Barred (Jean Rhys)

Edward de Neve. BARRED. Desmond Harmsworth, London 1932.

Current Selling Prices
$1000 +/£600+

MODERN FIRST EDITION
Something of a sleeper and undeniably rare, so hard to find that I am not especially concerned about awakening it. It is so rare that it has no real currency. The kind of sleeper you don't want to be blabbing about is one that can be fairly easily found and quickly and quietly converted into real money. Our copy, at the somewhat 'greedy bastard' price of £750 is the only one on the web and is described thus:

8vo. pp 255. Said to be mostly written by Jean Rhys from her husband's (Jean Lenglet, sometime Langlet) Dutch language manuscript. A noted rarity. Original publisher's black cloth lettered red at the spine, covers slightly rubbed, slightly scuffed at spine ends else very good sound copy. From the library of Norman Douglas with a note in pencil by him on the front endpaper 'Belongs to N.D.'

The price, which I shall eventually reduce, is taken out of the air and owes some of its weight to the connection with 'Uncle Norman.' In a jacket it should be worth well into four figures.

Posted on Face Book (or 'My Face' as my aunt calls it) is this game offer: " I will marry anyone who can tell me what these books have in common. Quartet by Jean Rhys...The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford...Barred by Edward de Neve...Drawn From Life by Stella Bowen." This posted by a not unattractive twentysomething party houndette--well dearie marry me 'cos I know. 'Good Soldier' is by FMF who was a lover of Jean Rhys while he was also living with Stella Bowen who wrote about it in 'Drawn from Life' and Jean Rhys distraught but empowered turned out 'Quartet' (NY 1929, published in UK as 'Postures' in 1928.) 'Barred' also covers this triangulation, not to say quadrangulation. (Pic of JL and JR to the left.)

Jean Rhys translated 'Barred' from the French edition Sous les Verrous which literally translates as 'Under the Locks.' The book is dedicated to her and seems almost a plea for her return. Rhys cut over 6000 words and it is said there is hardly a paragraph where she hasn't changed something, she was after all il miglior fabbro. Ford, unaccountably attractive to women, also wrote about the affair in 'When the Wicked Man' (said to be 'virtually unreadable') also it is covered with some resentment by Stella Bowen in 'Drawn from Life' (1941) - she describes the members of the boho Paris crowd around FMF when he was editing 'Transatlatic Review as either 'dirty, drunk, a pervert or a thief or a whore...'

The book also might be sold as a prison novel, a genre for which there is a lively bunch of punters. In late 1924 Lenglet (aka Edward de Neve) was arrested for embezzling money from the travel firm he was working for. He said that he had borrowed the money to do a deal, but the deal had failed and he was unable to replace the money before its absence was noted. A classic excuse, but it did not save him from a prison sentence in the inaptly named Santé prison. This left his wife destitute - when Bowen and Ford took her in she was down to 3 Francs and as SB notes '...(she) possessed nothing but a cardboard suitcase and the astonishing manuscript (of)...an unpublishably sordid novel of great sensitiveness and persuasiveness...'

OUTLOOK? I have a feeling that Jean Rhys will at some point go up in value due to her Caribbean origins, the drama of her life and loves, her sheer talent and power and the fact she seems to still have some resonance even with the callow web3 generation. Another translation of hers, Carco's 'Perversity' (NY: Pacal Covici, 1928) is listed at $2500 for a decent copy in jacket. Well over twice what it should be (imnsho), but an interesting book as the translator is given as Ford Madox Ford but it is now known to have been entirely JR's work. Ford had involved himself in the translation project to such an extent that both Carco and the American publisher, Pascal Covici, thought Ford himself was the translator. The seller says: 'Rhys in this century is beginning to look like one of the truly great 20th Century novelists...' If he is right then prospects are good, but bear in mind that apart from the very rare 'Barred' and possibly her first book 'Postures', her books are not at present especially scarce.

The Strange Mystery of the $1000 Duffy

As the Hippies used to say 'I can't get my head round this, man". Why are 4 booksellers on the web all charging over £500 for a paperback that can be obtained for less than £2 in the same edition and for £5 signed by the great writer? The book is Carol Ann Duffy's 'Selected Poems' (Penguin 2004) All list the book with the slightly obscene misprint 'Cuntry' in the abbreviated list of contents. It is believable that a poet might use it as a punnish new word, but in this case in all published copies it's "country." I have heard of relisting but this OTT.

It is hard to imagine the circumstances in which someone would buy the book; even the ridiculously rich do not want to pay 200 times the going rate. Two scenarios occur to me.

1. An immodestly wealthy Frenchman has a mistress who has expressed an interest in the works of Ms Duffy and says to his slightly dim witted butler 'Buy me the most expensive Carol Ann Duffy book in the world and have it brought by courier to my mistress in Paris and make it snappy...'

2. A conceptual artist realising that the book has an unfathomably nonsensical price buys it and exhibits the book and the purchasing paperwork (possibly slightly treated and arted up) and exhibits in a thick perspex box. If Richard Prince had a mind to do this it might fetch $100,000, possibly to be bought by the wealthy Frenchman for his demanding mistress.

Sir Hugh Ripley. Whisky for Tea. The Major in Fawlty Towers, Johnnie Walker, Rowley Birkin or Terry Thomas?

Sir Hugh Ripley. WHISKY FOR TEA. Book Guild, Guildford 1991. ISBN 0863326374

Current Prices
£70 - £480 / $125 - $800?



BEVERAGES/ MEMOIRS/ CHARACTERS
Published by Book Guild in 1991 and now difficult to find and wanted by quite a few people. Some of them think whisky is spelled 'Whiskey' and will never find it. I am indebted to a site called 'This is Ludlow' for much of this info about the great man. Hugh George Harley Ripley (1916 - 2003) was the third son of Sir Henry Ripley, 3rd Bt, a sporting squire seated at Bedstone in Shropshire, and his wife, Dorothy, who came from the neighbouring squire-archical dynasty of Harley of Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire. He had a bucolic upbringing in the Welsh Marches and became a skilled horseman, fisherman and shot. He went to Eton, natch. At Eton he would attend local race meetings disguised with a false moustache. He then entered a firm of East Indian merchants in Glasgow before being sent out to Ceylon as a tea planter. The Ludlow site takes up the story:

"...Ripley's recollections of his life as a sini dori (small master) in Ceylon in the late 1930s had a flavour of Somerset Maugham. In Whisky for Tea he gives a fruity account of how he learnt Sinhalese through the traditional method of "the sleeping dictionary", apparently a three-volume work in his case, comprising two girls and their mother ("herself by no means unattractive").

[After a good war]...his commanding officer gave him the following testimonial: "Major Ripley was a gallant soldier. He is a good boxer and a good shot, and he has a happy knack of achieving maximum results with a minimum amount of effort."

This "happy knack" stood Ripley in good stead during his 34 years with John Walker & Sons, Scotch whisky distillers. After learning the craft of distilling in Scotland, he spent some riotous years "on the road" with a dipsomaniac New Zealander before finding a comfortable berth in Johnnie Walker's plush headquarters in St James's Street, across the road from his club, Boodle's.

In 1956 he succeeded his father in the baronetcy and the Bedstone estate, and promptly demanded a seat on the board of Johnnie Walker. As "Sir Hugh", his status among barmen and publicans soon reached mythic proportions... At the Licensed Victuallers' Golfing Society "stag party", it was typical of Ripley to make off with the clothes of the stripper.

"The Old Rip", as he was known, was a familiar figure in countless watering holes around the world, as well as in such haunts as Annabel's nightclub, the Long Room at Lord's and on the Burma Road course at Wentworth, not to mention the Turf. At one stage he part-owned a singularly unsuccessful racehorse called The Hughstan.

