Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children, 1981.

Salman Rushdie. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN. Jonathan Cape, London, 1981.

Current Selling Prices
$1500-$3500 /£800-£1800

MODERN FIRST EDITION / BOOKER PRIZE
Winner of the Booker Prize in 1981 and awarded "The Booker of Bookers" in 1993 for the best Booker Prize winning novel in the first twenty five years of the award. The work is regarded by many critics and readers as the great classic of the late twentieth century. Another critic (Jonathan Bate) quoted in a previous entry on Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude wrote: 'Let us hope that [it] will not generate one hundred years of overwritten, overlong, overrated novels. Enough that it has already inspired such excrescences as Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.' With a discernible backlash against magic realism, with which Rushdie is forever associated, the book is no longer rated as highly as it was - except by earnest book dealers trying to shift it. As a great story teller he will always be collected and many people who were underwhelmed by Midnight's Children were delighted by 'Haroun'--but as a prose stylist he is not seen to be in the class of Nabokov or Borges, and falls a long way short of his ingenious contemporary Martin Amis. It is not the most difficult Booker to find, that honour belongs to Middleton's 'Holiday'. However it is possibly the most valuable - a fine copy in jacket (the spine of which tends to fade) can command over £1000 especially if signed.

There are some dealers charging considerably more than this for copies signed with pre Fatwa signatures--one asking a 'dream on' £5K says of his: '...the signature is nothing like the (understandable) scrawl you get today, but strikingly full, long and beautiful and really different from anything we have seen over the years.' It is true that signed Rushdie books in this century are very common and the signature is hasty, if not perfunctory. The king of the 'get lost' signature is old rocker Lou Reed--on some of his books it looks pretty much like two straight lines and would shame a GP -it goes something like this '___ ____'. They are still quite saleable, mainly because he is unapproachable and unpleasant and perhaps because he is one of the supreme songwriters.

The cheapest signed Lou out there is 'Pass Thru Fire : The Collected Lyrics' at $150. You can buy a signed Rushdie--of his rock novel 'Ground Beneath her Feet' for as little as $15. Of this book the 'India Star' critic C. J. S. Wallia wrote '...with its 575 tiresome pages.. it spreads ample new ground beneath his feet to trod while he assails the reader with massive verbiage straining to be comic. In this muddled melodramatic novel, Rushdie comes off as a wannabe Mel Brooks of contemporary literature -- an aspiration he can't achieve for he lacks the wit.' Wallia proposes an exclusive new club for those who have got past 17 of 'Satanic Verses.' He says of Western critics-'...reviewers have, typically, hesitated to criticize Rushdie, ascribing instead their difficulties in understanding his previous works to their unfamiliarity with his Indian settings and contexts...'

The US edition of 'Midnight's Children' actually precedes the London edition- due to a printers strike in the UK the Cape editions were bound from US sheets--however the UK ed is worth more than the American and is harder to find, being issued in a smaller edition. A case of 'Follow the Flag.'

VALUE? The highest record for any Rushdie book is the £1800 paid in 2001 for a limited edition 'Satanic Verses- --one of 12 copies , signed and bound in full morocco leather. This is a book that will rise ineluctably, mostly because of the furore around the book. An interesting inscribed copy of 'Midnight's Children' surfaced in 2003 and made £1000. The cataloguer notes that Rushdie had worked as a freelance copywriter for the advertising agency Charles Barker; one of the accounts that he handled was that of the financial service group M&G, in the course of which he got to know a Roger Jennings who was working for the company. Rushdie would often discuss Midnight's Children (which he was then writing) with Jennings, and promised him an inscribed copy, once it was published.

The highest auction record for 'Midnight's Children' is £1100 inc premium paid in 2004 for a (presumably fine/fine) copy signed by the author on the title page. This year at Bonham's L.A. a signed copy in near fine jacket made $1440. In the short term the prices of his books have been falling off slightly or , at best, they seem to be bumping along with a lot of auction lots being 'bought in' - indicating over-enthusiastic sellers and apathetic, indifferent buyers. However it is likely that this and his more difficult books will rise in value. Possibly something to do with India becoming richer, his large and enthusiastic 'chattering class' fanbase and the great fame and notoriety (see left) of Salman himself and finally the difficult of finding limpid copies. SEE COMMENTS BELOW - palpable signs of a bull market in the book.

It is possible that he will get a Nobel prize to add to his knighthood. Nobel Prizes, like movies, are always supposed to turbo-charge prices but it seldom happens. When the great playwright, poet and politico Harold Pinter won the Nobel we sold a few signed editions that had been kicking around for years - but so far it has done little for Doris Lessing values. Outlook? Good, if you can wait.

Franz Kafka. The Trial, 1925-1937.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1970

Gabriel Garcia Marquez. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE. Harper & Row, New York and Evanston, & Jonathan Cape, London: 1970.

Current Selling Prices
$450-$2000 /£220-£1000

MODERN FIRST EDITION/ SOUTH AMERICAN LITERATURE/ MAGIC REALISM
This book has sold over 36 million copies. An epic tale, a long narrative fiction said to metaphorically encompass the history of Marquez's native Colombia even the whole of Latin America. It is considered García Márquez's masterpiece -the New York Times described it as "the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race." As I recall the same sort of thing was said about 'Trainspotting' - 'the best book ever written by man or woman.' The novel is the history of the founding, development, and death of a human settlement, Macondo (said to be based on GGM's home town Aracataca) and of the most important family in that town, the Buendias.

A great backpacker classic constantly recommended and passed around. Often cited as the greatest of all Latin American novels but forever associated with the now slightly tired Magic Realist school of writing, Marquez (known to his devotees as 'Gabo') and his masterpiece are beginning to be re-evaluated. The Chilean novelist and poet Roberto Bolano denounced him as a kind of cultivated sellout who was “thrilled to know so many presidents and archbishops" and added that most Nobel Prize winners were 'jerks'. He also famously declared that magic realism 'stinks.' Sadly Bolano left the planet in 2003 aged 50; his great spirit and courage are much missed.

VALUE? You want the American edition, for some reason (probably to do with Americans having more money) it sells for at least twice the price of the London printing. You also want the first state of the U.S. edition to get over $1500. This is generally recognized to be an exclamation point / mark at the end of the first paragraph on the front flap--after the word 'America'. There are copies on ABE as high as $3000 and no fine copies for less than $2000. In auction it has made as much as $3000 (2002) in less than fine first state jacket, 2006/2007 results however see it making $1500 or so, possibly indicative of a softening of prices.



The British edition (above) unless immaculate, faultless and pristine struggles towards £200. A part time UK dealer I knew in the 90s sent his copy to Marquez asking for a signature and the book came back a few months later with a fullsome signature. Even then it was a £1000 book signed, now possibly double or more. By the way sending books to authors for signing is something of a gamble - Thomas Hardy used to keep all the books sent to him neatly shelved in a spare room. The true first 'Cien Anos de Soledad (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1967) makes about $3000. A fragile book, although 5000 were printed most were 'read to ruin'--signed copies can be seen on the web at $10000, although auction records only show a high of $3000 for a signed Buenos Aires first--condition may have had something to do with it ('old tape stains, a few creases, soiling, faint writing impressions to covers, front cover fragile with front joint splitting at bottom, some of spine lettering retouched...')

