Terry On Books Blog

Last Thursday evening, I attended a lecture (i.e. talk)
by Nicholas Basbanes at the Vancouver Museum. It
was a memorable event.

Nicholas Basbanes is perhaps the leading modern
proponent and chronicler of the “book culture” of
the Western World. His books, including “A Gentle
Madness”, “Patience & Fortitude”, “Among the
Gently Mad”, “A Splendour of Letters”, “Every Book
Its Reader”, and “Editions & Impressions” are
engrossing studies of the history of the book, the
power of the book and the talents, passions and
idiosyncrasies of the myriad of people intimately and
obsessively involved in the book world, including
booksellers, collectors and librarians of yesteryear
and today.

As I listened to Basbanes relate several of the
fascinating stories included in his writings, I felt his
enthusiasm and dedication to books flow through
me, revving up my own engines of book lust and
invoking my personal passion to get out there and
discover many more books of importance and rarity.
And it wasn’t just a desire to find more great books,
for myself and others, but also a need to read more
great books, read about more great books and
about great book collections.

As I said to Nick after he’d finished speaking, “I
always enjoy listening to someone who knows more
about books than I do”. After thirty-five years in
the book business, one thing I know for sure…
there’s so much more to learn. Listening to Nick
Basbanes and looking through the books he has
written merely confirms the notion.

Nick’s first book, which took eight years for him
to research and write, “A Gentle Madness:
Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion
for Books”, was first published in 1995 and it has
gone through nearly twenty printings and sold more
than 250,000 copies. When I heard that Nicholas
Basbanes was coming to Vancouver, I searched
my “books on books portion” of my personal library
for my copy of  “A Gentle Madness” which I had
purchased five or six years ago. I thought that I
had a first printing of the book, but when I’d
located it and opened it, I discovered that I actually
owned a second printing. Oh well, it would still
be nice to have it signed. Thus, I took it along when
I went to hear its author speak in Vancouver.

When I told Nick about having a second printing
when I thought I had a first, he commented that
actually the second printing was more scarce. In
surprising manner, the first printing of 5800 copies
sold out quickly, and a second printing of just
900 copies was rushed onto the market to fill
the void. He also pointed out to me two full pages
and parts of two other pages of text that were
removed from the book by the publisher before
the third printing was issued and the deleted text
never appeared in any subsequent editions. If
you’re a bibliophile like me, you eat up this stuff!

Then, Nick asked if I’d like my copy to be certified
a “first printing”? I said, “Sure!” He proceeded to
turn to the copyright page and he added a “1″ and
an asterisk to the end of the number line. Below,
with asterisk, he added the note:
“I hereby declare this an official First Edition”
and added his initials.

Nick asked me next if I wanted a signature or an
inscription (some author’s today will only offer an
inscription because it makes the book somewhat
less saleable than with just a signature) and I said
that since this volume was remaining in my personal
library, that I’d welcome an inscription.

I gave Nick my name and jokingly said that I
like to tell people that my ancestors “manned the
stills”. So this is what Nick wrote:
“For Terry Stillman–
Bookseller in Vancouver–a man whose
ancestors “manned the stills” (this from a man
whose name in Greek is “winemaker”–
with regards and best wishes
for many years of happy hunting.
Nick ”
I laughed when I’d seen what he had written
and said, “We make a great pair. Who’s
buying the first round?”

Nick then proceeded to write his full name on
the title page, plus place and date. When he got
to the date, he confirmed with me that it was
the 30th. I said yes, I’d remarked to his wife
that tomorrow was Halloween and they would
be spending it in Victoria. So Nick added in
brackets “(Day Before Halloween)”. He’s a
literal guy, and I said, “gee, you must make
copious notes when you’re researching”!
At any rate, that’s one special copy I now
have of “A Gentle Madness”.

Constance (Connie) Basbanes, Nick’s lovely
and vivacious wife, although not a book
collector herself, is obviously a good sport
as she has to cope with her husband’s
“houseful of books” that has accumulated
over the years. Connie and Nick write a
monthly review of children’s books for
Literary Features Syndicate which they
established in 1993. They are both dedicated
to the encouragement of reading in young
people. With their first grandchild on the way,
I can only assume that lucky girl or boy is
going to have one heck of a personal library.
Connie mentioned that there were lots of
children’s books in the house, so I suggested
that birthdays and holidays wouldn’t just mean
a gift of one or two books. Connie said “No,
I’ll be giving them by the box!”