Ripley was a foxy personality of roguish charm, who reminded some observers of the Major in Fawlty Towers (pic right) and whose appearance came increasingly to resemble the caricature of Johnnie Walker in the advertisement ( "Still Going Strong"). He relished the relaxed morals of the Swinging Sixties but never lost his shrewd Shropshire lad's cunning or his passion for country sports."

He is also reminiscent of the Fast Show character Rowley Birkin and the great British actor Terry Thomas. He may just have been a tiresome English hooray of course...but you have to admire his courage and insouciance. An incident in the book gives a flavour of his devil-may-care style not to say his sang froid. Ripley is wounded in an attack:

"an appalling noise and a shattering blow to my head and face. I evidently passed out for a short time. When I came round I found blood oozing out of the left side of my face. I couldn't see out of one eye and my mouth seemed to be full of stuff. I spat and a mass of blood, teeth and metal came out. A piece of shell had gone through my cheek, broken the sinus bone, and ripped out a lot of teeth."At the field dressing station Ripley was approached by the padre. "Cheer up," he said. "Have a cigarette." Ripley puffed at the lit gasper and noticed the padre looking at him in rather a curious way. "You know, you will remember this. I expect it will be the first and last time that smoke comes out of your cheek when you smoke a cigarette."

This incident won him a citation for bravery and the Silver Star for "thorough and aggressive reconnaissance... inspiring leadership and complete disregard of his own life and safety." Stiff upper lip or what?! Ripley was a character completely out of place in the prig Blair's Britain but his approach to life was worthy of a Zen master - 'achieving maximum results with a minimum amount of effort.' There's a self help book there - 'The Ripley Way' or 'Ripley's Game.'

VALUE? When first listed 2 years ago there were no copies on the web. The Book Guild is mainly a Vanity Press and printings are small. On Amazon an unpleasant but readable library copy sits at $120 with another guy at a sadistic $800 for a newish copy. On Abe the egregious Bookbarn have a nasty copy (ex lib again) at $550 which appears to be the same copy as on Amazon USA at $120. Given an ex library copy should be a fraction of a new copy (let's say a minimum of a quarter) this represents about $2000. I suspect that if the $120 copy is bought the $550 copy will not be available. Talk about "The Old Rip".

Where do you get these books? 7

The most recent crazy place that I have bought books was at a Llama farm in Suffolk, England. Mostly they have herds of llamas there and alpaca demonstrations and some very nice clothes that are not cheap. On the rainy summer afternoon that I went there they had a long table full of decent books at 50p each - raising money for charity. Not sure which one --as one who probably buys about £1500 worth of books a year from charity, with very little motive but profit, they all merge into one, I am ashamed to admit. I spent £4 for my haul and put the money in an honesty box. I think one of the books ended up on ABE, a dull but desirable textbook of building practice.

Also in Suffolk nearby is a rubbish dump with a small shop in a large metal container, mostly full of VHR videos, rusting golf clubs and the occasional book--I spend about £3 a month there--mostly in an attempt to keep it going in case something great shows up. In California I came across a very low key web dealer who got almost his entire stock (paperbacks, periodicals and ephemera) from diving into the paper recycling containers at the local site. He carried his finds away on the back of his bicycle in a specially constructed trailer. No one at this eco friendly site seems to object --after all to resell something is to recycle it--that's why secondhand booksellers are such blessed folk. One caveat, however -at many sites the people who work there have first pick and do not look kindly on unannounced dumpster divers.

In the matter of of charity shops it is a sad fact of life that better books (and better clothes) are to be found in the more affluent areas. This has been slightly obviated by charity sellers looking books up on the web and rendering much stock prohibitive to reader and dealer alike. However in an area like West Sussex where there are over 200 charity shops (in an equivalent area in France there would be three at a pinch) you can still find good, if modest, books. We are talking Shelter, Oxfam, Arthritis Research Campaign, Emmaus, Spinal Bifida, Sense, Cat's Protection, RSPCA, PDSA (pets again) Age Concern, Salvation Army, Cancer Research, Marie Curie Cancer Care (an especially worthy cause), Link Romania, MENCAP, Red Cross, St Johns Hospice, British Heart Foundation, Scope, Sue Ryder Care, Alzheimers Society, St Vincent De Paul Society, Mind, Save The Children etc., [below, inside an Oxfam Shop at Didsbury, Oxon)



Some dealers gain good karma by advising shops on what prices to put on books--whether out of decency or a desire for first dibs on the good stuff I am never sure--maybe both. Great finds? I did hear of someone finding Durrell's ridiculously rare first book 'Quaint Fragment' (Cecil Press, 1931 - red boards) in a charity shop in Bournemouth or one of those seaside towns where such shops are particularly thick on the ground. I have a feeling it was not a dealer but the shop itself that found it and put it in the rooms where it made £10,000 +. One wonders what other books came in with it...

Where do you get these books? 6

Answer--almost anywhere. As our photo shows they can be bought with onions by the side if the road or from an itinerant Chinese bookseller. I once found some decent books that were for sale in a smoke filled minicab office while waiting for a taxi. Churches have them with an honesty box, tea rooms, cafes that serve lattes and country houses open to the public sell books at the gatehouse or in sheds....will carry on looking.

Young England. The worst play ever?

Walter Reynolds. YOUNG ENGLAND. Gollancz, London 1935

Current Selling Prices
$160-$250 / £80-£125

PLAY
I was reminded of this appalling play recently when hearing Edwina Currie review the musical 'Kismet' in London as 'dire,dire,dire...' Without having seen it I am sure she is right because as far as I am concerned all musicals are dire. The medium is the message. Martin Cropper, a brilliant and acerbic critic at 'The Times' got the elbow about 20 years for voicing similar opinions. Edwina said that the revival of Kismet was so lousy it might attract audiences in the way that the fictional 'Springtime for Hitler' did. There is a real life precursor--the unforgettable 1934 hit 'Young England.'

'Young England' is a now uncommon book especially in a jacket and of interest to theatre collectors and connoisseurs of the odd and the zany. Reynolds appears to have been a sort of Amanda Ros of the theatre--so very bad that he is good. Our last copy was described thus:

'8vo. pp 288. Frontis portrait, 5 plates. A play in two periods. This play had an unlikely success in the 1930s rather similar to the fictitious 'Springtime for Hitler.' It was so appallingly bad that audiences came along in their droves for over 300 nights to shout amusing remarks and generally revel in its ghastliness. The frontis portrait of the Reverend Walter Reynolds shows a stern Scottish type who apparently would walk up and down the aisles of the theatre during performances telling people to be quiet. Quite scarce.'