Outlook? Uncertain, possibly choppy - the book may be the Don Quixote of the future and make magic sums of money or it may have hit a ceilling. The book has pride of place in the mostly predictable selection '1001 Books You Must Read Before You Expire...' (Waterstones' bible--see below) and has been on many other 'greatest ever' lists. There are boxloads of U.S. firsts out there for sale right now and critics are starting to put the boot in to Magic Realism and even Gabo himself. Jonathan Bate in a Sunday Telegraph series ”Which are the most overrated authors, or books, of the past 1,000 years? wrote:-

'...The book is so in love with its own cleverness that it is profoundly unreadable. It is generally credited with inaugurating the genre of "magic realism" novels which combine the matter-of-fact narrative style of conventional realistic fiction with fantastic nonsense such as levitation and alchemy. García Márquez is at his most characteristic when a woman ascends to heaven whilst hanging her washing out on the line. Other ingredients of magic realism include gypsies, tarts with hearts, dwarves, tricksters and a cast so large and confusing that you need a family tree to keep track of the plot. Márquez and his followers are sophisticated urban intellectuals who feign reverence for the simple wisdom of peasants. Myth, fairytale and folklore are wonderful things in themselves, but it is preposterous to imagine that mingling them with domestic mundanity will somehow puncture the bourgeois complacency of our time.
Let us hope that One Hundred Years of Solitude will not generate one hundred years of overwritten, overlong, overrated novels. Enough that it has already inspired such excrescences as Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.'

Bruce Chatwin. In Patagonia, 1977.

"One never knows how to classify his books...Anthropological and mythological studies in the tradition of Tristes Tropiques , adventure stories looking back to our early childhood reading, collections of facts, dream books, regional novels, examples of lush exoticism, puritanical penance, sweeping baroque vision, self-denial, and personal confession - they are all these things together. It probably does them most justice to see their promiscuity, which breaks the mold of the modernist concept, as a late flowering of those traveler’s tales, going back to Marco Polo, where reality is constantly entering the realm of the metaphysical and miraculous, and the way through the world is taken from the first with an eye fixed on the writer’s own end." W.G. Sebald on Bruce Chatwin.



Bruce Chatwin. IN PATAGONIA. Cape, London, 1977.

Current Selling Prices
$550-$800 /£280-£400

MODERN FIRST EDITION/ TRAVEL
Cult travel book that used to be worth more than it is now. It is still highly rated and much collected and the cult of Chatwin shows no signs of settling down. The problem is that there are too many copies around; the print run of the first edition was 3000. It used to be a 'sleeper' high on the lookout list- often found for £2 to £3 in the travel section of provincial second hand book shops that had never heard of the great wanderer. The net has stopped that happening. Some critics have found his books somewhat overrated - he was known to physically attack critics who had given him bad reviews. Other writers known to set about critics include Stephen Berkoff, Richard Ford, Norman Mailer, Craig Raine and Stanley Crouch (who he?).

At a party given by the old Borneo hand Redmond O'Hanlon, Chatwin pushed and shoved a young critic and novelist who had written that 'On the Black Hill' was a lousy book. He was known to have little sense of humour, and is said to have had the slightly sad and spiteful air of one who had been bullied at school. Jan Morris said of him - "...as a person, he was decidedly too much for me. Snobbism, equally camp and genuine; showy connoisseurship of a quirky kind; the deadly energy of a raconteur; the insensitivity of the tuft-hunter; a gift for mimicry; sexual ambiguity of the Strength Through Joy kind (I can see him now, riding his bicycle blond and barebacked through Powys, for all the world like a Hitler Youth) - all these characteristics, distilled into one very clever, exuberant and apparently ageless being, made all too rich a mixture for an unsophisticated provincial." A copy of the book presented to her sits on the web at a considered £7150--at first glance a ridiculous sum but it is not totally unthinkable that it might sell, such is the strength of the Chatwin legend. This same copy went through Bloomsbury Book Auctions at £2600 (in 'creased, stained & sunned d/j') in April 2007. About 4 years ago we had a spectacular copy of 'Patagonia' which we catalogued thus:-

'8vo. pp 204. Map endpapers, frontis map and 8 pages of photos. Signed presentation copy to Prunella Clough. Chatwin has crossed out his printed name and written out his name in sepia toned ink and added ‘for Prunella with love B.C. 5 April ‘78.’ Prunella Clough who died in 1999 was a distinguished British School painter and the niece of the cult designer Eileen Gray. It was Eileen Gray who had given Chatwin the idea to travel to Patagonia at a meeting in Paris 1972 when she was 93. She died in 1976 and it is presumably through her that Chatwin knew Prunella Clough. $2800.'

Oddly enough this book is still to be found for sale at the online book malls (at $8000) but merely sold as a presentation copy to a 'Prunella' without any of our learned banter about Eileen Gray as the original inspiration. A shame, such is the power of Eileen Gray's name we were able to sell prayer books and children's books with her ownership signature. Put her with Chatwin and you have a win double.



VALUE? A copy made about £600, unsigned and in faded jacket last year but copies fine in jacket can usually be picked up at ABE at less than £400. A few years ago it was selling at book fairs for £700+. The spine has a tendency to fading so copies with unfaded, unsunned jackets can go for a premium. Outlook? It is just possible that Chatwin will be seen in the future as some sort of combinaton of Richard Burton and Robert Byron, in which case keep your copy in a closed and curtained cabinet.

Wanda Gag. Millions of Cats, 1928

Wanda Gag. MILLIONS OF CATS. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. New York, 1928.

Current Selling Prices
$250-$3000 /£120-£1500

CHILDREN'S BOOK / ILLUSTRATED BOOK
One of the great cat books - a popular and desirable item sometimes touted as the first proper illustrated children's book published in America. In England books had been seen in this style and format since Florence Upton and her golliwogs and back to Edward Lear. Wanda Gag (sometimes Gág or Ga'g-a Bohemian/ Czech name) was a highly esteemed artist and illustrator, a friend of Georgia O'Keefe and admired by Rockwell Kent with whom she has a stylistic affinity. The book became a best-seller and it is possible find 36th impressions (sometimes described as first editions by the dark denizens of ebay)--there is even an ebay shop with a 1996 reprint in indifferent condition at a surreal $2997. The story itself is simple, slightly cruel with elements of the fable, the folktale or even the parable--let the Wikiman tell it:-

'...The hand-lettered text tells the story of an elderly couple who realize that they are very lonely. The wife wants a cat to love, so her husband sets off in search of a beautiful one to bring home to her. After traveling far away from home, he finds a hillside covered in "...hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats..." This rhythmic phrase is repeated several other times throughout the story.

The man wants to bring home the most beautiful of all the cats, but he's unable to decide. Each seems lovely, so he walks back home with all of the cats following him. His wife is dismayed when he arrives, realizing immediately what her husband overlooked: they won't be able to feed and care for billions and trillions of cats. The wife suggests letting the cats decide which one should stay with them, asking "Which one of you is the prettiest?" This question incites an enormous catfight, frightening the old man and woman so that they ran back into the house. Soon, all is quiet outside. When they venture out, there is no sign of the cats: they'd apparently eaten each other up in their jealous fury. Then, the old man notices one skinny cat hiding in a patch of tall grass. It had survived because it didn't consider itself pretty, so the other cats hadn't attacked it.

The couple take the cat into their home, feed it and bathe it, watching it grow sleek and beautiful as the days pass: exactly the kind of cat they wanted.'

There are many copies around and dealers charging betewwen $100 and $2000 for what appear to be the same book. The true first should have 'PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK by COWARD-McCANN, Inc. IN THE YEAR 1928' on the title page and "Printed in USA by the Jersey City Printing Co." on the copyright page. This printing info is absent from later editions. The d/w comes in 2 states - the back of the dust jacket (yellow) is blank on the first printing and on second state copies the back has a one paragraph biography on Wanda Gag, followed by an endorsement of Millions Of Cats by Rockwell Kent. This is followed by a one paragraph review of the book by Anne Carroll Moore. Thanks to the authoritative Childrens Picturebook Collecting site for this.

