibliography of his works was a waste of time, exclaiming 'Why don't they just read the damned books'. The full bibliographical panoply can read thus -'Barron (ed), Horror Literature 4-123. Jones and Newman (eds), Horror: 100 Best Books 53. Survey of Science Fiction Literature III, pp. 1257-60. Gekoski and Grogan A2aI.'

'Bibliography is a lie' I was once informed by a prominent Texan dealer in Americana  - 'if you cite enough of it you can make any edition of any book sound significant.' In the bibliographical spirit it should be noted that the book can turn up with a wraparound band (sometimes known in USA as a 'bellyband.') This has reviews on it and was presumably placed on it at at a slightly later stage, eg. it quotes Arthur Calder Marshall's BBC review - 'A dizzy climax of terror.' This band, unknown to Gekoski and Grogan, can turbo charge the asking price to a stonking $19000.

VALUE? Hard to find a decent copy in a jacket for less than £3K although they have passed through Ebay at less. A copy described as 'Ealing Studios copy, with stamp on front rear endpapers' made £7000 at Sotheby's in 2002, at the atypical Drapkin sale where all the books were in fancy binder's boxes (variously descibed as 'hideous' and 'wonderful') a copy made $16000 in 2005. A copy in a faded jacket made £4500 at CSK in 2005. The book has doubled in value in the last 10 years. 20 years ago at Sotheby's London, Gekoski himself paid £800 for a jacketed UK first described as ' a variant in dark blue cloth' -the kind of thing that interests a bibliographer. The US ed is worth about a tenth of the UK. [ W/Q *** ]



TRIVIA * An episode of The Simpsons titled Das Bus was a parody of Lord of the Flies, mirroring it in many ways. For instance while trapped on an island, they use glasses to make a fire and also hunt pigs. Another Simpsons episode, Kamp Krusty , also makes some reference to the novel.

* Nick Hornby commented that a newer novel, The Beach , is: "A Lord of the Flies for Generation X".

*Art becomes reality T.V. - A film adaptation of the book was one of the main inspirations for the reality TV show Survivor All Stars, according to host Jeff Probst.

*Lord of the Flies is referenced several times (often jokingly) in the TV drama Lost which is also set in a desert island when the characters feel they are under the threat of turning wild.

George White. English Lantern Clocks.1989

George White. ENGLISH LANTERN CLOCKS. Antique Collector's Club, UK, 1989. ISBN 0907462332

Current Selling Prices
$1000-$2000 /£500-£1000

ANTIQUES/ CLOCKS / COLLECTABLES
Highly sought after reference work that defines this collecting area. If you collect Lantern clocks or deal in them you have to have this book. 70 punters waiting at ABE, 30 at Alibris and a small queue outside my shop. Some Antique Collector's Club monographs command fat sums when they go out of print but ATC have been known to issue much better updated editions that severely deflate the price of the originals, so caveat emptor, noli tangere and quid pro quo. BTW a lantern clock is nothing like a grandfather clock, check out our pic...you see them on the mantelpieces of nice homes in the home counties. A good one is very expensive as they are often very old (they were the earliest type of domestic clock in Britain)--forgeries abound. The Wikiman tells us:

'... other names used to indicate these clocks are "Cromwellian Clocks" or "Bedpost Clocks". Even "Sheep head Clock" is a fashionable term used for a certain type of lantern clock that has an extremely large chapter ring covering almost the entire front of the clock...'

VALUE? One on web late 2006 at 950 quid ($1800) and another as a Buy it Now on ebay at $2000. Neither chap can give any indication of condition so one assumes what the French call 'moyen' i.e. mediocre. Not impossible to find, as every seller claims, just bloody expensive. Auction catalogue. Couple of decent copies at ABE at £550 and £675. STOP PRESS, Amazon are taking pre orders for a reprint at £70. Has Sir George White now asked for as reprint...? Collapse of stout parties, Schadenfreude etc., The reprint was scheduled for Spring 2007 and is now Jan 08 --one seller reckons it will never happen ('long promised') - but he is trying to sell his stroppily priced o/p copy. There is one on Amazon Canada (something of a gathering place for ultra overchargers) at a carpet biting £3500. Watch this space..this is a book wanted for the information in it, so a later revised edition will mortally wound all earlier editions. [ W/Q **** ]

Wiped Out: How I Lost A Fortune In The Stock Market...

