Terry On Books Blog

I was talking with a retired bookseller the
other day–well, perhaps 80% retired, since
few booksellers ever fully retire–and a
subject came up that has irritated us both
over the years. The subject of the long-lost
book and the various amounts of time that
some customer has been combing bookstores
in search of it.

We have both had similar experiences on a
number of occasions: a customer comes into
the store; he or she (usually a he) may look
around a little first or come right to the point.
“I know you won’t have it”, or, the slightly more
optimistic version, “I don’t imagine you’ll have it”,
but I’ve been looking for this book that I once
had for ____ (fill in the blank: 5, 10, 20) years,
and no one seems to have it. I look in every
bookstore I come across but I just can’t find it.

Once in a while, I was able to just walk a few
steps, pluck a book off the shelf, hand it to the
customer, and say “You mean this book?”.
Or, I may say, “I know the book and I can
probably get a copy for you if you want to
leave your name and phone number.” Quite
often, I was able to phone the customer in a
few days or a couple of weeks and tell him
that I had located a copy of his book for him.

Now here’s the disappointing, and sometimes
incredulous part for a bookseller: the customer
looks at the book in awe, says something like
“Well I’ll be” or, “I can’t believe it”, or, “I never
thought I’d ever see this book again”. He flips
through the book. If there are illustrations, he’ll
stop and look at a couple. He may check the
publication date and say “This is the very
same edition I had”. Then, he gets to the front
endpaper and sees the price, ___ (fill in the
blank: $5, $10, $20, $30). “Is this how much
you want for the book?”

“Yes”.

“Oh”, he replies as he hands the book back
to me, ” I’ll have to think about it.” Then the
customer starts to walk towards the door,
saying over his shoulder, “I’ll call you if I
decide to take it.”

Now, what the hell was that all about?
Either the customer was only using the long-
lost book line as an excuse so he could look
around unhindered and not be expected to
buy anything; or, he was just plain cheap.

My bookseller friend leans toward the cheap
theory. He once had a regular customer ask him
for a book that he’d had great difficulty in
finding. My friend produced the book within
a few days and the customer exclaimed how
happy he was to see the book again. The
bookseller priced the book at six dollars,
although the going price was eight to ten
dollars. Still, when the customer noticed the
price, he asked “So, you want six dollars for
this book? What kind of a special price can
I have it for?”

The bookseller looked at the guy for a few
seconds (in amazement); then he says “How
much do you want to pay?”

Without hesitation, the customer replied
“Three dollars.”

The bookseller took the book back from
the customer, opened it halfway and tore it
in half. He handed it back to the customer
and said “There. Now it’s a three-dollar book.”
The customer stomped away in a rage, never
to return. The bookseller said “Good riddance!”

There can’t be a bookseller out there who
hasn’t experienced at least a few of these
long-lost book customers who failed to purchase
once the treasured book appeared. However,
I’m sure all booksellers have also had good
experiences with customers who were elated
to get the book in question, no matter the price…
some even going so far as to say “Is that all you
want for it? Here’s an extra ten dollars for your
trouble. I’m just so thrilled to get this book.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

The happy, appreciative customers are part
of the reason we continue to buy and sell
books. For you beginning booksellers, when
a customer asks for a book you don’t have in
stock, be sure to get his or her personal
information so you can call when you get the
book. Chances are that you will find a good
number of the books that customers request
and most customers will be glad you did, even
if it’s a year or so later. If it’s an expensive book,
you may want to give the customer an idea of
price in advance. If it’s an inexpensive book,
you may have the fun of ripping it up.