Check Nicholas Basbanes’ website:
www.nicholasbasbanes.com
or,
www.agentlemadness.com

Nick’s most recent book, “A World of Letters:
Yale University Press, 1908-2008″ is being
released this month. Nick received a few
Advance Copies while he was visiting Vancouver
this past week.

Nick and Connie, it was so great meeting you
both, and thanks for the wonderful evening. Too
bad you live all the way over there in Massachusetts;
I wouldn’t mind seeing that cellar of books.

Please take some time to visit my website:
www.stillmanbooks.com
for hard-to-find children’s books, aviation,
Canadiana and more.

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

Talk soon.

Some Inexpensive Options

Okay, you’ve chosen what type of books that
you want to collect, and you’ve narrowed the
field to a few authors or illustrators of a
particular era. You’ve even started making
your first tentative purchases.

Good for you! You’ve made a positive
beginning and you’ll soon be able to say that
you have a book collection at home. As you
venture forth, I can only reiterate that you
should always try to buy the best copies
available. They’re the ones that will hold their
value and hopefully increase in value within
a few years. Ignore the poor-condition books–
those with major damage from water-staining,
or those missing an illustration, or even an
endpaper–even if they are prime titles that
you need for your collection. Don’t bother
buying a Poor or Fair copy now with the
intention of replacing it later…force yourself
instead to wait for the VG to Near Fine copy;
it will turn up. Don’t buy Ex-Library copies,
even if the seller is telling you it’s “Near Fine”.
Honestly, where do some of these freaks
get their grading information!

Best of luck to all of you collectors who have
just made a start. Keep doing your research,
and keep looking in bookstores, in thrift stores,
at garage sales and online. You never know
when a book will show up and you have to put
yourself in position to spot it when it does.

When you’ve acquired forty or fifty, or a hundred
books–it depends on what level you’re buying at–
and you think the value is approaching $10,000 to
$15,000, you should think about having a reliable
bookseller appraise your collection for insurance
purposes, and add a rider to your home policy.
Reliable, experienced bookdealers usually
charge about $75 to $100 an hour (minimum
one hour) to appraise collections. If you have less
than a hundred books, the appraisal will probably
only take an hour or two, particularly if the dealer
is quite familiar with the type of books you collect.
He or she will give you a written or typed
appraisal on business stationery which you can
take to your insurance agent.

I recall a customer of mine asking me to do an
appraisal of his book collection. I had sold a few
dozen illustrated books to him over a period of four
or five years–some of them fairly expensive books–
so I told him I would do a free appraisal. You may
also get into a position where you’ve made a
considerable number of purchases from one dealer
that you trust, and perhaps you’ll get a free appraisal
as well. In this case, I went to the customer’s home
to value his books and I was looking forward to
seeing what other books he had acquired. To my
surprise, this customer had a collection of just fifty-six
books which, as I recall, I appraised at just over $25,000
for replacement value. The surprise was that I had
sold fifty-five of the fifty-six books to him, one being
a gift.

Now, some advice for you booklovers who want to
start a book collection but you don’t have a lot of
disposable cash. What can you possibly collect that’s
worth collecting? I can suggest a few options.

With the onset of the Internet, prices for First Edition
fiction plummeted, particularly books published within
the last thirty years. This doesn’t mean that you can’t
still collect modern bestselling fiction, detective fiction
or science fiction and fantasy. Get out your handy
“Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions”
and make sure you’re actually buying the true first
editions. Try to put together the entire output of two
or three authors to start with. If it’s a British author,
buy the British firsts, if it’s an American author, buy
the American firsts. When possible, buy
first editions that have been signed by the authors.
Failing that, watch for visiting authors to your city,
and try to get your copies signed if the author turns up.
Remember, in this genre, you have to buy Fine copies
in Fine dust-jackets.

You may choose to buy First Editions of Canadian
Literature authors. A friend of mine has over two
thousand titles, mostly by Canadian authors and
mostly signed…an impressive and valuable collection.
By hard work and diligence, he was able to acquire
this collection at a nominal cost and get most of the
books signed in person.