The critics voted it the worst show that had opened in London in 20 years: nobody gave it three nights. It ran, to packed houses, for nearly a year. Over a quarter of a million people saw it. Wikipedia has an entry on it and the Time magazine archives have this article from December 1939 :

'...London's bright boys just had to see what the worst show in 20 years looked like. They screamed with laughter at its superpatriotic goings-on, involving gallant officers, dastardly villains, prostitutes, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, taints of illegitimacy, stolen papers, stolen cash, the Union Jack. They went back for more, and their friends went with them. .Soon it became quite as chic to go (preferably halfcocked) to Young England as to the opera. At first the audience merely ad-libbed, then (as they came to know the play virtually by heart) they started beating the actors to their lines. The famed British reserve took its worst pummeling in centuries, and Young England became a rough-&-tumble free-for-all.
Shortly after World War II began, it was decided to revive the play. There were some fears that it might have ad-libbed its usefulness, that jesting at patriotism might not go down in wartime. The fears were groundless. With tension in the air, people have been gladder than ever to relax, and with soldiers in the audience, the wisecracks are even rawer than they used to be.
¶ One set shows a Salvation Army "citadel" with doors marked MEN and WOMEN. Every time an actor starts for one, the crowd shouts: "Wrong door, wrong door."
¶ When Boy Scouts or Girl Guides are assigned to "water detail," voices pipe up: "Stay out of those bushes"; "Be careful of the side of the barn."
¶ One night, when the hero was proved not to be illegitimate, someone yelled: "Consider yourself unbawstardized."
¶ The actors (who otherwise play their roles straight) have made a game of altering their lines if the crowd beats them to the draw. Thus the villain, when led away by the police, pauses to say "Foiled!" He was almost licked one night when the crowd shouted not only "Foiled!" but "Baffled!" "Beaten!" "Frustrated!" "Outwitted!" "Trapped!" "Flummoxed!" He waited until the wits were through, then hissed: "Stymied!"
Walter Reynolds, Young England's 88-year-old author, still takes his dead-serious play seriously. He went to the opening of the revival, a sad, reedy figure in a great black cape, doddered up the stairs to his box holding on to both handrails, sat tense through the uproar, at the end bowed to the audience, thanked them. Asked in a BBC interview whether he wasn't angry at the way audiences treated Young England, he answered: "No. They're a little noisy . . . but they pay as much as 10 and 6 for seats, so they must like it."

I had an aunt who saw the play and still talked about it into her nineties, she recalled people throwing things and a whole lot of shouted audience participation- 'rather like a pantomine.' One old actor recalled being hit by coins ('quite painful.') One wonders if this could ever happen again in the West End; possibly our current theatre goers are not up for a laugh in the same way as the young things of the 1930s. As the 'Time' reporter writes, many of the audience went to the show 'halfcocked' -probably cocktails, given the era.

VALUE? Not vast. Above prices are for nice copies in jacket, for some reason most copies I have seen have been mediocre. You can get more for a good Stoppard first edition - but a nice copy of this play in the jacket, signed by the great man should get well into three figures.

Cards as Weapons by Ricky Jay

"Put a Deck of Cards in Your Pocket, Put a Feeling of Confidence in Your Life."

Ricky Jay. CARDS AS WEAPONS. Darien House, NY 1977.

ISBN 0446387568 (paperback) 0882010174 (hardback)

Current Prices
$200-$900 /£110-£500

GAMES /CARD TRICKS
Amusing and useful illustrated book showing how to throw playing cards better - subtitled "A Treatise on the art of throwing, scaling, juggling, boomeranging and manipulating ordinary playing cards with particular emphasis on impressing one's friends and providing a deadly yet inexpensive means of self-defence". The book, a perennial Ebay special and Library sale 'sleeper', is now being seen as a self help book that 'changes lives' - several comments at Amazon, not entirely tongue in cheek, attest to this. Apparently people take up card throwing in the way they used to take up tap dancing or juggling -to get out of a rut. Jay is something of a media star (MTV etc.,) and the book is much wanted. It is not especially elusive although it's hard to find a sharp copy as it is a thin large format paperback. It reveals secrets that some magicians feel should not have been revealed; as a manual it has been used by blokes like Chow Yun-fat, Andy Lau, and Stephen Chow in their Asian gambling films.

VALUE? Copies show up a bit creased at around $200 and twice that for fine copies. Signed should show up as Jay is pretty approachable and was often seen at book fairs etc., being a serious book collector. God bless him. Magicians are often pretty serious book collectors - at one time one heard quite a bit about the highly acquisitive David Copperfield and his awesome collection. It is worth noting that there is also a hardback of the book that is much prized and dealers (who are not mad) sometimes ask $1000 or more for it, although a cautious punter could probably pick one up in the $600 to $800 range - in a jacket.

When the book came out some shops insisted that it was obscene because Ricky's assistant was naked as a Jay bird (okay, okay) and it got sold under the counter or even returned by bible bashers. 30 years later this persists - e.g. this ad on the web right now:

'A humorous and entertaining book. Even has a few pictures of a totally nude gal throwing cards. Due to this, you must be 18, or older, to purchase this book. Should you wish to practice your scaling, this offering comes with a 10 aluminum playing cards - made from a sheet of metal. Softback. $275.00

OUTLOOK. Ricky Jay, for some reason, will not allow the book to be reprinted. Only lousy copies drop beneath $100 (there is one on AMZ at present 'good only, with an "S" shaped bend to it' for $95.) Signed copies are becoming difficult -- only one is available right now, and in paperback, at $480 (signed 'The meagre efforts of a callow youth., Ricky Jay'.) The hardback seems to be showing up more and generally copies are coming home to roost a little. Unless someone finds an abandoned pallet full of them it should hold its value but is unlikely to ascend in price.

Old Bookshop / New technology

A marvellous shot of a very old bookshop can be found at the Shorpy Old Photo Blog. It shows the "Old Corner Bookstore, the first brick building in Boston." Close inspection reveals a book scout outside talking on his cell phone. In todays fast moving bookselling scene he would be more likely to be consulting the web on an Iphone or sending shots of books to a client via a similar device. To his left are the words 'Toy Books' probably referring to moveable 'pop-up' books like the works of Lothar Meggendorfer --now very valuable and well worth a call to an eager collector. Of course this photo may in fact date from 1900 as the estimable Shorpy claims--in which case see our last entry (Bastards with Bookshops 2 Sept) at the end where we refer to 'those new time machine phones.'



STOP PRESS I have subsequently found that this putative book scout may in fact have been picking his nose; however closer examination reveals a bulky cellphone in his right hand.

Bastards with Bookshops 2

THE WORST BOOKSHOP IN THE UNIVERSE
In the last posting I referred to a store in New Hampshire (now known to be 'The Antiquarian Bookstore') with a proprietor of a somewhat erratic disposition. I have since heard that the bloke is not a bad guy with a soft side to him when he is not belabouring your skull with an iron pipe. Moreover out of the goodness of his heart he takes the $5 browsing fee off your first purchase and that he actually has decent books. The motto of New Hampshire is 'Live Free or Die' and this man is simply following his bliss, dammit. Let him be. 

As for the shop known as "The Worst Bookshop in the Universe' this was identified in January 2001 when it was still extant on a book group called rec.collecting.books. Among other things that were said were:

"...books that have been there a long time are repriced upwards at the checkout, the owner (who apparently owns the whole block--no small money in today's San Jose) has paranoid notices everywhere and will even tell people who have their shirt tails worn loose (as is the fashion) to tuck them in less they conceal a book thither. The atmosphere is oppressive, the stock would disgrace a thrift shop.. Upon entry, I was greeted not by the pleasant scent 
of old paper, glue and cloth that I was expecting but instead 
encountered an aroma consisting of the apparent mixture of smoke, mold, 
and swamp-gas...

The man behind the counter looked at me with a blank hostile 
glance and continued to argue with someone on the phone. I quickly surveyed the cramped aisles and began poking around. I pulled 
the first interesting book I encountered and was disconcerted by the 
fact that the owner had used a red pencil to angrily gouge a price on 
the endpaper - way overpriced. When I looked at some book-club editions 
that had 1st-edition prices gouged in them I felt my anticipation slowly 
leaking away. I got the impression that the owner had no idea as to the 
worth of any particular book, and so priced them all outrageously so as 
to avoid accidentally selling one at a price below it's value (common book bastard ploy) terrible and inconsistent business hours... 
poor lighting, 
filthy floors/shelves ...
misanthropic proprietor... 
way-over-priced books...noxious stinky atmosphere... 
Horrible treatment of books ...
"Don't read the magazines unless you're going to buy" sign ...
Stagnant stock...Stygian...