Book Review

I’ve just read John Dunning’s book “The Sign
of the Book”, another in the bibliophile detective
series featuring bookselling ex-cop Cliff Janeway.
Dunning is not a great writer, but he’s a good
writer with an easy-to-read, engaging style. In
this story, Janeway is asked to do a little investigating
after a childhood friend of his lawyer girlfriend is
jailed for murdering her husband. One of the things
he’s asked to look at is the deceased man’s library
to determine if it is enough of an asset to help pay
the legal bills. At first glance, it’s a very ordinary-
looking collection of about a thousand books. On
closer inspection, the books become more interesting
since each one appears to be signed by the author
or the person who is the subject of the book.

Dunning manages to offer up a couple of candidates
for the murder, gives us a peek into the inner workings
of the collectible books field, shows us the opportunities
for illegal and unethical profits in the book business,
then provides a couple of interesting twists at the
end to wrap everything up neatly–albeit with a slightly
bitter taste on the subject of signed books.

Another good read, but I hope the hints in this book
and others that Cliff Janeway may give up his bookstore
and go back to fighting crime full time are just
speculative thoughts in the mind of Janeway and
don’t come to fruition. Janeway as strictly a head-
basher wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

Please take a few minutes to check out the fine
books on my website:
www.stillmanbooks.com

Remember, the only book purchase you’ll
ever regret is the one you didn’t make.

Talk soon.

As I’ve touched on before, a great many
out-of-print children’s books sell because
of a strong nostalgic factor. I’ve been buying
and selling children’s books for over 35
years, during which time I’ve had thousands
of requests for titles people remember
fondly from their childhoods. Sometimes
the books can be found, sometimes
they can’t be, often because the customer
has too little detail, often because the
book is too obscure. If it’s a book I’m
familiar with, I can usually find a nice
copy for the prospective customer.

Because I present a lot of pictures of
children’s books on my website, the
customer can sometimes find the book
there himself (or herself).
Just yesterday, another example: an
Indo-American chap contacted me about
a copy of the Oxford Annual for Boys,
the 26th edition, published in 1933.
From a subsequent telephone conversation,
I gather that this gentleman is in his forties,
but he spent his childhood in India and
was subjected to a lot of English-published
books, including boys’ annuals. The sight
of the cover I had pictured triggered a
warm memory. He had to have this book.

While talking about the nostalgia factor,
this gentleman mentioned he had just
recently talked to a friend in California
about the subject and the friend had
mentioned that he’d like to get some
Noddy books from his childhood. I
said that I had a few of the Enid Blyton
Noddy books on my website, perhaps
this fellow could direct his friend to them.
“Just a minute”, he said, “I may be
interested in these Noddy books myself”.

So, I sent the link to my children’s book
page with the Noddy books. My new
customer wrote back with an order for
the three titles in dust-jacket for $18.50
each. Would I add them to his order
please? And he wants to spend some
more time exploring my website…there
may be more childhood memories to
be found there!

Hopefully, when he’s bought all the
books familiar to him, he will pass on
my website address to his California friend.

Review of “Lifeless”

“Lifeless” by Mark Billingham, published in
paperback in 2006, is another good read
featuring Detective Inspector Tom Thorne.

In England, the homeless people on the
streets are often referred to as “rough sleepers”
and Thorne becomes a rough sleeper himself
in order to help find the man who is killing
members of the homeless community.
In his undercover capacity, Thorne learns
the ins and outs of surviving on the streets,
makes friends, and comes to understand
the interplay among the various segments
of the street hierarchy. Basically, the
street population is comprised of three
groups: the drug-users, the alcoholics, and
the mentally unstable. Each group tends
to keep to itself. Thorne, a bit of a drinker
himself, fits easily into the alcoholics group.

Besides giving us an engrossing police
procedural, Billingham provides the reader
with a detailed social commentary on the
rough sleepers of London and what the
various government agencies are doing to
combat and rectify the situation. Comparisons
can be made to other major cities around
the world.

Call it an educational detective story.

Please visit my website when you have
some time:
www.stillmanbooks.com

Remember, the only book purchase you’ll
ever regret is the one you didn’t make.

Talk soon.

Who are the best illustrators of children’s books?
Which era do you like?