VALUE? Auction records show a signed limited edition (250 copies) with an etching and in slip-case (not issued in jacket) making $1650 at Swann in New York April 1999. This would probably make twice that now. As we speak a copy of the 1928 in second state jacket awaits a bid on ebay at a highly ambitious $2899. Surrounded by superlatives it is in fact an ordinary copy lacking the fep (mentioned as if it is no big deal) and the info that 'Collector sites value this wonderful antique collectible children's book in Very Good condition at $4,000+ !!' Meanwhile a copy in a chipped jacket made $800 in Baltimore in 2006 and back in 1983 at Waverly someone paid $65 for a copy inscribed by Wanda who had thoughtfully added a drawing of a cat. A decent but not fine first/first in jacket can be found on ABE at $1750 and another possibly later state at $200. A difficult book, desirable in superior condition- a fresh copy in a sharp first state jacket might be enough to make a cat laugh.

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner 2003

Khaled Hosseini. THE KITE RUNNER. Riverhead Books, New York/ Bloomsbury, London 2003.
ISBN: 0747566526 (U.K. ed) & 1573222453 (U.S. ed)

Current Selling Prices
$200 + /£100+

MODERN FIRST EDITION / AFGHANISTAN WAR
Beneath the all important first edition line for this book (it must be 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2) there is a summary, presumably for librarians, of the categories that the book fits into--they give a succinct snapshot of the books content:-

Kabol (Afghanistan)--Fiction. 2. Male Friendship --Fiction. 3. Social Classes --Fiction. 4. Afghanistan --Fiction. 5. Betrayal --Fiction. 6. Boys --Fiction.

It is in fact a world ecompassing epic tale of fathers and sons, of childhood friendship and betrayal, taking the reader from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the Taliban atrocities of the present. The final third of the book (which underwent some serious rewriting) is full of haunting images: a man, desperate to feed his children, trying to sell his artificial leg in the market; an adulterous couple stoned to death in a stadium during the halftime of a football match; a rouged young boy forced into prostitution, dancing 'the sort of steps once performed by an organ grinder's monkey.'

The book is said to have sold way over 500,000 copies without benefit of TV ads, Oprah or other celebrity endorsements. Its success was due to word-of-mouth recommendations of librarians and independent book sellers and especially the strength of local book clubs and community reading programs -where one book is chosen by a city or region. The ordinary reading public bought and read the book and passed on the good news. Gradually the book became a best seller, justifying the $500,000 advance. Khaled Hosseini, whose story is not far removed from the book, came from Afghanistan with his formerly wealthy parents at age 15. They ended up on welfare in Fremont, California--an area close by Silicon Valley known as 'Little Kabul'. Khaled became an M.D. (family doctor) but also began to write, rising at 5 a.m. working at short stories and, later, his novel, before going to work. A half-dozen stories, mainly thrillers or gothic horror tales, were published online or in experimental zines. But submissions to The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire and other mainstream publications were soundly rejected. After the success of 'Kite Runner' at 40 he became a fulltime writer, enjoying the American Dream - he has met the President and has seen the book made into a highly rated movie.



VALUE? I became aware of this book's collectability at the San Franciso Book Fair last weekend on seeing copies on the stands of dealers in hypermodern fiction. Several had the book in what looked like pristine condition and signed by Hossein in Farsi and English---the prices were between $600 and $1500. There are copies on the web priced at $1000+ with a couple of chancers at $2000+. Meanwhile last week a copy signed in English and Farsi and appearing fine was sold on Ebay at $189 and copies go through at around the $100 mark fairly regularly, possibly twice that signed and a little more with added ephemera like signing tickets etc.,

It is not a rare book, Hosseini has done several signing sessions, the first edition print run of the US first was 50,000. Copies can show up as first editions with a black remainder mark on the edge--these are best avoided or valued at considerably less than unspoilt firsts. By the way - the US precedes the UK edition by about 3 months although there is as yet no great difference in price--the US is marginally favoured. The outlook is good, fiction about this part of the world will probably become increasingly collectable--however the online dealer who referred to the book as 'ultra rare' was either sadly deceived or 'having a laugh.'

W G Sebald. The Rings of Saturn, 1998

W G Sebald. THE RINGS OF SATURN. Harvill Press, London, 1998. ISBN: 1860463983

Current Selling Prices
$1200-$1600 /£600-£800

MODERN FIRST EDITION / TRAVEL
Uncommon in hardback and valuable thus. However, you see ambitious prices on the simultaneous softback issue ('becoming increasingly difficult to find'). It even has an auction record with an unfortunate punter paying £190 for it at Bloomsbury in early 2004. It can now be found readily at a third of that price. The true first is, of course, the German 'Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt' which came out in 1995. It appeared there first in a numbered limited edition (999 copies bound in goatskin) published by Eichborn and seems to have completely gone to ground. There are no copies currently for sale although it turns up occasionally at auction in Germany. Locus Solus catalogued one of the 999 (unsigned) at $650 a year or two back -it was described as being in full leather 'as new in publisher’s cardstock slipcase...bound in vegetable-dyed full east-Indian goatskin of deep blue.'

VALUE? I have a feeling that although he wrote in German his books are more admired in Britain and America. At one point his books were making exceptional sums on Ebay and people wanted ephemera, posters, recordings and anything to do with his legendary walk from Lowestoft to Boulge. Inscribed copies of 'Rings of Saturn' are not impossible but are treasured--it is known that he would pore for hours over his translations, making changes and then when inscribing copies of books for friends, he would habitually add some further textual changes by hand.

The hardback is pretty scarce but not in the same league as, say, 'Trainspotting' which went only to libraries. The hardback appeared in bookshops but only a few hundred were printed--they seem to show up in East Anglia more than anywhere else. There are four on the web at the moment priced between £750 and £1300 with only a German first signed by him. A great read--it takes a very special kind of erudition to make Lowestoft fascinating. Sebald died in a car crash near Poringland in Norfolk age 57 - Tim Adams wrote this of him in 'The Guardian':-

'... It has often been said that, in his brief, marvellous career, Sebald, writing from East Anglia, invented a genre all his own. The substance of that originality was a new way of looking at what remains of long-gone objects, people and events. All his books were imaginative exhumations, but they were given a curious urgency by his inspired and restless intelligence. His writing made the dead seem like news.'

Above is a page from the German edition that was omitted from the UK edition - it has a photo of the house of a Suffolk farmer that Sebald dropped in on. The man had devoted the last twenty years of his life to building a scale model of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Iris Murdoch. The Flight from the Enchanter, 1956.

Iris Murdoch. THE FLIGHT FROM THE ENCHANTER. Chatto & Windus, London, 1956.

Current Selling Prices
$450-$1000 /£220-£500

MODERN FIRST EDITION
The entire text of this book can be found at Google Books, but the blurb (on the inside flap of the Edward Bawden jacket) is not there so I have laboriously typed it out as it sets the book in the time when it first appeared. Perhaps there should be a site that archives blurbs--as they are found almost exclusively on jackets they are not offered to the swarms of scanners beavering away for Google Books. It reads thus:-

Miss Murdoch follows up her extremely successful first novel, Under the Net, with one which is no less captivating. Here again is a large and lively group of characters: the ravishing, absurd young Annette who, after swinging on a chandelier, runs away from her finishing school to enter the School of Life, and learns a good deal more than she bargained for: the fierce and melancholy Rosa, the mistress of two Polish brothers: her brother, editor of a down-at-heel magazine: the scholar, Peter Saward, obsessed by an indecipherable ancient script: Rainborough, a civil servant, struggling in the toils of his determined secretary. Their lives revolve around the mysterious figure of Mischa Fox, a man who is not famous for anything in particular, just famous. Each of them has some person, idea, illusion or object by which he is possessed: each tries to break the spell, to flee the enchanter. The story moves through a series of episodes which are vivid and paradoxical as dreams. There are scenes of broad comedy- the meeting of the shareholders of Artemis is outrageously funny; scenes where comedy balances on the edge of tragedy; scenes where the normal suddenly deviates into the sinister, the beautiful into the grotesque. The Flight from the Enchanter establishes Miss Murdoch as a novelist of imagination, intelligence and vitality.