Two things to note, the guy although he looked like the roady of a fifth rate Metal group was probably worth many millions- the dotcom boom had sent San Jose property prices ballistic. The worst guy to do a deal with is someone who doesn't need the money. As with other really bad shops personned by b'stards (there used to be one in the Tenderloin area of SF) they reprice stock that has been there a long time, often checking the net and ignoring low prices. Surely if a book has been there a long time the price is right or, in most cases, far too much? My own contribution to the debate was this:

"As I recall there was also a virulent phone argument going on as I came in. Old San Jose book scouts tell many a tale about this place, possibly over a pint in the nearby Gordon Birsch brewpub. I have come across many unpleasant overpriced dull shops but this takes the biscuit... in the movie version of 'The Worst Bookshop in the Universe' the part might be played by Michael Keaton reprising his Beetlejuice persona."

The shop went a few years back- probably mostly in dumpsters- but it has a half life on the net with the odd review still up as if it were still there. There is even a site where you can click on a phone and it rings the shop--I didn't try it and it would only get through if it was one of those new time machine phones. Was it not Eliot who said '...If all time is eternally present/All time is unredeemable.'?

to be pursued...

Bastards with Bookshops

BASTARDS WITH BOOKSHOPS or Look Back in Anger.

Shopkeepers are an ill-tempered bunch and booksellers are no exception. Booksellers are often on a very short fuse and can become incandescent with rage, inconsolable and beyond the reach of practitioners of anger management, Buddhist monks and preachers of peace, love and understanding. Bernard Black in 'Black Books' is said to be based on an amalgamation of real life characters- mostly high handed, cranky booksellers.

A bookseller on Route 1 in Porstmouth NH recently got in the papers yet again - he makes Bernard look like John Inman ('Are you Being Served?')--he charges a $5 browsing fee and has been known to knock out customers who venture in his shop without permission. I had heard of him over the years as an example of a dealer who had seriously lost the plot and have always been amazed that he stays in business. He has just been busted for writing bad cheques and the local paper chronicles his misdemeanours thus:-

"Past police calls to the Antiquarian book store have involved weapons, assaults and arrests, including the following:

* On April 2, 2005, police were called to the bookstore by a man who reported he was assaulted. According to police records, the customer reported Wakefield "tried to hit him with the door to the store."

* In April 1999, Wakefield was arrested on a charge of simple assault.

* On April 27, 1995, Dale Shaw of Rye went to the store and after being told there was a $5 fee to browse, an argument ensued, according to court records. A court affidavit said Wakefield called the customer a (expletive) retard," before hitting him with a metal pipe, scraping and bruising his arm. In 1995, Wakefield told the Herald he was defending himself from a robbery attempt and Shaw shoved him. Shaw was not charged by police with any crime.

* Hampstead auto parts dealer Patrick Murphy told the Herald in 1995 that he went to browse in the bookstore where Wakefield started an argument and called him "an AIDS infected" (expletive).

* In March 1994, Richard Wentz of Rye was arrested for criminal threatening, according to police records, for showing a handgun at the bookstore after getting into a dispute with Wakefield.

* In 1998, Wakefield was convicted of criminal threatening and assault against a Merrimack man for shoving and threatening him with a pipe.

* In 1988, Wakefield was found not guilty of pulling a gun on a customer.

Wakefield told the Herald in 2007 that he’s been the victim of numerous shoplifting incidents and 13 robberies and almost never calls police. Shoplifting incidents usually spark the trouble, Wakefield said, because he will confront attempted thieves."

It would be a foolhardy punter who having effected an entrance to the shop, paid the $5 browsing charge (only time I have ever heard of this in world bookselling) would then start stealing books under the eyes of an over vigilant man whose photo reveals him to be built like a brick shithouse. These chaps are always frightened that their invariably mediocre stock is going to be plundered. At a shop in San Jose, CA which I shall refer to as R+W, and is happily no longer, the proprietor was so paranoid he would not allow men with untucked in shirts in the shop lest they conceal a book, had a notice saying "Don't read the magazines unless you're going to buy", followed people into the loo in case theye were going to stuff books in their clothes and priced many Book Club books as if they were true firsts at hundreds of dollars in a red angrily applied crayon. This shop with its enormous, overpriced, stinkingly bad condition books was by common consent 'the worst bookshop in the universe' and was discussed on Google Groups in the early 2000s. to be continued...

Harrison Marks. Kamera 1957 +

Harrison Marks. KAMERA. (Magazine) Issues 1 to 89. 1957 -1968. Soho, London.

Current Selling Prices
$15-$40 /£8-£20 per issue

MAGAZINE / EROTIC PHOTOGRAPHY / KITSCH
We recently put a short run of this magazine on Ebay with the illustrations below and this description:

"Harrison Marks, Kamera (London: Kamera Publications, 1957)
ISSUES 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 & 10
This is a nine-issue run of the earliest numbers of Kamera magazine, the serial portfolio of nudes created by Gerrard Street photographer Harrison Marks. Each magazine measures 7.25 x 4.75 inches and is 32 pages long. The format throughout is uninterrupted black and white photographs of female nudes accompanied by a short commentary printed at the front and back. These commentaries cast light on the techniques used in the photographs; for example, ‘with breasts of unusual beauty, by cutting in with my camera, I have tried to achieve with dramatic use of light, shade and texture an effect comparable to a piece of sculpture'. (Like his American contemporary Russ Meyer, Marks was a breast man: ‘big tits sell’). Each magazine offers the reader 10 x 8 inch enlargements of any photo for 8/6 or a set of six for 42 shillings: ‘Truly a magnificent collection to hang in one’s study or office’. Models featuring in these pages include Pamela Green (Marks’s pretend wife) and the dark-haired ‘Julie’.

This suite of nine issues (the first ten minus issue number 8) is in exceptional condition without blemish or scuff and the colour covers are as lurid as new.

A flawless archive of erotic kitsch from Soho's glory days."

The curious thing is that the item got absolutely nowhere on Ebay, although a shorter run is catalogued at ABE at £750 and we wanted about £250. Four people only viewed in a week and I have a feeling they were all me. The explanation came from looking at other chancers listing risqué magazines--you are not allowed to show nipples. Curious because, as you may know, proper porn is freely available all over the infobahn. I guess Ebay have some sort of nipple detecting software or more likely pick up on key words in your description (nudes, breasts, tits). The items are not banned but if you put them up they get no visitors and are not indexed and have a sort of purgatorial half-life. Fees however apply. This rude word detection software is fallible--a few months ago a scholarly description of an 18th Century edition of Pope's 'Rape of the Lock' lead it to being sectioned in the same way.





VALUE. There were 89 issues of these kitschy mags and you seldom see the late ones. The punters for them these days tend to be funky collectors of oddballiana, kitsch, bad taste and erotica - they are now known as 'jazz mags.' Customers buy them for a laugh, young women, taste freaks and fashionistas collect them and they sell readily at £5 +. Occasionally older punters want them out of nostalgia, one collector pushing eighty had known some of the girls in the pics and collects specific women in the great Marks oeuvre. The whole run is now available on 18 CDs from a special Harrison Marks website. A complete run in paper should get into four figures.

A biography of the Van Dyke bearded photographic maestro is promised and interest in the man has never abated since a cult for him started in the late 1970s. TRIVIA. HM's chief model Pamela Green was cast, appropriately, as the nude model, Milly in Michael Powell's 'Peeping Tom' movie (1960.) The Parisian set had originally been designed and built by Pamela for her red-headed ‘Rita Landre’ character. Harrison Marks's Gerrard Street studio, in the heart of what we now know as Soho's 'China Town' (and within spitting distance of our shop) became the centre of the nude and glamour scene in the late 1950s. Possibly one day a blue plaque will appear on the building.