To me, everyone who followed owes a huge debt
to The Big Three Victorian children’s book illustrators:
Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway and Walter
Crane. Their work was further enhanced by the
revolutionary colour block printing techniques of
the great Edmund Evans, engraver, printer and
visionary extraordinaire. Add to this group Edward
Lear, John Tenniel and Louis Wain and this era
stacks up pretty well to anything that followed.

Then there’s the turn of the 19th century
illustration of such talents as Arthur Rackham,
Edmund Dulac, Maxfield Parrish, Charles and
W. Heath Robinson, Willy Pogany, Jessie Wilcox
Smith, Maud Humphrey, Kay Nielsen, E.J.
Detmold, Harry Clarke and others. There seems
no doubt that this era (1905-1940) is truly the
Golden Age of Illustration.

Three of the best from the 1940s and 1950s
were Edward Ardizzone, Feodor Rojankovsky
and Maurice Sendak. Add to this list artists such
as Robert McCloskey, Roger Duvoisin, Leo Politi,
William Pene DuBois, Leonard Weisgard, Tasha
Tudor and Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaire.

The careers of many of the above artists
continued into the 1960s and 1970s, when they
were joined by this talented group: Mercer Mayer,
Alan Aldridge, Brian Wildsmith, Ezra Jack Keats,
Arnold Lobel and Nancy Ekholm Burkert,
producing a large quantity of great colour work.

The 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of such
illustrating stars as Barry Moser, Chris van
Allsburg, Susan Jeffers, Trina Schart Hyman,
Charles Santore, and one of my favourites,
Lisbeth Zwerger, who did a lot of work for
North-South Books.

There you have it in a nutshell–over a
century of outstanding children’s book illustration.
Pick your era. You can’t really make a bad
choice. Choose the type of illustration you
like the best. Chances are your choices will
transcend the spectrum, something here,
something there, but a word of advice for
collecting illustrated children’s books:
it’s probably best if you stick with half
a dozen illustrators and buy as many of
their first printings as you can find.
As always, pay particular attention to
condition; a little extra paid now for a
better copy will benefit you down the road.

For an old article of mine on collectible
children’s book illustrators, please follow
this link to my website (you’ll be wishing
you could be paying those prices now!):
www.stillmanbooks.com/illustratorsarticle.htm

Remember, the only book purchase you’ll
ever regret will be the one you didn’t make.

Talk soon.

The Franklin Library was the publishing division
of The Franklin Mint. The Franklin Library
published its first book in 1973, and closed its
doors for good in 2000, after losing the competitive
battle with The Easton Press for the popular
market for finely-bound leather books. Today,
the lavishly-produced leather books and partly
leather-bound books issued by the Franklin
Library are in steady, but limited demand.

Many booksellers do not hold Franklin Library
books in high regard. Although most volumes
sold in the $30 to $40 range by subscription,
most bookdealers will rarely pay more than
$4 to $6 each for them. They may then price
the books for $15 to $35 but the books tend
to sell very slowly, with perhaps an increase
in interest for the Christmas gift-giving market.

Many of the books are very handsome and
the title-list is heavy on classic and detective
fiction titles. So why aren’t they more popular?

I think the main reason that Franklin Library
books are not in high demand is because
there is just too much of a “sameness” about
them. The volumes are mostly the same size and
format, and although three or four shelves of
them look “nice”, they have almost an artificial
look to them. Six or eight volumes scattered
amongst one’s library of five hundred books
are fine, but a wall of the shiny buggers is
really too much to take.

Another mistake that the Franklin Library
publishers made was in their choice of book
illustrators. Folio Society is guilty of the same
sin: to keep the cost of the book down, they
had to find artists who were willing to work
cheaply and produce a half a dozen illustrations
for a couple of thousand dollars. So the
inevitable happened. Except for the few
volumes that actually used original artwork
from the first or early printings of novels–
for example, E.W. Kemble, Thomas
Rowlandson, William Caxton and Frank
Pape come to mind–the majority of the
illustrations in Franklin Library books
are subpar, and, frankly, not too exciting.