I have a feeling that in the future they will do some of her novels on T.V. as period pieces, like Mrs. Gaskell, but set in the existential 1950s with black polo necks de rigueur. On a fashion note Iris's memorable pudding bowl haircut was a 1950s thing popular among British female intellectuals (Doris Lessing had one) - the style was transmogrified into the more overtly sexual in the 1970s with Joanna Lumley as Purdy with her blonde pudding bowl haircut in the New Avengers. It is hard to put her novels into a particular genre, she is close to the 'novel of ideas' and puts herself widely in the realistic tradition of the Anglo-Russian novel.



VALUE? Most of Iris's output is very common and about 20 of her novels from 'A Severed Head' onwards can be bought for £10 and even £5 each fine/fine with her Booker winner 'The Sea, The Sea' as the exception at £50. The books were published in large print runs and there are simply too many about. However some of her plays, poetry and polemical works and signed limited editions can get into 3 figures. She is sometimes pushed as an Irish writer and 5 years ago several chancers had fanciful prices on common works but they very seldom sell for fat sums, in fact there has been a discernible flattening of her prices. She may well come back, especially her first 3 novels.

'Flight from the Enchanter' can be bought at between £300 and £500 in sharp condition, if you have a spare £8500 you can buy the copy that Iris gave to her husband, John Bayley, in 1956. The inscription ( 'John from Iris') is contained within a rough heart-shaped design and also says "to the big C from the little c". John Bailey wrote movingly of her in 'Elegy for Iris',(1998) 'She wanted, through her novels, to reach all possible readers, in different ways and by different means: by the excitement of her story, its pace and its comedy, through its ideas and its philosophical implications, through the numinous atmosphere of her own original and created world- the world she must have glimpsed as she considered and planned her first steps in the art of fiction.'

Kenneth Grahame. The Wind in the Willows, 1908.

Kenneth Grahame. THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS. Methuen, London, 1908.

Current Selling Prices
$4000-$80,000 /£2000-£40,000

CLASSIC CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Kenneth Grahame belongs to a distinguished group of authors who had to work in banks while writing. One thinks also of P.G. Wodehouse and T.S. Eliot (whose smart Bloomsbury friends had a whip-round so that he could leave.) The modernist poet Wallace Stevens was effectively a banker (investment and insurance) and Charles Sprague worked for 45 years for the State and Globe Banks and was often referred to as the "Banker Poet of Boston." Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), was both poet, banker and connoisseur. Grahame was shot during an unsuccessful bank robbery, which may have precipitated his retirement in 1907. It is possible that without this bungling bank robber we would not have Toad of Toad Hall, let alone Rat, Mole and Badger.

He was part of the 1890s generation of writers, though hardly a decadent, and his work was published in 'The Yellow Book.' Grahame wrote parts of "The Wind in the Willows" originally in a letter form to entertain his young son. After an American publisher rejected his manuscript, "The Wind in the Willows" was first published in England, 1908. The story of its birth is best told at SOUTH COAST REPERTORY PLAYGOER’S GUIDE site

'...the masterpiece began innocently enough as bedtime stories told to his young son, Alastair, nicknamed Mouse. These nightly creations so captivated the child that he flatly refused to go away on holiday unless his father promised to write down future installments and mail them to him, chapter by chapter. Mouse’s governess, who read the father’s letters aloud to him, evidently saw something unusual there for she saved them and returned them to the boy’s mother for safe-keeping. Mouse and his nurse might have remained the only people in the world to have ever heard the adventures of Toad and Company had not an agent for a large American publisher visited the Grahame household one day in hopes of convincing Kenneth ...to write something for them “on any subject at any price.” Grahame had nothing ready and was about to send the publisher away empty-handed, until his wife remembered the collection of bedtime stories. Although Grahame apparently didn’t relish “the sheer physical torture” of writing, he added new chapters to the letters and handed them over. The publisher grabbed them up greedily and returned to America, but was disappointed to discover that the realistic human characters in the author’s previous works had been replaced by animals—and wild animals at that!

The stories were rejected and returned to Grahame, who published them in England in 1908 under the title The Wind in the Willows. The book met with an initially mild reception but after finding an unlikely champion in President Theodore Roosevelt*, Grahame’s fanciful novel soon began winning the hearts of readers both young and old. The American publisher saw the error of his ways and followed suit, making The Wind in the Willows a solid hit on both sides of the Atlantic...'

* This is not the only time a US president has made a book into a bestseller. President Reagan's favourite book was John Hackett's 'The Third World War' which sold boatloads of copies on the back of his recommendation. Would be president Milt Romney has just got into trouble for saying that his favorite novel is Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard, the science-fiction writer and Scientology founder. At least he is assured of Tom Cruise's vote. Famously John F. Kennedy is said to have helped Ian Fleming's fortunes in America by proclaiming that the Bond novels were his preferred reading. For a witty examination of these matters check out a SLATE article from May 2007.

VALUE? The following amazing auction result occured in the late 1990s:-

Grahame, Kenneth, 1859-1932 - The Wind in the Willows. L, 1908 - 1st Ed - Orig cloth, in d/j with fraying to corners - Sotheby's, Nov 10, 1998, lot 88, £39,000 ($64,740) - BM

With the buyer's commission and inflation this is the equivalent now of over £50K or $100,000 +. Another record refers to the d/w being in the first state and indeed a 'second issue with 7/6 price' can be found on ABE in reasonable shape at $15000. Usually 7/6 indicates you have a first state but that is on, say, 1920s Christies--with 100 year old jackets you have to be very careful (in many ways.) The correct price on the jacket, counter intuitively, is 6 shillings. The right jacket is rather rare--only three have been seen in the last 30 years.

Sans jacket its highest record is £7200 for an 'exceptional copy' in 2006, this is possibly the one that currently resides on ABE at circa £13000. There were many limited editions including the lovely 1932 issue signed by Grahame and the illustrator E.H. Shepard (coloured image below). It was 200 copies only and can cost $5000+, a worn copy signed to A.A. Milne made $14000 in 2005. The one to have bought (with hindsight) would be the Bradley Martin copy of the 1908 first in "pristine" d/j - with a signed letter from Grahame to a family member loosely inserted. It probably seemed expensive at the time at $20,000 (Sotheby's New York, Jan 30, 1990, lot 2363.)



TOADAL TRIVIA. Contemporary reviews were lacklustre- The Times wrote 'For ourselves we lay The Wind in the Willows reverently aside and again, for the hundredth time, take up The Golden Age.' Arthur Ransome gave the book a studied review in The Bookman in which he claims the book 'is an attempt to write for children instead of about them. But Mr. Grahame's past has been too strong for him. Instead of writing about children for grown-up people, he has written about animals for children.' He went on to claim that the book, written for the nursery, is full of wistfulness and that it is a failure - for children will not understand the dual nature of the animals. Richard Middleton took a Jungian view in a 'Vanity Fair' review seeing the different layers in the book - he saw that the characters 'are neither animals nor men, but are types of that deeper humanity which sways us all. To be wise, an allegory must admit of a wide application ... and if I may venture to describe as an allegory a work which, critics who ought to have known better, have dismissed as a fairy-story, it is certain that The Wind in the Willows is a wise book.'

Sitwell and Blunt. Great Flower Books, 1956.

Sacheverell Sitwell and Wilfrid Blunt. GREAT FLOWER BOOKS 1700-1900. A bibliographical record of two centuries of finely-illustrated flower books. Collins, London 1956.