Faulkner. As I Lay Dying, 1930.

William Faulkner. AS I LAY DYING. Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, New York, 1930.

Current Selling Prices
$2000-$8500 /£1000-£4500

MODERN FIRST EDITION
You want the first edition, first issue (with the initial "I" on page 11 'dropped below the line' i.e. not correctly aligned). You also need the preferred binding, with the stamping on the front cover away from the top edge and complete and intact (unbroken.) If you have these and a clean copy in a real nice jacket, well over $5000 is achievable, the second state about half that. Apart from a troubled sojourn in Hollywood writing screenplays, Faulkner spent most of his writing life in Oxford, Mississippi. In later life he was a serious drinker - sometimes drunker 'than a 100 Indians dancing in a cornfield' as Capote puts it. He went to Paris in the 1920s but was never part of the expat crowd like Hemingway. This novel, because it is told from multiple view points in a stream of consciousness style is often said to be influenced by Cubism.

His acquaintance with Cubism is well documented. While in Paris in 1925 he stayed near the Luxembourg museum where he saw many contemporary paintings of Manet, Picasso, Matisse, Braque and Cezanne. The critic Panthea Reid Broughton claims that 'As I Lay Dying' is the 'quintessential cubist novel' with its 'repeating geometric designs -- lines and circles, verticals and horizontals -- Faulkner actually facets, like a cubist painting, the design of this book. That is why it is so difficult to speak of theme in As I Lay Dying. Here we have a work of fiction that comes remarkably close to being an exercise in pure design...'

The title comes from Book XI of Homer's The Odyssey, where Agamemnon speaks to Odysseus: "As I lay dying, the woman with the dog's eyes would not close my eyes as I descended into Hades." It is also notable for its varying chapter lengths; the shortest chapter in the book consists of just five words ("My mother is a fish".) Faulkner wrote the novel in six weeks without changes on a table fashioned from a wheelbarrow while working the 6PM-6AM shift at a coal-fired power plant. The stuff of legends.

OUTLOOK. Reasonable, Faulkner is still taught and is a big part of many American literature courses. His prose style is much admired and he is a giant in the literature of the South. His books are often good looking and are highly uncommon signed (apart from the signed limited editions.) They appear to be holding their own, a decent first state copy made just over $10,000 ay auction in 2007. The British edition of Pylon (1935, see below) is especially handsome in its jacket and can fetch over $1000. The fact that he won the Nobel Prize in 1949 also helps, although a lot of mediocre and forgettable writers have also won the prize.

where do you get these books? 5

11. Skips, dumpsters, recycling and rubbish tips. Not highly recommended but finds are known and there are golden legends attached to skips full of books. About 20 years ago in Stamford Hill, London, a skip (UK word for 'dumpster' and a nicer word imho) filled with rare Judaica was found by a lucky and clued up passer by. Some builders doing up a house had unceremoniously dumped all the books and documents in a big yellow skip outside the place - some of the books were of great antiquity. Legend has it that he filled a van with the material and took it to a West End auction house where it made half a million pounds. It's always half a million in these stories. By the way pics above, of a myriad of U.S. dumpsters, are by Trent Nelson -a charming photo essay on the The Dumpsters of San Angelo. For which much thanks. Below is a British skip--they are invariably this shape and often painted yellow and expensive to hire.



Another great dumpster legend centres around bookish Bell Street in Marylebone, London. About 25 years ago a defunct bookshop had been taken over by the council and the books were being chucked into a series of skips outside. People assumed they were wothless leftovers until some dealers started looking at the stuff and realised there were fabulous and pricey books in there - probably from some hidden backroom. When they started carting them away in boxes the council workers got very stroppy and a fight almost broke out. During the ensuing standoff one bookseller had the bright idea of giving the workers a hundred quid (about $300 at the time.) This was accepted with delight after which they could take anything they liked. Although at least one skip had been driven away the dealers had a field day and celebrations went on long into the night. To be continued with the story of the cycling dumpster diver of Santa Cruz, Frank Kermode's great loss and the curious skip of Sackville Street...

White Hunter in Africa - Bror Von Blixen + Le Comte de Janzé

Bror Von Blixen- Finecke. AFRICAN HUNTER. Cassell, London 1937.

Current Selling Prices
$200-$700 /£120-£350

Le Comte de Janzé. VERTICAL LAND. Duckworth, London, 1928.

Current Selling Prices
$200+ /£100+

SPORT / BIG GAME HUNTING / EAST AFRICA
Bror von Blixen-Finecke (1886-1946) was a good writer and a charismatic Swedish nobleman. Hubby of Karen "I had a farm in Africa" Blixen, pal of Denis Finch - Hatton, Beryl Markham etc., + guide to Euro royals inc the Pragger Wagger and others. A great shot, liked a drink, v charming, a white hunter greatly admired and chased by women. His biography "The Man Whom Women Loved" written by his godson, Ulf Aschan came out in 1987. According to aviatrix and former lover Beryl Markham, "Bror was the toughest, most durable white hunter ever to snicker at the fanfare of safari or to shoot a charging buffalo between the eyes while debating whether his sundown drink would be gin or whiskey ...The mould has been broken." In the Out of Africa movie Klaus Maria Brandauer, brilliant German actor, played him. Bror Blixen's bunch segue into Kenya's Happy Valley set and much later beautiful person Peter Beard.

The most elusive book coming out of the earlier period is 'Vertical Land' by Comte de Janze (Duckworth 1928) -- quite a sleeper, had it twice, never in jacket. No copies on web at present, worth a ton, but not much more unless in a jacket. The Comte was married to American heiress Alice de Trafford (played memorably by Sarah Miles in 'White Mischief') he later became a racing driver and is said to have moved in literary circles in Paris and formed friendships with Marcel Proust, Maurice Barrès and Anna de Noailles. Trivia--their daughter Nolwen married art historian Kenneth Clark (Lord Clark of Civilization) and was, presumably, the mother of diarist and politician Alan Clark, another great lover of women.

VALUE? Bror's 'African Hunter' is a big game book, but not in the customary leopard skin covers and not really one for the trophy room. A hunting specialist was selling a fine in jacket copy for $1000 but jacketless copies can be had at a shade less than $200. The $1K one is no longer available and may have sold. The 1938 Knopf edition was relatively common and could be had for $100 sans jacket. Jacketed copies are, however, hard to find.

Outlook. This is a reprise of a posting in late 2006 and the book appears to have moved on by about 10% with the US ed moving on at considerably more. Unjacketed copies of the Knopf 1938 first and the Cassell 1937 first sit there at between $200 and $280, no sign of a jacketed copy. A 'first thus' of the 1986 Capstick reprint series St. Martin's 100th anniversary (of Bror's Birth) edition fetches $60+ in nice state. The great white hunter thing may be a getting a little passé but there is a growing page ( (White Hunter) on the matter at Wikipedia--among other things it reveals that a character named Wilson, portrayed as a "white hunter" in Hemingway's safari story, 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber' is said to have been based on Hem's own guides, Philip Percival and Bror Blixen. Le Comte de Janzé's 'Vertical Land' is still unlisted, although copies may well have been listed and sold, it is not impossibly scarce - only an ebook at £1.60 is available. I will mark that book at a hundred minimum next time I see it.