WIPED OUT: How I Lost A Fortune In The Stock Market While The Averages Were Making New Highs, By An Anonymous Investor. Simon & Schuster, N.Y. 1966.

Current Selling Prices
$80-$1100 /£40-£550

STOCK MARKET / ECONOMICS
The first truly anonymous book I have done--the author is unknown. Certainly not Warren Buffett. One of those 'don't do what I have done' books- the 'totally galvanizing' confession of an amateur investor who at first made money in the stock market and then tried to make more money faster.. .

A great ebay favourite where it has made a few notable prices and is featured at the excellent and exhaustive list a book that looks like nothing at the Ebay Forums. Possibly 'netblown' - you now see copies all over the web -one virtual antique shop has it at an unashamed $700. I suspect that after a few spectacular results at Ebay many people dug out copies and supply and demand took over and the wave broke. It is not entirely ruined yet and there is a growing number of collectors for stock market related books. A collection was recently offered for over a million dollars by Shapero in London and not all stock market books are about fortunes made--there was a spate of books about the crash of 1929 and Black Thursday - Tennyson's 'Maud' is said to be about the suicide of someone who lost all his money in the markets:

'Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had fail’d,
And ever he mutter’d and madden’d, and ever wann’d with despair,
And out he walk’d when the wind like a broken worlding wail’d,
And the flying gold of the ruin’d woodlands drove thro’ the air. ..'

Failure is always fascinating. I shall be dealing with the Failiure (sic) Press this week-an obscure journal to which Stephen Fry was wont to contribute in the late 1970s. 'Wiped Out' for some reason comes in various different coloured d/ws -- no precedence has been established...no one has yet bothered. This is usually done with dated presentations and I have never heard of a signed copy. Can an anonymous person sign a book?

VALUE? Copies seen as high as $1100 (for a proof copy, but a frankly demented and buffoon price). A fine copy can be had for around a $100, half that for one with shelf wear--this is not 'Wealth of Nations!' [ W/Q ** ]

Albert Goldman. Disco, 1978

" That everybody sees himself as a star today is both a cliché and a profound truth. Thousands of young men and women have the looks, the clothes, the hairstyling, the drugs, the personal magnetism, the self‑confidence, and the history of conquest that proclaims the star. The one thing they lack—talent—is precisely what is most lacking in those other, nearly identical, young people whom the world has acclaimed as stars. Never in the history of show biz has the gap between the amateur and the professional been so small. Nor ever in the history of the world has there been such a rage for exhibitionism..." [Goldman 1978]




Albert Goldman. DISCO. Hawthorn Books, Inc., New York 1978

Current Selling Prices
$100-$240 /£50-£120


MUSIC / DANCE
The above quote in Albert Goldman's deathless prose is somewhat prescient, reality TV hadn't been invented then...but down the disco everyone was a star. I hesitate to trot out the word 'seminal' but this is the Disco book, especially as it came out at the time. No doubt Abrams will produce a 5 kilo book on the subject or Taschen a 20 kilo book signed by John Travolta with a raised silver platform boot on the cover by Jeff Koons - but they will not surpass Goldman's masterpiece.

The book, the size of a small art book and not substantial (174 pages) is illustratred throughout in b/w and has a subsection featuring select colour photos. It came out in paperback and hardback with a jacket. The jacketed hardback is, as always, preferred and is more expensive and rarer. Very much the kind of book that would be turfed out at a boot sale or sold for 50 cents at a library sale - although being a bit of a Ebay special it is not really a sleeper anymore + alot of the books at library sales are now checked out on the web beforehand. It's not fair.

Jack Kroll in a review in 'Newsweek' gives the flavour of the book:

'...Albert Goldman's account of the Disco scene has the drive, color, and pounding beat of the music itself. Only Goldman could have brought such a unique package of talents to the task of exploring the greatest outbreak of Dionysiac madness since the Jitterbug, Lindy-hopping nights of the Swing era. Goldman seizes the scene from the multiple perspective of a musicologist, a sociologist, a psychiatrist, an anthropologist -- and a perfectionist. he is the swinging man's Levi-Strauss, tracing the Disco explosion back to its primeval roots and forward to the tribal rites of the sophisticated savage who is contemporary man and woman.'

The reference to Levi - Strauss is, presumably, to the 99 year old anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and not the jeans..