The series of contemporary signed fiction
that Franklin issued naturally tend to
sell for a bit more; however,  my main
criticisms still apply.

But, sometimes we booksellers have to
make due with what we have and try to
extol the limited virtues of our product.
Franklin Library books are pretty and
make suitable gifts in quantities of one
or two, providing the recipient is actually
a fan of the book and author he or she
is getting.

To that end, I refer you to a small
collection of Franklin Library titles that
I just recently purchased (no, I don’t
have them on shelves!). So, if you’re
looking for a nice, pretty edition of
a favourite old title for yourself or a
friend, please check out the available
titles on my website at:
www.stillmanbooks.com/franklinmint.htm

As a comparison to the Franklin Library
books, you may also want to look at my
small collection of books for sale from
the Limited Editions Club:
www.stillmanbooks.com/limitededition.htm

Remember, the only book purchase you

will ever regret, is the one you didn’t make.

Talk soon.

Odd books of value: in this category, I will
describe books from time to time which have
some real value, although they may be
books that you would ordinarily not give
a second glance.

Mr. Danger
Long before Hugo Chavez dubbed George Bush
“Mr. Danger” for his world political actions,
Herman J. McLatchy wrote and published his
biography of Canadian adventurer and WWII
war hero Lem Vinplac, “Mr. Danger: the Life
and Exploits of Lemuel Vinplac”
My description of this book for sale:
New York: Pageant Press. 16 mo., 224 pp.
1st Edition (1961). Lem Vinplac ran away from
his mother in Ontario when he was thirteen,
crossed the border into the U.S., then to Mexico
and eventually to Europe, Africa, India, Egypt,
South America, Australia, and finally to Burma
and Malay as part of Wingate’s Circus in WWII.
From there he served as a commando, then a
frogman in Norway, then back to Leyte. His life
was frantic and action-packed and it’s told here
with a gusto. This copy INSCRIBED by the
author and also SIGNED by Lem Vinplac on
the f.e.p. Red cloth. Minor edgewear; marks
on endpapers from tape; o/w VG in G+ d.j.
$42.50
I listed the book for sale in April, 2005 and
sold it last week to a chap in England.

The Dream of Ravan

“The Dream of Ravan”, a mystery, reprinted
from “The Dublin University Magazine”, 1853
& 1854. Published by The Theosophical
Publishing Society, London; The Path, N.Y.;
and, The Theosophist Office, Madras, India.
1895. 12 mo., 248 pp. Written by an unknown
mystic, the narrative is set in the form of a
fantasy and “…much of strangeness is
intermixed, so that the general reader will
pass it by as merely a strange conceit,
nevertheless the mystic and student of yoga
will recognize many a home truth but
slightly veiled, and many a secret wholly
disclosed.” This quote from the Preface
in the book. Green cloth with Black
lettering. My copy has some rubbing of
the boards and some minor damage to
the bottom edge of the last few pages;
otherwise a G+ or better clean copy.
I priced this book at $77.50 several
years ago and the price seems to have
stood up, so I’m listing it on Abebooks
and Biblio at that price. There are only
12 copies on ABE, 4 being reprints,
two original copies described as Fair
and Poor condition, and the other
6 ranging in price from $54 to $151.
The next time you see a decent copy
of “The Dream of Ravan”, it may pay
you to pick it up.

Please visit my website when you can:

www.stillmanbooks.com

Remember, the only book purchase

you’ll regret is the one you didn’t make.

Talk soon.

This past week, a nice lady brought two books
to me to see what I thought of them. The books
were left over from a United Church sale. She
had looked them up online and decided they
might have some value.