Current Selling Prices
$300-$1400 /£150-£700



NATURAL HISTORY / ART/ ILLUSTRATION
Sometimes described as 'Atlas Folio.' 19 1/2 x 13 3/4. x,94 p/pages incl index.36 full page plates, 20 colour, 16 plain. A sumptuous reference work reproducing examples by Thornton, Curtis, Redouté, and others. It has remained a primary reference in the field and is sometimes cited by booksellers attempting to sell books and plates that are described in it. The reproductions are finely done and it is not unknown for the book to be broken for its plates, the originals of which are mostly in the $1000+ range. Not uncommon, despite this, as there were 1750 copies done and a special signed and numbered edition of 295 in green half morocco with a slipcase. There are usually one or two copies to be found at bookfairs. As a distinguished and posh literary figure Sacheverell Sitwell was often wheeled in to write a piece for unwieldy coffee table books of the time (Fine Bird Books, Great Houses, Old Garden Roses etc.,)

VALUE? Auction records reveal an extaordinary, anomalous price achieved in 1999--you can spot it below:-

Great Flower Books. L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - orig half mor - rubbed - With 20 colored plates - Bloomsbury, Nov 27, 2003, lot 262, £220 ($374) - BM

Great Flower Books. L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - orig half cloth, in d/j - bdg with light wear at extremities - Swann, June 19, 2003, lot 348, $225 - BM

Great Flower Books. L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - orig half mor - rubbed - Bloomsbury, Mar 7, 2002, lot 229, £260 ($369.20), Daniels - BM

Great Flower Books.... L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - orig half mor by the Wigmore Bindery - Christie's, Mar 17, 1999, lot 95, £1,000 ($1,620) - BM

Great Flower Books.... L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - orig half mor - Swann, Apr 15, 1999, lot 182, $550 - BM

Great Flower Books.... L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - half mor - extremities worn - Swann, Mar 25, 1999, lot 37, $375 - BM

Great Flower Books.... L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - half mor - With 20 colored plates & 16 other full-page illusts - Sotheby's, May 14, 1999, lot 695, £220 ($354.20) - BM

Great Flower Books. L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - half mor - Sotheby's, Nov 18, 1999, lot 500, £200 ($330) - BM

Great Flower Books.... L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - half mor - Stanley Smith copy - Sotheby's, Oct 22, 1998, lot 295, £17,000 ($28,730) - BM

Great Flower Books.... L, 1956 - One of 295 - Folio, - half mor - Stanley Smith copy - Sotheby's, Oct 22, 1998, lot 211, £400 ($676) - BM

1999 was a sort of annus mirabilis for this book. Recent copies of the signed limited edition between 2003-2008 have stayed in the £200 to £400 range but 6 copies appeared in 1999 with one making the profoundly silly price of £17K. The fact that it was Stanley Smith's copy hardly explains it. Stanley Smith was a jolly collector of interesting books (he had alot of Andre Raffalovich for example) but he was not the Duke of Omnium. A bidding competition broke out between 2 collectors (said to be from the Gulf states)--several other lots were affected but this was noticeable because most dealers knew it as a £200 book and were impressed to see it reach eighty times its normal price. A classic 'pissing competition' - if you ever get involved in one be sure to be the underbidder. The most mysterious thing is that there was another copy in the sale, an earlier lot, that made £400. The moral of the story is not to trust freak auction results.

Below is the beautiful 'Night Blowing Cereus' featured in the book and taken from Thornton's 'Temple of Flora.' Note that the church clock is at midnight - the hour when the Cereus likes to show its full glory. To be horticulturally accurate it should be noted that it is not likely to flourish in an English churchyard. A.k.a. the Moon Cactus, it is mostly found in Jamaica and Cuba--visitors to botanic gardens never see the plant in full bloom unless they climb over the wall at midnight. The original 1802 Thornton plate which exists in 2 states can sometimes be found selling for circa £3000 to £4000.

Gertrude Lintz. Animals are my Hobby.1942

At the end of this I mention an ebay item. I was struck by the name of the dealer selling the above book. He had about 5000 feedbacks to his or her name which was something along the lines of 'luckystoragefind.' There is a whole mythology around storage/ warehouse/ lock-up finds and some great lots and collections, even the foundations of businesses, have come from these secret places. Someone dies or goes broke and their goods are held in storage, sometimes for years. Their goods are sometimes unclaimed and eventually they get sold off. We were called to one where the storer had failed to pay the rent and after many notices the books were sold. As I recall we paid a deal more than was owed. The attraction of these collections is they are often like a time capsule. One we bought consisted of books on fashion with nothing after 1979 so the world of taste ended with punks and neo romantics but stretched back as far as Beau Brummell. There was also a box of books all with textile samples laid in. Kind of thing you don't see much any more-- just like this book of Ms Lintz:-


Gertrude Lintz. ANIMALS ARE MY HOBBY. Robert M. McBride Co, NY 1942.

Current Selling Prices
$180-$550 /£100-£280


NATURAL HISTORY / ANIMALS/ PETS
True tale of upstate NY socialite who in the late 1920s transformed her mansion onto a menagerie and was especially keen on Chimpanzees. She kept several animals in her Brooklyn home, including several St. Bernards and the famous gorillas Gargantua (called Buddy at that time) and Massa. She was known to drive around Brooklyn with a fully clothed gorilla or chimpanzee sitting in the passenger seat. She believed that apes would only thrive if they received proper mothering and thus treated them as her children - dressing them, teaching them to eat at the table with cutlery and so forth. Something that was picked up in the early PG tips TV ads. The book has become rather desirable since the story of Gargantua was filmed ('Buddy' 1998) with Rene Russo as Ms Lintz, apparently portraying her as 'daffy.'

The book is listed along with other desirable gorilla books at the excellent Gargantua website ('a hairy handful of GARGANTUANLY rare gorilla books.') There is even a photo of a woman suckling a small ape--as Ricky Gervais might say 'CHIMPANZEE THAT!'

VALUE? One of those books it would be nice to find at a car boot sale for nada or less. It is obviously quite scarce and hard to buy for less than a £100 note - Ebay is recommended for the patient Gorilla punter on a budget. Early last year a copy of the US 1942 first in a chipped jacket failed to attract interest at $349 as a Buy-it-Now (or Bin-it -Now as one wag called it.) At the time I thought this indicated that the book in a genteel decline but a recent look at Addall shows the Museum Press 1945 paperback at over $350, one stray good+ McBride first at a similar price and 3 dealers holding out for $750 + (one signed). Meanwhile it is likely that copies are quickly sold at more modest prices and the above copies stick around like hardy perennials. Our photo is not from the first edition, the McBride first is red with an orange jacket with an ape--looks like a hard to sell nature book of the kind done later by Armand Denis etc., Below is a German poster for them movie which as well as the russet Rene also featured 'Cracker' himself - Robbie Coltrane.

Sumo. Helmut Newton, 1999.

Helmut Newton. SUMO. Taschen, Cologne, 1999. ISBN: 3822863947

Current Selling Prices
$7000-$12000 /£3500-£6000





PHOTOGRAPHY / EROTICA
Last time we sold a copy this was our description:

'Elephant Folio. 480 pages, photos throughout in colour and b/w. 50 x 70 cm (20 x 27.5 inches) and weighing approx. 30 kg (66 lb.) Monumental, staggeringly big and heavy limited edition signed on the title page by Helmut Newton & edited by his wife June Newton (aka Alice Springs) Nudes, fashion photographs, celebrity portraits and erotica. The result of a Benedikt Taschen project at one time said to have circa fifty people working on it, with a cost of over 3 miliion dollars. The book is in fine condition in fine d/w in its original packing box complete with special nickel plated table/ stand designed by hip interior designer Philippe Starck and commisioned by Newton's friend publisher Benedikt Taschen. Nota Bene--this book weighs over 30 kilos and therefore additional shipping costs will have to apply. Literally the ultimate coffee table book.'

Somebody bought it in 2004/5 from Switzerland, we were glad it wasn't America - postage could have been up to $800. It needs 2 people to lift the package with its coffee table enclosed and it is of enormous dimensions 'putting the elephant back into elephant folio' as one wit observed. The post office won't touch it.

2 things to note about the book - it is not especially scarce as there were 10,000 produced and at one time it was remaindered as low as $500. Secondly the Starck table doesn't really work and often collapses with its sharp edges seriously affecting the books condition. There are usually a few nasty copies online at lesser prices that have been in a Starck collapse. Nice idea though and a sort of visual pun - the book as coffee table.