John Banville. The Sea. (2005)

John Banville. THE SEA. Picador, London, 2005. ISBN: 0330483285

Current Selling Prices
$80-$200 /£40-£100

MODERN FIRST EDITION
Classic Booker prize fodder, romped away with the prize in 2005. One of the great prose stylists of our time who also turns in very decent detective fiction under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. Julian Barnes did this under the name Dan Kavanagh and notably one of the MacSpaunday poets Cecil Day Lewis wrote several highly collectable thrillers under the name Nicolas Blake. 'The Sea' concerns an art critic, a not especially likeable character, returning to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from the recent loss of his wife and confronting a distant trauma. Critics have called his prose 'hauntingly beautiful' and the book 'an extraordinary meditation on identity and remembrance. Utterly compelling, profoundly moving and illuminating, it is unquestionably one of the finest works yet from a sublime master of language.' Don de Lillo wrote 'Banville writes a dangerous and clear-running prose and has a grim gift for seeing people's souls.'

This is not the most valuable of Banville's works by a long chalk - 'Long Lankin' (1970) and 'Nightspawn' (1970) can command over £300 each. However the book is on the rise, as are many Booker winners, with a solid and growing bunch of collectors of this genre. There are less of them than, say, collectors of the New Naturalist series but many of them not only collect winners but also shortlisted books and many are frightfully well off. Some of these runners up are are highly elusive and worth many hundreds of sovereigns--Terence Wheeler 'The Conjunction' (1969) Gordon Williams 'From Scenes Like These' (1969) Penelope Fitzgerald 'The Bookshop' (1977) and Elizabeth Mavor 'The Green Equinox' (1973.) Patrick White, John Fowles and John Le Carre have refused to have their books entered for it, John Berger gave half his prize money to the Black Panthers. One winner- J.G. Farrell -denounced the prize from the pulpit, and, disgracefully, the overtalented Martin Amis has never won it, while the unexceptionable Midnight's Children has become Booker of Booker of Bookers.

VALUE? It is said that 3500 copies were printed, many probably went to libraries but it is still not scarce. Fine copies of the first can be had for £40, signed copies at twice that. A limited edition of 56 signed copies in blue cloth with beige paper labels was put together by Irish literature specialist Joe McCann and can command fancy prices like $800. Outlook? Likely to be good, Banville is Irish which always helps, he is limbering up to be a grand old man of letters, he has fiercely loyal followers and you can get invest in him for as little as £40. His signature is not scarce but signed works by him tend to be desirable. His Benjamin Black books are also worth a punt--he tends to sign these 'B. Black.'

Where do you get these books? 4

10. Book Towns. Where books go to die, although bargains have been known and occasionally the shops there get amazing books thrust upon them. They are also delightful places to hang out - as the photos show you can look at the books in the open air; however you have to really want to read them as outdoors a book can rapidly become what cataloguers call a 'reading copy only.'

The problem with booktowns is that they are not sourced in the way that normal second hand bookshops are-- local bookshops get their books from deceased estates, people who are moving or downsizing and books brought into the shop. If the propietor is a bit entrepreneurial he or she will go to auctions, visit other shops and generally be involved in running books to earth. I am not totally sure where booktowns get their books but they tend to be a lot less interesting than a local shop and often priced with a much heavier hand. It is said that many bookshops that have closed down have sold their stock to book towns, the trouble is that they have usually had a sale first. Occasionally we tell people with unambitious books or those that are too far away to collect, to drive them over to a booktown - at least there are plenty of potential buyers.



No book scout would name these places as a source, but if they end up there they have to box clever before they find a book they can sell at a profit. At Wigtown, a beautifully situated place and fun to hang out in, I was in mild despair-- every book seemed to be the right price or 50% over that: lateral thinking was required -- look for unique and overlooked items- eventually I ran across a bunch of non Peter Pan J.M. Barrie books stroppily priced at a fiver each, however each carried a Simeon Solomon bookplate. I sold each one at £50 catalogued thus:

Anonymous bookplate designed by Simeon Solomon with his characteristic S upon S monogram. Engraved by S. Wain it shows two Pre-Raphaelite looking women, one seated by a tree reading an old book, the other affixing a banner to the tree which bears the legend ‘content ailleurs’ 2 banners are already affixed with the words ‘labor’ and ‘theoria.’. Attractive and highly uncommon item in vg condition measuring 3” by 4 1/2”.

Book towns have their own site I.O.B. - International Organisation of Book Towns and recognise these towns - Bredevoort (NL) Fjærland (NO) Hay-on-Wye (GB) KampungBuku (MY) Montereggio (IT) Pennsylvania (US) Redu (BE) Sedbergh (GB) St-Pierre-de-Clages (CH) Sysmä (FI) Tvedestrand (NO) Wigtown (GB) Wünsdorf-Waldstadt (DE). Wikipedia lists a whole lot more. It is good to see that the love of books, bookshops and the general unfocussed sentimentality about the book itself is not just a British peculiarity. I have been to three book towns, the best being Hay-on-Wye (or Way on High as Driffield used to call it) - all glories to its King, Richard Booth, probably the most famous book dealer in the universe.



Wigtown was not unamusing but there were large book rooms there for which you would be hard pressed to pay £50 the lot. Redu is not without interest, but Martin Stone reported that it was filled with glowering soixante huitards and bargains are almost unknown. It was in book towns that I first spotted people selling library books -a thing almost unknown thirty years back, but now some shops have little else. Although I still regard them with suspicion and distaste I have now learned that you can actually sell them (especially on the web) and it is said the the Japanese regard them with favour (something about a book being worthwhile if it was good enough to be in a library.) Fortunes have been made from ex library books but that's another story... To be continued with charity shops, thrift shops, skips, stately homes and minicab offices...

Et Tu Healy? James Joyce, 1891 (revisited)

"His quaint-perched aerie on the crags of Time
Where the rude din of this . . . century
Can trouble him no more."

James Joyce. ET TU HEALY? (PARNELL.) Privately Published /Alleyn and O'Reilly (Printers), Dublin 1891.

Possible Selling Price
£1,000,000+ / $2,000,000+

LITERATURE / JUVENILIA/ POETRY / LOST BOOK
This is an update of an earlier post with new info at the end. 'Et Tu Healy' is a broadsheet poem by James Joyce said to have been published by John Joyce, his proud father, in 1891 when Joyce was nine years old. No copies have ever surfaced. There is, however, highly credible evidence for its having been printed and distributed among friends and family. Whether any copies have survived is another matter. The evidence comes from 4 sources - Joyce's father, Joyce himself, his brother Stanislaus Joyce and the dealer Jacob Schwartz of the Ulysses bookshop in High Holborn, London.
Stanislaus Joyce wrote in his 'Recollections of James Joyce' (1950)

He tried poetry, too, in the style of the drawing-room ballads to which he was accustomed ('My cot, alas!, the dear old shady home'), but the most successful was a piece on the death of Parnell, which I see mentioned apparently with my brother's sanction, by the title of 'Et Tu, Healy', though I do not remember that it bore that title. It certainly was a diatribe against the supposed traitor, Tim Healy, who had ratted at the bidding of the Catholic bishops and become a virulent enemy of Parnell, and so the piece was an echo of those political rancours that formed the theme of my father's nightly half-drunken rantings to the accompaniment of vigorous table-thumping. I think it was in verse because of the rhythm of bits of it that I remember. One line is a pentameter. At the end of the piece the dead Chief is likened to an eagle, looking down on the grovelling mass of Irish politicians from

His quaint-perched aerie on the crags of Time
Where the rude din of this . . . century
Can trouble him no more.