The first book, from ten feet away, I could
see was in very poor condition. The covers
were almost completely off, but, as it turned
out to be a twenty-something edition of
Remarque’s “All Quiet On the Western
Front”, condition wasn’t really much of a
factor in its value anyway. It was worthless,
compared to nearly worthless.

The second book was more interesting. It
was a Blue cloth copy of “The Moon Is
Down” by John Steinbeck. As the lady
pointed out, it said on the copyright page
“First printed by Viking Press in 1942″,
and it also had 1942 on the title page.
To a novice, it did look to be a first
printing of the book.

I explained that it was difficult to determine
a first printing of several of Steinbeck’s books
because they had various points of issue.
I told her that it was very unlikely that this
particular copy was the same as those that
she had found online for hundreds of dollars.
I also enlightened her somewhat on the
value of a dust-jacket, the presence of which
sometimes made the book worth ten times
as much as when the dust-jacket was absent.

I suggested I take the book home and check
it against my reference material. Lo and
behold, it was a first edition, first issue copy
with the dot between the words “talk” and
“this” in line 11 on page 112. It also had the
Blue topedges, albeit faded.

The next day, I phoned her and told her I
had good news and bad news. The good
news was that against all odds, the book
was the first issue of the first edition. Had
it been a Very Good Plus copy in at least
a Very Good dust-jacket, the book would
have been worth between $300 and $400.
The bad news was that she didn’t have a
dust-jacket and the book had some condition
problems: fading of topedges as mentioned;
fairly heavy edgewear to the bottom of
the boards; a broken front hinge; a fairly
worn look overall.
“So what’s that mean?” she asked. “How
much could I get for it for the church?”

I replied that this copy would only have a
retail value of about $20 and she could only
expect to get an offer from a bookstore
of $5 or $6.

“I’ll take the $6,” she said. “Put the money
in an envelope and I’ll pick it up on Saturday.”

So there you have it: another instance of
the dependability, or undependability, of
searching for book values on the Internet.
In a lot of cases, the Internet information,
if not properly interpreted, can give false hope.

On the other hand, booksellers and book-
collectors are constantly being encouraged
by bulletins such as this one by Nick Tanner
which appeared in an online report of the
Guardian paper from London in February
of this year:

“A rare edition of John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel
The Grapes of Wrath has sold for $47,800
(£24,380), doubling the estimated price and
setting what is believed to be a world record
for a book by the Nobel Prize-winning author.

The sale was part of an auction of first editions
previously owned by Steinbeck’s sister, Elizabeth
Steinbeck Ainsworth, who died in 1992. Most of
the books carried personal inscriptions, raising
their value as sought-after “association copies”
and providing valuable nuggets of information for
Steinbeck scholars. A copy of Tortilla Flat, a tale
of the paisano polulation of Monterey, California,
bore the inscription “For my dear sister Elizabeth,
without whom I should never have known the
people about whom this book is written.”

The article continues:
“More modestly priced editions included a copy
of Of Mice and Men (1937), which sold for
$7,768 (£3,962), and Steinbeck’s 1936 novel
about a strike among the fruit workers of
California, In Dubious Battle, which raised $11,353
(£5,790). An edition of Steinbeck’s first novel,
Cup of Gold, sold for $21,510 (£10,970),
despite the fact that the author himself had
a low opinion of his
literary debut.”

So keep going to those Church sales.

Please take some time to check my website:

www.stillmanbooks.com

Remember, the only book purchase you’ll

ever regret, is the one you didn’t make.

Talk soon.

Only a small percentage of book-buyers will
be familiar with Vernon Finch’s notable book
entitled “The Red Star Line and International
Mercantile Marine Company”, published in
1988. The Red Star Line company existed
from 1872 to 1935 and was based in
Antwerp, Belgium, although bankrolled by
American interests. Red Star’s ocean liners
brought almost three million immigrants to
New York and Philadelphia from Europe.