Newton's work is portentous rather than pretentious and in the trend driven world of photo collecting no one so far has blown the whistle on him, so his status is good. Talking of pretentious - the fashionista Karl Lagerfeld said of him "Cool for him is the exact opposite of Romantic and Sentimental two words that don't belong in his vocabulary.---- The secret of its potency (his art) lies in a mixture, which is hard to define, of distance and availability.."

His photographs were described by JG Ballard, as ’stills from an elegant and erotic movie, perhaps entitled ‘Midnight at the Villa d’Este’ or ‘Afternoons in Super-Cannes’, a virtual film that has never played at any theatre, but has screened itself inside our heads for the last 40 years’. …Ballard puts him in the in formal Surrealist tradition of Delvaux or Magritte rather than photo heros such as August Sander or Cartier-Bresson - 'certainly his models constantly seem lost, surprised, or entranced, his exotic backdrops oddly incongruous, as if we are suddenly being afforded a glimpse of a bigger narrative whose contours we can only guess at.'

Taschen, something of a blagueur claims that it is the biggest and most costly book ever produced. Can't dispute that at the moment but I have a feeling the big Audubon Birds is bigger and surely in the history of books someone spent more on producing a book?

VALUE? Hard to find one anywhere for less than £3K at present and it would be best to find one nearby where it can be picked up in a car or van. One with 'severe damage' (see reason above) can be found at a stroppy $3500. A few chancers (mostly relisters) want $10,000 to $12000 for one but are best avoided utterly. Amazon USA has several at $6500 with no provision as far as I can see for charging more than nominal postage, in fact postage is free if bought in the next 28 hours!.

Ours made £3000 on ebay, it can make a little less there but it appears to be still an object of desire. With 10,000 out there it is going to be traded until Armageddon comes.



STOP PRESS. Jan/08. 'Sumo' has risen in value and the cheapest copy I can find is at $8500 (Ebay shop) with all other copies $12000 or more with one crazy guy looking for $30000. One interesting copy at $14000 claims to be 'one of 200.' This is a book to buy on Ebay or in a shop, for the moment only economic meltdown is going to soften prices to the price level where I did the entry above (March 2007). Last word with Benedikt Taschen, no stranger to hubris, hyperbole and hype:-

"...Binding the book was another major challenge. Never before has a book of this size and weight been printed. SUMO is a vision become paper, full of so much labour and so many memories. An adventure. A project that has resulted not only in a book that makes us proud and happy, but also a new friendship. I used to admire Helmut Newton for his work. Today he is a friend. Helmut Newton's SUMO is destined to be the most successful book of the 21st century. It's my favourite book already."

I have seen books bigger than this--L.A. dealer Eric Chaim Kline hauled a book three times this size to last years ABAA fair in San Francisco. Some Audubons are bigger and I swear I saw a book the size of a door in a botanical dealer's stock in Manhattan. That being said this SUMO is probably the biggest book to have been sold in regular bookshops for many a year.

Philip K. Dick. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968

"World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal - the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life. Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward." Blurb for the 25th Anniversary edition.

Philip K. Dick. DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? Doubleday & Company, Inc, Garden City, New York, 1968.

Current Selling Prices
$5000+ /£2500+

SCIENCE FICTION / POST APOCALPSE
Dick's SF classic - an exploration of what it will mean to be a human being set in the Android future and the book on which the ultimate cult film Blade Runner is based. Being a Doubleday book it must say 'First Edition' on the back of the title page--also as Doubleday books are not made very sturdily (and the d/ws are fragile) bright, sound, clean copies will be prized. Opening line- 'A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard.' The book makes much of the media character Mercer whose sufferings for the sins of humanity are broadcast several times a day. Prefiguring the religious obsessions of Dick's last novels, the book asks dark questions about identity and altruism -also touching on persecution and ethnic cleansing (Androids in San Francisco in 1992 or 2021 in later versions.)

The character Mercer is echoed in a messianic broadcaster in Ballard's recent 'Kingdom Come.' The meditative aspect of the book is somewhat lost in the thunder of Ridley Scott's movie adaptation 'Blade Runner' (the book has been issued in paperback under this title.) The movie is of couse set in Los Angeles and Deckard is a retired bounty hunter, there is no Mercerism and no one wears cod pieces to prevent infertility from nuclear fallout-- there are many other differences painstakingly listed in an exhaustive article at Wikipedia.

VALUE? The Wiki article shows how much the book has penetrated popular culture - computer and video games, rock music, films and animation, other novels, even poetry. It could be argued that it is the most important SF book of the century, certainly Dick is the Tolstoy of the genre and the book has sold for a greater sum than any other SF book, albeit privately. An article in a recent Vanity Fair about the foolishly rich and modish artist Richard Prince* reveals:-

'...Upstairs, locked behind thick metal doors designed to withstand a 14-hour fire, is the heart of Prince’s collection, ceiling-high shelves filled with ultra-rare inscribed editions of works by 20th-century literary icons such as Dashiell Hammett, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, among countless others. (Prince has 65 versions of Lolita, including Vladimir Nabokov’s hand-corrected desk copy.)
Prince is quite happy to discuss the prices of his exotic acquisitions, revealing that he recently paid “a little bit over $100 grand” for the only known first edition of Hammett’s The Glass Key in a dust jacket. Then there was the copy of Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, inscribed to Dick’s fellow science-fiction writer Tim Powers. “I paid $150,000 for that,” says Prince. “I was more than happy to pony up—it’s an important book for me.” '

Association items such as this are hard to price but when the book was at ABE at $75000 it seemed a stroppy and somewhat daft price. By comparison the seller who had it wanted (and still wants) $7000 for a signed presentation copy (to the deathless Stephen Spender) of Colin Wilson's 'The Outsider' - surely an 'away with the fairies on Hamsptead Heath' price. If Prince suddenly starts collecting Angry Young Men and 'ponies up', this dealer will be laughing, but only then.

A copy of 'Androids' (in d/j with creasing to spine ends) made $5000 + commission in 2006 and that's about the limit for now. 2 copies at slightly more than this can be found at ABE both decent but not fine. His 1964 work 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch' is priced at $6500 for an excellent condition copy and his rare 1967 Cape (London) book 'Penultimate Truth' also scales $6000 for a sharp copy. One to look out for on this rainswept island. Meanwhile below is a pic of the Japanese edition of 'Androids.'

* See our entry on Prince at Celebrity Book Collectors.

The Seven Deadly Sins, 1962.

Edith Sitwell, Cyril Connolly, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Sykes, Angus Wilson and W.H.Auden. THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS. Sunday Times Publications, London, 1962.

Current Selling Prices
$25-$50 /£12-£25

MODERN FIRST EDITION/ HUMOUR
A book that looks exciting at first glance with some heavy hitters like Waugh and Auden on board, also the cultish travel writer Paddy Leigh Fermor and even a late contribution by the poet Edith Sitwell. Why is this book worth so little? The first clue is the publisher -the Sunday Times- all the contributrions had originally appeared there and presumably they printed a big run of the book for the potential punters. Secondly these collections of authors seldom do well unless there is someone like Joyce or Beckett in there. Even the tripartite SF



anthology 'Sometime, Never' by William Golding, John Wyndham, & Mervyn Peake (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956) can now be found at £50 in super condition although some dealers cheerfully hold out for £250 or more. The 1948 'Why Do I Write? An Exchange of Views Between Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene and V.S. Pritchett' a slim volume that looks vaguely valuable is also only a £50 note to buy. Lastly the Seven Deadly Sins is intended to be humorous and with few exceptions humour doesn't sell well.