VALUE? Reasonable copies usually start at $150. A not fine signed copy sits at ABE at a stroppy $500 and in an Ebay shop a copy in a 'fair' d/w is a BIN at $150. Fair is a word which, even when used by an amateur, usually means 'poor.' A chancer on Amazon wants $575 for an unsigned copy ('Factory-sealed in plastic; Unopened; Rare find! Preserved unopened by a collector since it was issued; Text in Excellent shape; Great pictures! Great info!') Prada clad NY photo dealers want $500 for the book, but a judicious shopper should be able to pick up a sharp copy for $200.

One Disco enthusiasts site advises that the book is worth every cent of $150 and adds that it '...is perhaps the most sought after book from the actual Disco era about the Disco era. No revisionist BS here as it was written back in the day when Disco ruled the world.' The book was produced by Spritzgun Productions and that is disco model Vivianne Castanos on the cover.[ W/Q ***]

Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations 1776.

"...by directing (his) industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it..."

Adam Smith. AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. London, for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776.

Current Selling Prices
$90000-$15000 /£45000-£75000

ECONOMICS
A wonderful title. A landmark work by the prophet of the free market. The Victorian philosopher Henry Thomas Buckle once claimed that, in its effect, this was "probably the most important book that has ever been written" and that "that this solitary Scotchman has, by the publication of one single work, contributed more toward the happiness of man than has been effected by the united abilities of all the statesmen and legislators of whom history has presented an authentic record." On the other hand Dr Johnson told Boswell that Smith "was as dull a dog as he had ever met with" --Boswell had been one of Smith's pupils at Glasgow University.

The book, two sound quartos, sold well, and the first edition, the number of which is unknown, sold out within six months. This came as a surprise to the publisher, and probably also to Smith himself - in a letter to David Hume he wrote that the book 'requires much thought and reflection (qualities that do not abound among modern readers) to peruse to any purpose."

Probably one of the least asleep of all books--you are most unlikely to find one cheap--if you find a 1776 edition, and they do turn up, it will almost always be the 3 volume Dublin printing worth about a tenth of the London edition. The above quotation about the 'invisible hand' gives an idea of the style and thrust of the book. It is much loved by enlightened Republicans, libertarians and high Tories. Bagehot was a fan. Reaganomics was nothing but Adam Smith. The amusing P.J. O'Rourke has produced a sort of 'Adam Smith for Dummies' called 'P.J. O’Rourke on The Wealth of Nations" a good summary and explication in which he also takes a few swipes at liberals (however the man, described on one site as 'an ageing bong head', is no Rush Limbaugh.) He sees Enron as an example of businessmen not following Smith's principles - self-interest and greed being antithetical to each other. Greed is not good business.

The book is featured in 'Printing and the Mind of Man'- a work that used to be a bible among serious collectors of landmark books. It is still important, but you don't hear people say 'it's in PMM!' so much anymore. PMM says of the book:

'Where the political aspects of human rights had taken two centuries to explore, Smith’s achievement was to bring the study of economic aspects to the same point in a single work … The certainty of its criticism and its grasp of human nature have made it the first and greatest classic of modern economic thought...’

VALUE? A copy made £85000 (+ commission taking in to little short of £100,000 to get it out of the room) in June this year. It was in an Edwards of Halifax binding (decorated / painted at the spine with a family crest.) There is a bit of a fetish for such bindings so this may have fired this price up, a copy in a handsome binding sits in London at £75000 and a copy described as "...a remarkably clean, fine and totally unsophisticated copy" made $135000 at Sotheby's New York in 2005. A worn copy made $60K last year and 10 years ago decent examples were making $30K. William Rees Mogg once wrote an article showing how key books such as this could be an investment and if chosen wisely could outpace inflation. He may well be right so far. You are never going to find a set now for much less than $60K unless it is defective or has had a hard life. [ W/Q ** ]

TRIVIA. O'Rourke parodies Smith's opaque prose style in his own work on him - “Pretty soon Smith gets enmeshed in clarifications, intellectually caught out, Dagwood-like, carrying his shoes up the stairs of exegesis at 3 a.m., expounding his head off, while that vexed and querulous spouse, the reader, stands with arms crossed and slipper tapping on the second-floor landing of comprehension.” Also it could be argued that Adam Smith inspired Boswell in his great biography of Johnson - he attended Smith's lectures at Glasgow University, and was captivated by Smith's remark that even the smallest detail is of interest in a great man - such as John Milton's choice of shoe laces over buckles.