Vernon Finch was bellboy on Red Star
Line’s flagship, “Belgenland II” in 1935,
the year the company disbanded, and he
had worked on three or four of the
other Red Star ships, beginning at
age sixteen.

Since there was very little information
readily available on the Red Star Line,
Mr. Finch decided to produce a history
of the company. The book was published
in Antwerp and it was favourably received.
However, Mr. Finch was unhappy with
the distributor he had engaged to sell
his book, so, when he emigrated to
Canada, he arranged to take most of
the unsold inventory with him to Vancouver,
British Columbia.

I first came across three or four copies
of the book in Gerry Cody’s bookstore in
Coquitlam, B.C. around 1997. I asked
Gerry about the book and he said that the
author had come around and sold him a
few copies for ten dollars each. I believe
Gerry was selling them for twenty dollars
each but he had a sale on (as usual) and
I bought his copies for ten dollars each.
Gerry was kind enough to give me Vernon
Finch’s phone number so I could obtain
some copies of his book to sell in my
own Vancouver bookstore.

Once I had made contact with Vernon,
I saw him a half a dozen times a year
to buy his books. The last time I saw
him was a couple of months before he
died around Christmas, 2003. By that
time, I had purchased over two hundred
copies of “The Red Star Line” at prices
that varied over the years–starting at
ten dollars each, going down to eight,
then six, then four, back to six, then
settling at five. Vernon signed about
fifty copies for me over time, and
would never take a premium for
doing so. I always enjoyed my
visits with Vernon, and, although it
was difficult for him to get around
the last couple of years, he never
complained and was always good
company, a real gentleman, and an
entertaining storyteller.

During the last few visits we had,
either in my store or at his small
apartment in South Vancouver, Vernon
tried to convince me to purchase
the approximately four hundred
remaining copies of his book. We
could never agree on a price so
we just kept putting it off. A few
months after Vernon’s death, I
received a phone call from one of
Vernon’s friends and heirs. I had
met her before because she would
occasionally drive Vernon to my
store.

She informed me that Vernon had
told her that I would probably give
her five dollars a book for the copies
of “Red Star Line” that were stored
in her basement. Sure enough, there
were still over three hundred copies.
I think there were a dozen boxes of
thirty plus a few loose copies. We
agreed that I would pick up a couple
of boxes every few months. It took
me over two years to buy all of those
books! The last lot, I got at a bit
of a discount just to finish off the
transaction.

Some people, especially a couple of
fellow booksellers, thought I was mad
to purchase nearly six hundred copies
of one book title. But, some times you
just have to go with your gut. I’ve sold
about half the books so far…a few dozen
to other dealers, but most through my
own website, the bookmatching services
and ebay. I have to admit that even I
am a bit surprised that I’ve sold that
many copies, and damn well relieved
that someone doesn’t have to find a
buyer for my copies when I die
(assuming I’m going to be around for
at least a few more years!).

There’s obviously a market for “The
Red Star Line” history and I’ve found
the market breaks down into three
categories: firstly, I’ve sold most copies
to people who had at least one ancestor
come to North America on a Red Star
Line ship; secondly, I’ve sold a few dozen
copies to people in Europe, mostly
Belgium, who had at least one ancestor
who worked for the Red Star Line,
either in the shipyards in Antwerp or
on one or more of the liners; thirdly,
people just interested in ocean liners.
The “S.S. Belgenland” also did world
cruises from the mid-1920’s to mid-
1930’s, plus “Show Boat” cruises from
New York to Halifax and Bermuda.
I haven’t actually had a customer say
someone in there family sailed on these
cruises, but that’s another reason to
acquire the book. I don’t think I’m even
close to tapping out the market for
a good book on “The Red Star Line”.

Thanks, Vernon, for your informative
book and the opportunity to distribute
it to the world.

Please check out this book and other

books on ocean liners on my website at:

www.stillmanbooks.com/redstar.htm

Remember, the only book purchase you

will ever regret is the one you didn’t make.

Talk soon.