The production was much admired by my father and his circle of friends, whose judgement, in questions of literature at least, was as immature as the budding author's. My father had it printed, and distributed the broad sheets to admirers. I have a distinct recollection of my father's bringing home a roll of thirty or forty of them. Parnell, however, died when we were still at Bray, so the piece must have been written some months or a year after Parnell's death, because I am positive that the broadsheet was printed when we were living at Blackrock. My brother was, therefore, between nine and ten years of age when his ambition to be a writer bore its first timid blossoms. The lines I have quoted have stuck in my memory because 'the dear aerie' were standing jokes between us as late as when we were living at Trieste. Moreover, in the first draft of A Portrait of the Artist, now called Stephen Hero, the poem was assigned to the period I have indicated, and, further, describing a hasty packing up and departure from Blackrock, my brother referred to the remaining broadsheets, of which the young Stephen Dedalus had been so proud, lying on the floor torn and muddied by the boots of the furniture removers.

Richard Ellmann, Joyce's bographer, has always insisted that Stanislaus Joyce was a man of great integrity and a truthful and reliable source of information.

Ellmann reports in his biography that John Joyce (who died in 1931 and didn't think much of his son's Ulysses) told dealer Jacob Schwartz in regard to the broadsheet: "Remember it? Why shouldn't I remember it? Didn't I pay for the printing of it and didn't I send a copy to the Pope?' I have heard that some enterprising dealer went to Rome and managed to check the Vatican's holdings without any success. It is not surprising, because even if it had arrived there a broadsheet is likely to be misplaced or, at best, miscatalogued. There is some suggestion that the piece may have been called 'Parnell' - and our dealer may not have looked under 'P.'

I do not have Slocum's bibliography with me (I am in San Francisco) but I recall something about a receipt for the printing having been seen by a reliable witness. I know that Slocum quotes four further lines from the poem:

My cot alas that dear old shady home
Where oft in youthful sport I played
Upon thy verdant grassy fields all day
Or lingered for a moment in thy bosom shade.

Joyce remarked to Harriet Weaver that he had parodied these lines in 'Finnegans Wake.'

So where is this valuable item? If it is around a copy would be with the Joyce family or relations or Blackrock friends and neighbours the Murrays, Monaghans, Thorntons, Sheehans, Gallahers etc., A surviving copy could show up loosely inserted in some sheet music, or old Dublin Newspapers or magazines or in a scrap album or possibly bound up with other poems and pamphlets.

It is not unthinkable a copy would survive, for example such ephemeral items as the auction catalogue of the disgraceful and hurried auction at Oscar Wilde's house in Tite Street show up every now and then. However Joyce's vision of removal men treading the paper into the ground is all too believable. Also, as Ellmann notes, there was a lot of shame and disgrace around the Joyce name in Ireland after the supposed obscenity of 'Ulysses' was reported there - so any remaining copies could have then been destoyed.

There are many instances of books that were published with no copies having survived, mostly minor works. The most famous, and certainly even more valuable than 'Healy' if it ever turned up, is the Shakespeare play 'Love's Labors Won.' The dealer Pottesman ('Potty' - a great runner of incunabula) discovered in 1953 the August 1603 booklist of the stationer Christopher Hunt, which lists as printed in quarto:"Marchant Of Vennis[sic], Taming Of A Shrew, Loves Labor Lost, Loves Labor Won." There is other evidence but in general it is more doubtful than the Joyce juvenilia.

VALUE? Joyce published 2 other broadsheets 'The Holy Office' (1904/5) and 'Gas from a Burner' (1912) which show up irregularly at serious money. 2 not bad copies showed up at the 2004 sale of the much loved Quentin Keynes making £27000 (Holy) and £14,000 (Gas). The Joyce market is strong but fickle, collectors (not always cultured) come and go. At one point Joyce highspot prices depended on the severity of North American winters, as the biggest punter was a glove manufacturer. From the Quentin results one could very vaguely extrapolate a price if 'Et Tu Healy' showed. Say 30 times the pair + £200K for luck = £1.43 million or $2.7 million. There is a limit because it is the work of a nine year old boy, very slight and damn it, another could turn up!

Compiled in an airport hotel room using an Ellmann from a local bookshop, a paperback of Stanislaus, memory of bookdealer's anecdotes, Google, speculation, leaps of faith and Peet's good coffee. If anyone can shed any further light please write or comment, might touch it up when I get home to my own reference library.

Addenda August 08. I now have the bibliography and also Herbert Gorman's book 'James Joyce. A Definitive Biography' in front of me. Slocum, the bibliographer, points to Gorman as the source for the name of the printer. It was Alleyn and O'Reilly, although Slocum say it was actually Alley and O'Reilly--'the firm...was traced through a series of mergers to the Temple Press; a director of this press stated that all records were destroyed during Easter Week in 1916.' Copies may have been lost during this 'rising' or rebellion that lasted from April 24 to April 30 mostly in Dublin, although someone somewhere is said to have seen the receipt. Slocum states that the pamphlet is mentioned in unpublished letters from Constantine P.Curran and P.S. O'Hegarty in the Slocum Library. I like Gorman's final words on the subject

'No copy of this juvenile outburst aginst injustice and treachery is known to exist but it is still possible that some fortunate explorer fumbling through yellowed pages in a neglected Dublin garret may chance upon this Joycian opus number one of the year 1891.'

The search goes on - how many unexplored, neglected Dublin garrets are left!?

The Death of Grass (1957) by Samuel Youd (writing as John Christopher)

Samuel Youd (writing as John Christopher) THE DEATH OF GRASS. Michael Joseph, London, 1956.

Current Selling Prices
$600+ /£300 +

SCIENCE FICTION/ ECO - CATASTROPHE
Apologies for a repost but this time we have a pic of the jacket of the true first thanks to Andy over at Library Thing. The Brit's worst nightmare- the death of his lawn, but also an apocalyptic novel of a world devastated by the destruction of all grasses. I have handled this book over the years (in America it was renamed 'No Blade of Grass') but recently, with a greater interest in the ecology and vivid scenarios of ecological breakdown, it has become very desirable. This kind of fiction was once called 'Doomwatch' but is, in fact, part of a tradition of apocalyptic fantasy that can be traced back to S. Fowler Wright's 'Deluge' (1928) and all the way back to Mary Shelley's 1826 three decker 'The Last Man.' A useful list of speculative fiction about ecological disasters can be found at the Magic Dragon site. Highlights include:-

George Griffith. Olga Romanoff (1894) Comet strike and alien invasion.
M. P. Shiel. The Purple Cloud (1901). Poisonous gas.
Arthur Conan Doyle. The Poison Belt (1913) The Earth passes
through a poisonous ether.
J. J. Connington. Nordenholt's Millions (1923) Agricultural disaster
S. Fowler Wright. Deluge (1928). Flood.
Philip Wylie. When Worlds Collide (1932). Dying sun on collision
course with Earth. (Film: When Worlds Collide, 1951).
John Wyndham. The Day of the Triffids (1951) Venomous Plants.
Isaac Asimov. Caves of Steel (1954) Overpopulation -- and a
great mystery story.
Robert Silverberg. Masters of Life and Death (1957). Overpopulation.
J. G. Ballard. "Billennium" (1961) population
J. G. Ballard. The Drowned World. (1962). Flood.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Cat's Cradle (1963) Ice-9
J. G. Ballard, The Drought (aka The Burning World) 1965.
Harry Harrison. Make Room! Make Room! (1966). (Film: Soylent Green, 1973).
William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. Logan's Run (1967).
Overpopulation; destruction of those over 30.
Lee Tang. The Wind Obeys Lama Torus. (1967). From India. Overpopulation.
John Brunner. Stand on Zanzibar. (1968). Young adult novel on overpopulation.
James Blish. A Torrent of Faces (1968)
Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle. The Inferno (1973). Cosmic radiation
David Brin. Earth. (1990). Black hole.