The idea for the book came from Ian Fleming who asked 7 top writers to comment on their favourite deadly sin. The result was this witty book that includes Angus Wilson on Envy, Edith Sitwell on Pride, Cyril Connolly on Covetousness, Patrick Leigh Fermor on Gluttony, Evelyn Waugh on Sloth, Christopher Sykes on Lust, and W. H. Auden on Anger. It is illustrated with 15th century woodcuts.

The star piece is by Connolly, who alone chose to write his piece as a short story. For once he outshines Waugh (who called him 'Smarty Boots.') His protagonist Jonathan Edax is a miserly book collector who comes across a legendary rarity by the nineties poet Alberic Chute ('...that exquisite talent, silenced it was said by some evil tentacle of the Wilde scandal after his third and most remarkable book of poems!'). It is a slim volume - 'The Bourbon Rose,' one of three known copies published in Newport Pagnell in 1886. Edax finds out that the poet, now a very old man, is alive and rushes to his house to get the book signed...

Many readers thought it was some sort of roman a clef but an inscribed copy to the great collector Anthony Hobson puts the record straight. CC wrote:-

To Anthony Hobson and others BE IT KNOWN THAT -Everyone at first tried to make C.C. do 'Sloth' which he refused. 'Edax' is not meant to be a self-portrait...Edax is a tall spare big-nosed man suggested by A.J.A. Symons, Jack Kahane, Robert Briffault etc., His habit of despising everyone (comes) from Wise and many traits from a mutual friend. He was in fact the illegitimate son of Alberic Chute without knowing it. The Bourbon Rose' was suggested by 'The Mickle Drede' (Gordon Bottomley) - see Hayward's catalogue...'

A very fine inscription, the best kind - giving background, inspirations and secret knowlege and undoubtedly transforming a £20 book into a £500+ book.

VALUE? Can be had in limpid shape for about £20, a copy of the US edition from Morrow was spotted at $20, however it was bedevilled by micronicks. This was a new word to me- presumably meaning very, very short or small nicks. Might use it myself.

Meanwhile I would like to find Gordon Bottomley's 'The Mickle Drede' a great nineties rarity. Bottomley (sometimes pronounced Bumley) published his first collection of poetry, The Mickle Drede and Other Verses, in Kendal in 1896 but later attempted to destroy all copies of this book, which he considered to be immature. There are 5 copies at COPAC so he missed a few. Always a steady but unsensational seller this is obviously the black tulip of Bottomley's oeuvre and Connolly probably refers to it as an example of a notorious nineties rarity. Value? Being from Kendal it may be worth a mint. It has to be three figures but certainly not four--Bottomley is a determinedly minor writer. However there are some very well heeled collectors of nineties verse who may not have the book.

B.S. Johnson. The Unfortunates. 1969.

B.S. Johnson. THE UNFORTUNATES. Panther Books in Association with Secker and Warburg, London, 1969.

Current Selling Prices
$250-$450 /£120-£220


MODERN FIRST EDITION / EXPERIMENTAL LITERATURE/ ODDITY
A book in a box, the pages loose and intended to be shuffled randomly by the reader. The author B.S, Johnson had started out fairly conventionally with his popular novel 'Travelling People' but even this had avant-garde elements and showed the influence of Joyce and Sterne. However 'The Unfortunates' was something of a departure--it is in fact in 27 pamphlets each designed to run on from one another even if shuffled. These parts are encased by a removable wrapper, all cased in a stiff laminated box illustrated with an abstract work, mostly purple. The rear interior of the box has a printed notice, intended to look like a newpaper clipping "Sub inspires City triumph from B. S. Johnson."

Bryan Stanley Johnson (1933 - 1973) had been a football hack and 'The Unfortunates' is a lament for a friend and mentor who had died of cancer. It has much pre Nick Hornby football content including a remarkable section where the writer is watching a soccer match that he is being paid to report on. The football commentary is in italics, but his interlaced thoughts are in in roman. The book was much admired with plaudits by Burgess and Beckett and is still read although several copies I have seen appear completely untouched--mint and unshuffled in the box. I have heard of one copy seen in a library bound up- presumably the crazed librarian disposed of the box.

VALUE? It does not appear to be rising in value. Johnson has been championed recently by Jonathan Coe who wrote a fat biography of him ('Like a Fiery Elephant') and that has helped his prices but there is an over supply of most of his works. Coe's early books are probably worth more that anything Johnson wrote. Fine copy can be had for £200 and possibly less on a good day.

Ian Fleming, Octopussy 1966.

Ian Fleming. Octopussy and The Living Daylights. Jonathan Cape, London 1966.

Current Selling Prices
$100-$300 /£50-£150


MODERN FIRST EDITION/ ESPIONAGE / JAMES BOND
The above photo is of our own copy of 'Octopussy' which sold on Ebay just before Christmas (the happy holidays) at a stonking $740. Over the last few years we have sold about 200 fine/fine copies on ebay with a starting price of $9.99. None made less than $50, a few got over $200 and one over $300. I have a few left and haven't put a copy up for 6 months so this recent result came as a shock.

The reason one is always surprised that 'Octopussy' makes any money at all is that I can vividly remember it being sold in great bulk at 50p or less. A Cecil Court bookseller, one John Adrian of 'The Clearing House' (a Buchanite name) bought 32,000 copies of the first edition in the mid 1980s. The first edition print run was 50,000-- a Bondite website states '...contrary to popular opinion it was not actually remaindered' - but a bulk of new duplicate books bought from the publisher being sold off cheap adds up to remaindering by any other name (in my book.) The site also adds 'copies with unclipped jackets and no signs of a price sticker are preferred' and the Cecil Court bulk had the price in about 3 states. I can actual recall it selling as low as 5p (10 cents) and many customer bought twenty or more at a time. Around 2000 we bought a cupboardful in Chiswick. Our Ebay description, a model of suave brevity, read: -

FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION*
First state of the first impression of the first edition. (The price on the corner of the dustwrapper's inner flap has not been overlaid with a publisher's revised price sticker.)
Fleming's final published Bond book, with the attractive Richard Chopping-designed dustwrapper
Exceptional condition: both book and dustwrapper are entirely without defect.

* (Important to stress this, it saves many questions--many an Ebayer has bought a book described as a first edition and received a sixth impression or some such worthless item, so it has to be spelled out unequivocally--often with a photo of the actual edition statement. Even then people will email asking how you know it a first and 'are you sure it isn't a later impression?')

VALUE? A quick troll of the massive ABE webmall reveals that fine/fine copies of copies with a later state price (i.e in metric price on label over the 10/6) can be had for £50 to £80 and first state at around a £100. An outfit with the name 'Books Tell You Why' want $1000 for a 'Fine+' copy and $675 for another. A memorable name for a business- combining excruciating cuteness with smug didacticism. How they arrived at such a stroppy price defies speculation.

Several people have copies signed by (Sir) Roger Moore, and Octopussy actors Maud Adams or Maryam d'Abo --these are offered at prices as high as $4500 and even touted as investments. There is evidence that these occasionally get bought - the guy with the $4500 one says that he sold another one also signed by Adams and D'Abo, but this copy is even better because this time Maryam d'Abo has added a heart symbol beneath her name. Helpfully he adds that it was 'real pleasure to catalogue this beautiful-looking little gem of a book!' For those of us who saw this book at 50p these prices will seem risible for a long time to come.

Hill. Mercian Hyms, 1971. (R.I.P. Peter Jolliffe)

"King of the perennial holly- groves, the riven sand- stone: overlord of the M5 : architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross : guardian of the Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge : contractor to the desirable new estates : saltmaster : money- changer : commisioner for oaths : martyrologist : the friend of Charlemagne.

'I liked that', said Offa, 'sing it again.'"

Geoffrey Hill. MERCIAN HYMNS. Andre Deutsch, London 1971.