This is Tomorrow. Whitechapel Art Gallery 1956

Lawrence Alloway (ed.,) THIS IS TOMORROW. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London 1956.

Current Selling Prices
$1000- $2000 / £500-£1000

Small blue catalogue of an important exhibition -"This is Tomorrow" -variously described as 'seminal' 'landmark' 'watershed' and 'groundbreaking.' Something of a sleeper - in the sense that it can be cashed in with almost any art reference dealer for $1000 but to the unhip eye looks like a $15 fifties art catalogue. Not impossible to find, it was a popular exhibition, we have had 3 copies in the last 10 years. We desrcibed the last thus:

'8vo. Unpaginated--about 60 pages and some product ads. Illustrated throughout. Groundbreaking exhibition devoted to the possibilities of co-operation between architects, painters, musicians, graphic designers and sculptors. 4 pages of poems by Reyner Banham. Exhibition featured work by Erno Goldfinger, Victor Pasmore, Paolozzi, Anthony Jackson, Germano Facetti, Theo Crosby, John Ernest, William Turnbull etc., Highly important and difficult to find, especially in this condition. Small oblong rung bound catalogue; slight spotting to covers, one corner sl creased ; vg+.'

Sold it for about £400 in 2002. For some reason we forgot to mention the early appearance of Richard Hamilton, curently selling for mindblowing sums. His room was the most visited of the show-- he shared it with John Voelcker and John McHale, with collaboration from Magda and Frank Cordell. It included the Op Art Dazzle panels, and Pop Art readymades of a film advertising billboard of the Forbidden Planet, Robby the Robot and a Jukebox that were provided by McHale.

It can be found reproduced at thisistomorrow2.com. There is thus no need to buy it - but it has become an iconic object marking the beginning of a great new spirit in art.



VALUE? A book dealer from the NY art /vernissage coterie had a copy at $5000 in late 2006, possibly a 'having a laugh price' aimed at a hedge fund art trendy or super rich artist/collector like Richard Prince--anyway it went or was not there a week later. Likely to have been an "I saw you coming" price - while on the subject of comedians note the resemblance of the stout artist Paolozzi to comic and hoaxer Dom Joly (above) + those are not Ipod earphones Smithson is wearing but the drawstrings of a sort of khaki army pullover affected by cool Bohemians of the 1950s. TRIVIA. One wonders whether architect Erno Goldfinger's name was the inspiration for Ian Fleming's 1959 novel. [ W/Q ** ]

Celebrity Book Collectors. Part Two.

Sometimes it is hard to know whether a celeb is a book collector or merely a buyer of books who is occasionally spotted in bookshops. Sometimes he or she is merely buying an expensive book as a gift or inducement. For a while at the turn of the century it became fashionable for Hollywood stars to buy one another rare books as presents, especially at the end of making a movie.

Seen in bookshops, but not confirmed as collectors, are stars like Dustin Hoffman, Elton John (can be seen in Sandoe's of Chelsea) David Bowie (Shakespeare and Co, Paris) Quentin Tarantino (Charing Cross Road) Bob Dylan (Heritage in LA) Neil Young (Logos, Santa Cruz) Julia Roberts (Notting Hill.) I remember Ronnie Corbett showing up once at our Hammersmith shop wanting yards of leather for his mansion -- he may be known in USA from 'Extras' (small guy caught snorting coke in the loo at an award ceremony - ''just a bit of wizz to blow out the cobwebs.") The finest star I ever saw in our shop (and there haven't been many) was John le Mesurier--who seemed exactly the same as on screen--vague, diffident, posh, charming. Our shop was also frequented by a pop combo known as the Jesus and Mary Chain. Sorry to be dropping such heavy names.

Madonna. Said to colllect early books by and about women starting with Hildegard of Bingen, Juliana of Norwich etc.,. Doesn't want them in Latin because she likes to actually read them. An expensive collecting area.

Keith Richard. His library ('reading retreat') is pictured in Estelle Elis's 1995 book 'At Home With Books: How Booklovers Live With and Care for Their Libraries' copies of which can be found for about $35 inc post. He has quite alot of books but they look like fairly common military books, sensational paperbacks, Franklin mint classics, 'Occult Reich' that sort of thing. Perched on one bookshelf is a bottle of HP sauce, a noose and a skull wearing a sailor's hat. I have heard that Keith has more recently moved on to serious and valuable books including Early Printing. Another distinguished former heroin addict and collector was the late John Paul Getty III who had a world class library - especially Pre Raphaelites and Incunabula.