A good way to begin collecting is to choose a favourite
book from your childhood, a book that has been
popular for decades (or even up to a hundred years
or more) and has been published in many different
editions. Some prime examples might be “Alice in
Wonderland”, “Aesop’s Fables”, “A Child’s Garden
of Verses”, “Pinocchio”, the “Mother Goose” and
“Nursery Rhyme” Collections, or, the Fairy Tale
Collections of Hans C. Andersen or the Brothers
Grimm. You might acquire the books of a
particular author you liked, such as Enid Blyton, who
wrote the popular Adventure Series (Castle, Mountain,
etc.) and the Noddy books; or the textless books of
John S. Goodall.

You could also collect a certain type of children’s
book such as ABC books, Pop-Up Books, or
books on Folktales, Myths and Legends. Really,
the possibilities are almost endless. Take a good look
at my website, where you will find examples of all
of the books above. Search for other booksellers
in your area and see if they have their own websites
with catalogues of books for sale. You’re bound to
find exactly the types of books you were looking
for, even if you didn’t know it yet.

Good luck to all you new Book Collectors!

Please visit my website for quality offerings:
www.stillmanbooks.com

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

Talk soon.

Cautionary Tips for Buying

Let’s say you’ve decided upon a genre to
start collecting. It may be 1st Edition English
mysteries published before 1960. This may
include R. Austin Freeman, G.K. Chesterton,
Dorothy Sayers, Michael Innes, Agatha Christie,
plus a dozen or so other popular and collectible
mystery writers of the period.

Or, you may have chosen to collect women
children’s book illustrators from 1900 to the
1970’s. Some highlights here would be Beatrix
Potter, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Mabel Lucie
Attwell, Margaret Tarrant, Anne Anderson,
Cicely Mary Barker, Honor C. Appleton, and
even Lois Lenski, Tasha Tudor and Marie Angel.

First editions of these books and others can run
into the hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
If you’re serious about collecting in a highly
collectible and competitive field, you have to
know your prices, and you have to know just
what makes these books expensive.

If you’re collecting books in a field that is
“edition sensitive”, that is to say, the value of
the true first edition far outstrips the value of
the second and later printings, then you had
better learn how to identify a first edition.
Unfortunately, the publishers did not make
this easy for collectors. They did not conform
to any one or two common methods, but
pretty much just did their own thing. I
recommend obtaining a guide to first edition
identification. One that I’ve used for years
and through several editions is Bill McBride’s
“A Pocket Guide to the Identification of
First Editions”. Bill lists over 3000 English-
language publishers and their methods of
identifying first editions, including when they
changed their methods (which several did).

Bill also publishs a helpful book on “Points
of Issue”. The difference of a first edition,
first state, identified by one or two points of
issue, could mean several hundreds of dollars
difference from the first edition, second state.
Contact Bill at: McBride/Publisher .
56 Arbor Street . Hartford CT 06106
860-523-1622 . bill@firsteditionguide.com
For about $16 plus shipping, this could be
the most valuable book you’ll ever buy.

Some early publishers of children’s books
may not even show up in an identification
guide and their methods really have to be
learned from experience and more research.
Look to experts in the field for information
that they have acquired over decades of
selling children’s books: people like Jo Ann
Reisler in Virginia, Justin Schiller of New
York, Helen and Marc Younger of Aleph-Bet
Books in New York State, and even myself.
You can find many more specialist dealers
by searching on Google or Yahoo.
Check their websites–you’ll learn a lot
from every visit. You might send an email
outlining your initial collecting goals and
ask what they might suggest to start.
Professional booksellers are willing to
help you begin, but don’t be a pest, and
do buy a book or two to show you’re serious.

When you’ve decided what genre to
collect, visit the local bookstores in your
town or city and browse their sections.
Ask questions. If the bookseller doesn’t
seem to know much about the books you
want to collect, try another bookstore, or
google specialists on line. For Arctic and
other early exploration and travel books,
you might check the inventories of Aquila
Books in Calgary or Helen Kahn in
Montreal. For the best selection of books
about book collecting, book history and
the book arts, contact Oak Knoll Books
in Delaware. For extensive holdings of
early Canadiana, try David Mason in
Toronto or Macleod’s in Vancouver.