Current Selling Prices
$550 - $1000 /£270-£500

POETRY
I found this book at the bottom of a box this New Year morning. I had read it before in paperback -a collection of 30 prose hymns, the first of which is quoted above. A superb achievement by Hill, possibly his finest work; I had not realised its value until I checked it out and was surprised to find no copy less than $640 and a signed presentation from the author to my old professor at Southampton, the fine Catholic poet F.T. Prince at $2000+. A nice find. The point about the book that most sellers emphasise is that the boards have a tendency to splay and unsplayed copy are prized. Mine was almost completely unsplayed, joy of joys.

Whether people step forward eager to buy at £300 is another matter. I am a believer in the old bookseller's maxim 'the right price is the wrong price' and feel that very clean copies probably sells at between £200 and £300 and higher priced copies sit on the web for long tranches of time. It was a rather sad book to find as formerly I would have quoted it to friend and colleague Peter Jolliffe of Ulysses who died over Christmas.

Peter was a great dealer, a good poet himself and coincidentally a great admirer of Geoffrey Hill. His favourite poet was probably W.S Graham. He was honest, highly intelligent (Oxford) had great integrity and a sweet nature. A little shy and extremely modest - he was not one of those Oxford guys who keeps reminding you that he went there. He was not old and his health had been compromised for a long time but he had soldiered on uncomplainingly in his Museum street shop. A natural stoic (except in the case of a book missed from a catalogue!) I have an abiding memory of him staying the night at a house my wife and I had rented in the Aptos Hills about 1995 - I offered Peter the sofa but in the morning I found him asleep sitting up in an armchair with a sort of beatific look on his face. As I recall we set off on the morning tide to scout Monterey and Pacific Grove (via Moss landing where Peter hit a good shelf of poetry and bought some of them from an old lady bookseller who had never heard of Larkin, Betjeman or Heaney.) Last word to Geoffrey Hill for Peter -- from the 24th Mercian hymn - "'Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum' dust in the eyes, on clawing wings, and lips."

Adios Peter - for the moment the great world of books feels hollow and flat without you.

Arthur Cravan. Maintenant 1912 - 1915.

Arthur Cravan. MAINTENANT. Revue Littéraire. 5 issues. Self Published. Paris, April 1912 - April 1915.

Current Selling Prices
$10000+ /£5000+

PERIODICAL / DADA/ BOXING / ODDITY
Arthur Cravan--poet, traveller, boxer, charlatan and possible forger published the proto-Dadaist magazine 'Maintenant' in Paris beteween 1912 and 1915. The 5 issues are now very scarce and can command over a thousand dollars each. The market for them is probably slim and collectors of this material tend not to have deep purses but the mystery of his life and death is still pretty potent...He was in the news this year when someone turned up at the New York ABAA book fair with a bunch of Oscar Wilde manuscripts of intense value (if they had been right.) They were pronounced forgeries, and Cravan (or Fabian Lloyd as he was born) was mentioned as the possible source and maker of the fakes. The story was well covered at The Times Online. Cravan was actually the son of Wilde's brother in law and was born in Lausanne in 1887. He grew to 6 foot 6 inches and weighed 18 stone. At one point he became the boxing champion of Europe and even fought the World Champion Jack Johnson (poster above) in a rigged fight in Barcelona to get enough money to travel to New York to avoid the military call-up. A relentless world traveller, he wrote "I have twenty countries in my memory and trail in my soul the colors of one hundred cities." He also wrote in Maintenant that "Every great artist has the sense of provocation" --the key to his style.

I was reminded of Cravan recently on hearing of the death of another poet and boxer Vernon Scannell. How many other boxers wrote poetry? Muhammad Ali made a pretty good fist of it (as it were) Roy Campbell was something of a bruiser, T.E. Hulme fought Wyndham Lewis in Soho Square, Marlowe died in a pub brawl - possibly there are more. With Cravan all you can collect are the five issues of Maintenant and two or three boxing posters, the one to the left can be bought in 'limited edition' facsimile for £200. The originals have got to be into four figures sterling.

Cravan paraded himself as "the poet with the shortest haircut in the world." One is reminded of the book dealer and writer Driffield, an almost daily visitor to Trumpers and himself a larger than life character and a bit of a bruiser to boot. The most memorable thing about Cravan was his total disappearance in 1918. Cravan had established a boxing school in Mexico City and married the highly rated poet Mina Loy. He and Loy planned a short sojourn in Buenos Aires, but only had enough money for her passage, Cravan decided to navigate himself with a friend in a small fishing boat; he and Loy would rendezvous later in Valparaíso. Nobody ever saw Cravan again. Loy bore their daughter, Fabienne, in April 1919. Two issues of Maintenant are archived on the web at Iowa (see below.) Interestingly they show all the original ads including a creamery, a bonbonniere, a Mercedes dealer and an evening with Cravan himself (see below.) The contents are best described by a great Cravan enthusiast Andy Merryfield of The Brooklyn Rail site:

'Still, Cravan’s spirit is best evoked by Cravan himself, in the pages of Maintenant, his pesky journal, the centerpiece of the publisher Champ Libre’s handsome Arthur Cravan Oeuvres: Poèmes, Articles, Lettres. (The now-defunct Champ Libre was the brainchild of millionaire French producer and agent, Gérard Lébovici, who, in 1984, was gunned down in an avenue Foch parking lot in a murder never solved.) Only five issues of Maintenant appeared between 1912 and 1915; Cravan was editor-in-chief and sole contributor, often penning diatribes under pseudonyms like W. Cooper, Robert Miradique and Edouard Archinard. Soirées of poetry and boxing instruction were advertised on its cover; inside, we find not only Cravan’s manic poetry, which sizzles on the page, but also hilarious frontals against establishment figures–like André Gide—and hallucinogenic dialogues between Cravan and his late "uncle" Oscar Wilde. "I looked at him in his entirety," said Cravan in "Oscar Wilde is living!" "He was fine. In his armchair he had the air of an elephant; his backside crushed the seat where it was narrowest; in front of those enormous arms and legs I tried, with admiration, to imagine the divine sentiments that inhabited these same limbs… ‘Come on! Have a bloody drink!’ I exclaimed with an American boxer’s accent." "You are a terrible boy," quips an indignant Wilde to Cravan, "my God, have you lost all your dignity!"

Cravan’s stanzas are similarly exuberant and raving: "I would like to be in Vienna and in Calcutta," he wrote in "Hie!" "catching every train and every ship,/ fornicating with every woman and devouring every dish./ Socialite, chemist, whore, drunk, musician, worker, painter, acrobat, actor;/ Old, young, swindler, hoodlum, angel and reveler;/ millionaire, bourgeois, cactus, giraffe or crow;/ Coward, hero, negro, monkey, Don Juan, pimp, lord,/ peasant, hunter, industrialist,/ Fauna and flora:/ I am all things, all men and all animals!" And in "Words," he warned that "You need to dream your life with great care,/ Instead of living it merely as a party." Then, "Weary of searching for the day, you will taste the night." "I have lived in an epoch," Cravan said in "Arthur," "where I could have the drunkenness to think that nobody else was my equal./ An idea!"

Other Cravan enthusiasts include Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Greil Marcus and Guy Debord.



VALUE? With ads for cafes and car dealers one suspects that the run of Maintenant was not tiny and it is likely that the always broke Cravan hawked them about forcing sales by his sheer physical bulk. However I have never seen one, and Martin Stone in 20 years of patrolling the boulevards and quais of Paris has only seen two issues. A run turned up a few years ago at Benjamin's auctions in the Netherlands and made circa $10000 but that result might have been site specific. From the look of the copies held at Iowa University they were printed on cheap paper and won't have survived in limpid state. Kind of thing one might find with a bunch of dull, yellowing French journals--and what a find!

TRIVIA. A biographical graphic novel on the life of Arthur Cravan has been published by Dark Horse Comics. Written by the publisher, Mike Richardson, and illustrated by Rick Geary, "Cravan" puts forth the idea that Cravan and the enigmatic author of 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' B. Traven might be one and the same. Haven't read it but reckon that it would be easier to prove that the Duke of Earl was Shakespeare.