Bernie Taupin. Elton John’s long-time lyricist. Mentioned in Rick Gekoski's excellent 'Tolkien's Gown.' Gekoski is our own Basbanes but lacks Basbanes' boring side. Bernie, not short of a few bob, bought from Rick a superb 2 vol Paris 'Lolita' in 1992 inscribed with the customary butterfly drawing thus -‘For Graham Greene from Vladimir Nabokov, November 8, 1959’. He paid £9000 and sold it a bit later for not a lot more. Slightly daft move as in 2002 it made $264,000 at Christies. Bernie collects modern firsts esp Greene.

Thurston Moore. Leader of experimental rock group 'Sonic Youth'. An assiduous collector of experimental 'underground' literature mainly from the 1960s. Like many collectors now he is not served by some tweedy book dealer but buys from all and sundry over the net. Much of this stuff is ephemeral and rare. He in his turn is collected (see Prince below.)

Neil Pearson. Excellent Brit actor mostly seen on TV but can be found in Bridget Jones movies, 'Love Actually' and the recent TV thriller 'The State Within'. Also reads audiobooks. Great collector of 'Published in Paris' books esp Obelisk Press. He recently appeared with Rick Gekoski at Hay on Wye festival talking about rare books.

David Attenborough. Much loved maker of fine Nature programmes for BBC. A great collector of serious older Natural History books especially those with colour plates. Seen at ABA book fairs.



Barry Humphries. Aka Dame Edna Everage. Serious collector of decadent literature -- especially 1890s. Is said to favour minor nineties poets like Theodore Wratislaw and illustrators like Charles Shannon. Has a long suit of Oscar Wilde. Married Stephen Spender's daughter.


Ashley Drane. Star of 'That's So Raven' a TV show whose plot is summarised thus: 'A teenage girl periodically receives brief psychic visions of the near future. Trying to make these visions come true results in trouble, and hilarious situations, for the girl and her friends.' Classic modern collector--Ashley collects 'Alice in Wonderland' and has every kind of object, ephemeroid and doll but finds the actual book a bit boring. Certainly doesn't have an 1865 printing, possibly just the Franklin Mint. This may be the future...

Michael Winner. Film director. The man they love to hate. Has a house in Kenington next to fellow book collector Jimmy Page's Victorian pile (by Burges.) Collects Arthur Rackham including drawings etc., I am told Rackham prices are falling and he has become a little vieux jeu.

Jay Leno. Lantern jawed US TV presenter. Collects cars and motorbikes but apparently has an impressive Dickens collection -- including some works 'in the parts' --i.e. in the earliest form that his works were issued.

Richard Prince. Wealthy and prolific contemporary American artist, probably best known for his pulp fiction nurse paintings.

Prince collects books and ephemera much of which end up in his work e.g. a Sonic Youth check with a signed drumhead and a Sid Vicious letter. He also collects American first editions and his collection morphed into art can be seen in the Glenn Horowitz published 2004 book 'Richard Prince: American English.' Horowitz is , of course, one of the biggest dealers in rare books in the world. Prince is said to have paid a 6 figure sum for a 'Naked Lunch' presented from Burroughs to Paul Bowles. Rather too much money but it may end up as seven figure art. Our own diamond geezer Hirst has a masked nurse by Prince in his collection.

Other glitterati associated with books and collecting include Lana Turner (serious collector) Michael York (seen with Dame Edna) Bryan Ferry (collects Wyndham Lewis) Gregg Lake (fishing books) Vic Reeves (exploration) Ricky Jay (magic and illusion) Anita Pointer of the Pointer Sisters (Black history) John Larroquette, Daniel Radcliffe (Potter actor seen spending large sums at auction on modern literature in manuscript) Mike Read (Brit DJ with serious Rupert Brooke collection) Simon Callow, Michael Lerner (bird books) Terry Jones, Herbert Lom, Hanif Kureishi, Michael Flatley (Irish literature) Michael Richards (Kramer in Seinfeld) Andrew Lloyd Webber (PRBs).

Lastly I once saw Kate Bush at auction buying the film script of 'Magical Mystery Tour' annotated by the mantra muttering moptops themselves. She paid £15000 and I was second underbidder. I wish I had gone on but there wasn't a lot of money about in the mid 1980s.