'The Death of Grass' alone of all these choice works appears on Bookfinder's 2007/ 2008 list of the 'Top 10 British out of print books of 2007.' Other titles include Madonna's 'Sex' (1992) 'Brass Dial Clocks' (1998) by Brian Loomes and the easily found 'Forests of England' (1976) by Peter J. Neville Havins.

VALUE? The book of the film 'No Blade of Grass' (1970) was unremarkable* and did not help the book. However it has now become hard to find and is much wanted. I could find no image of the book's jacket and have had to use paperback covers. The most expensive copy is a decent but not fine example in the unclipped Trevor Denning jacket at £200, with a slightly lesser copy at £150 and paperbacks at £20. The Simon and Schuster 1956 US first can be had for $100 in sharp condition. UPDATE. There are now 7 copies of the Joseph UK first all at £300+ and three of them with the same dealer (not always a good sign) and a certifiable chancer with an ex library paperback at £370. Highest price is a very nice jacketed copy at £440. A book on the move but obviously not that scarce. Outlook? Choppy.



Mildly surprising is a £70 Penguin paperback edition at the excellent and normally moderate Westleton Chapel Books (about 7 miles from where I am now sitting.) Living near Sizewell Power Station he may have special knowledge. His condition description belongs to the ultra precise, painstaking Robbe-Grillet school '...Slight browning to pages, contents otherwise clean and unmarked. A little faint foxing or soiling to covers and spine rather browned. Joints show a little rubbing and small (5mm) split to base of upper joint, but covers are firm. Faint creasing to corners and a few light indentations show up when they catch the light. Generally a clean and very good copy.'

* The author Samuel Youd wrote '... I've never actually seen [the film]. I heard such bad reports when it came out that I couldn't bring myself to go to a cinema and watch it. Years later, it came on as a late-night television film, so I settled down to watch it with a glass of whisky. I lasted twenty minutes, then I went to bed. It was awful.'

Where do you get these books? 3

THE SOURCES OF OLD BOOKS (continued).
8. Street Markets, Book Markets. Most cities throughout the world have book markets. Above is one at Essaouria in Morocco beneath that Istanbul, and at the bottom some very modest books on a clapped out car somewhere in the world. There are 100s of such photos on sites such as Flickr--book markets make good photos. With some happy exceptions they are not brilliant book sources but fun to visit and you might find something to read at the very worst.

In Paris they are along the Seine almost every day, in Barcelona check out the Passeig de Gràcia, London has the South Bank and book stalls at many of the street makets like Portobello, Camden Lock etc., In Penang ask for the Chowrata complex, when stuck in Old Havana you need the Plaza de Armas, in Kyoto tghere is a large book market at the Shimogamo Shrine every August. There are book markets in Liden, New York, Sofia, Dniepropetrovsk (Ukraine) Amsterdam (at Spui every Friday) Jinan, Morbihan, Cambridge, Milan, Ludlow, Venice (several small markets -not brilliant) and Moscow. Even the venerable book market in Baghdad at Al Mutanabi which was devastated by a car bomber in March last year is still going, it is an ancient market that even the bestial bomber cannot eradicate. There is a highly rated Sunday book market at Daryaganj in central Delhi, in Lima, Peru there is a large book market outside the Museo de la Nacion. Book markets are often near museums or cathedrals. Sometimes they occur in small towns and villages especially those much visited--South of France, Aix en Provence, the West Country in England. Under baking sun at Alameda near San Francisco books can be found in the first Sunday of every month market with occasional cooling winds from the Pacific which laps at its edges.



In Beijing go to Ditan Park, there is an evening book market in Madrid (by the Sopia Museum) -also check out Hanoi, Melbourne (Federation Square) Ottawa (Rideau area) Kothi (now in a subway) College Street Calcutta, Lviv, Rome, Nice (Saturdays) Dublin (Temple Bar Square) and Istanbul (Resim Adi). France and Belgium are especially good with markets at Rennes, Damme (Belgium) every second Sunday, and Lyons. I knew a guy who went to a market in a provincial town in France and bought for 10 Francs each (£1) over 60 volumes of Notable British Trials -all in super nick. This series (sometimes known as Notably Brutish Trials) has one or two £100 + books and features also War Crime Trials and financial swindles like the valuable Trial of the City of Glasgow Bank Directors. As Cadillac Jack has it 'anything can be anywhere' and I hope to surpass this by finding a complete pristine set of New Naturalists at 10 Euros each. Dream on.

Where do you get these books? 2

THE SOURCES OF OLD BOOKS (continued).
Auctions are a good source and a place of learning. You see what books sell for, what sort of books sell best and who is buying them. Amazingly, despite the incursions of the behemoth Ebay there are still as many sales as before. Online auctions are a dodgier source and authenticiy and ambitious descriptions are a problem. One can keep a weather eye on top flight sales at Ebay at Rare Book Finder - where I note that the loony with the upside down Harry Potter now has it as a 'Buy it Now' at $19000, about a thousand times its true value. Do not click that button.

3. Bookshops. Second hand bookshops, although an endangered species, still exist and can be found in side streets of many sizable towns. People still sell their books to the owners in house calls (see 4) or by bringing them into the shop (1.) Most shops have too much stock to look everything up, so bargains can be found--also they are anxious to shift the stuff in a lousy economy - so deals can be made. Bookshops are a great source. We have punters who come in three times a day, so it must be true.

4. House calls. These are mostly only available to dealers and have been covered extensively in previous posts. Occasionally collectors sell to other collectors in the mistaken idea that they are paying less to one another than from a dealer -sometimes large collections. This is a parallel market and one hears of collectors paying one another mind boggling sums. Occasionally collectors buy or are given large collections. They usually devolve down to the trade in the end. Conversely one of the mysteries of the trade is that a dealer will often buy a book for more than a collector. In our shop we say 'if a dealer won't buy it the public certainly won't.' In a house in Barnes we bought a large collection of books that had been left (along with the mansion) to a local librarian. So keen as collectors were they that there was evidence that they had bought three substantial collections of books from other collectors. The librarian retired and proceeded to lead his life according to Riley.

5. Garage sales. Yard sales. Less common in the UK but a great source for our American cohorts. A friend in California scans the local paper and presents himself at selected sales at crack of dawn Saturdays and Sundays 51 weeks a year. He has made incredible finds including many boxes of superb pulps (Black Mask etc.,) also the tail end of the library of Robert Heinlein. He goes to the flea market before the yard sales open sometimes with a torch. These sales are also the source of an incredible amount of utter crap - some days he returns empty handed or has to make money on non book items such as records, art, posters and vintage Levi's.

6. Book Fairs. Plenty of these, especially in the UK, and a great source of books for collectors. Resellers are less well catered for although a good deal of cross trading always goes on before fairs start. It was at a book fair in London that someone found Melville's 'The Whale" (UK first 3 vols 1851) for £5, about a thousandth of its true value. Bargains known.

7. Boot Fairs, flea markets, jumble sales, library sales. Plenty of these for the active punter. Often disappointing but as before - 'bargains known.' The general idea is that books for sale should be devastatingly cheap and those charging ambitious prices should be ignored, unless their prices are not ambitious enough. Library sales are more common in America and are the main source of stock for many dealers. Some sales have as many as 500,000 books and dealers come in from surrounding states and fight to the death for the best stuff, a sort of clash of the tight ones.

They are also populated with a new kind of dealer, mostly listing on Amazon, who check their prices with handheld devices such as Neatoscan, ScoutPal and SellerFusion. Fascinating stuff, so far tied to ISBN books but watch that space. These devices work very fast, some old geezer checking ABE on his Blackberry would be left way behind. One good tip with these sales is to watch out for the books that dealers decide to put back on the tables in their final cull- many a bargain there. to be continued