When you’re just starting a book collection
it really pays to pick the brains of the
experts, at least until you get on track and
make those first few important purchases.
Go with well-known and established
booksellers for quality of product and
information. Also do as much research as
you can on your own. Then you can start
looking about for bargains in other bookstores
and online with places like ebay. I’ve made
many good purchases on ebay and off-ebay
with ebay sellers, and you can too, but be
cautious and to begin, stick to sellers with
extensive and impeccable selling records.

That’s all for this week.

Please visit my website for children’s books,
aviation, military, sea/naval, Canadiana
and more:
www.stillmanbooks.com

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

Talk soon.

Where to Start?

Whatever your age, whatever your financial means,
you can begin to build a book collection.

Nearly all readers–except those people who rely
wholly on the library for their reading–buy books
that they want to actually read, mostly for pleasure,
sometimes for knowledge. If you keep these books
in a visable, accessible place in your home, you may
be inclined to say that you are a book collector,
but what you probably have is a personal “reading
library”. Building a book collection takes a little
more thought and planning.

Firstly, most book collections are composed of
books that reflect the collector’s main interest(s).
Perhaps you’re extremely interested in World War
II. Does your interest focus on aviation, land
battles, or the navies of the Allies and Axis countries,
or all three of the armed services? Perhaps World
War I, medieval warfare, the American Civil War,
the Napoleonic Wars, or even modern warfare is
more your preference.

You may have a keen interest in a hobby such
as gardening, painting, or music. Your profession
may be in science, medicine, law, architecture,
even farming and bookselling. You can collect
books on all of these subjects.

Are you enthralled by the many amazing children’s
book illustrators over the past one-hundred-and-
fifty years? Are you familiar enough yet to favour
any particular era of illustration, be it Victorian,
early 20th century, between the two Great Wars,
post-WWII and 1950’s, the ’60’s and ’70’s, or
the modern period of 1980’s to present?

If you are of modest means, you may have missed
the boat in terms of buying original editions of books
illustrated by the top children’s book artists in the
late 19th and early 20th century. If you enjoy
the work of Kate Greenaway, Walter Crane,
W. Heath Robinson, Arthur Rackham, Edmund
Dulac, Kay Nielsen and their many talented
contemporaries, you may still seek out much of
their output in later printings, some published as
late as the 1980’s.

If you have considerable disposable income for
collecting illustrated books, or first-edition literature,
then your possibilities are endless.

Once you decide to collect–be it children’s
authors or artists, military books, gardening books,
sports books, art books, books on games,
whatever–the first rule should be to focus. Choose
your genre, then choose your sub-genre. It may
be first edition books by American authors of the
1920’s and 1930’s. It may be English gardening
books from the 1880’s to the first World War;
or English true crime books from 1880 to the
second World War; or American gangsterism;
or all the first editions of Edward Gorey (that
might be a sub-sub-sub-genre). Start somewhere,
but use some sensible parameters. Secondly,
think about a budget. Can you afford a hundred
dollars a month, two hundred a month, ten
thousand a month? Set some sensible financial
parameters as well.

Check in next week for Part II of the series,
“Cautionary Tips for Buying”.

Book Review of James Lee Burke

For just plain old sittin’ and sippin’ on Sunday
afternoons or pre-lights-out bedtime reading,
one of my top ten authors is James Lee Burke,
mainly because he’s such a damn fine writer.

I just finished “Last Car to Elysian Fields”,
published in hardcover in 2003 and in paperback
a year later. (By the way, don’t expect me to
review new releases…afterall, I sell used books
so I read used books!) Burke’s mileau is New
Orleans and its colourful surroundings. His
protagonist is Dave Robicheaux, sometime
policeman in New Orleans and in New Iberia.
Dave’s got issues, tends to try to solve
frustrating situations with violence, has an even more-
violent sidekick and ex-partner, Clete Purcell,
but is, nevertheless, a moral, standup guy who
you could look to for help.

As often happens in Burke novels, the solution
for current murders lies buried in the past.
Robicheaux investigates the disappearance of
R&B guitarist and song-writer Junior Crudup
who ended up a victim of the corrupt penal
system in Louisiana in the 1950’s. Officially,
Junior never died in prison and there was no
record of his release. Robicheaux suspects
that someone had him killed, and that person
figures into the more recent murders. Add
into the mix the odd and intricate relationship
building between a Catholic priest and a
New Orleans hitman, a married ex-lover of
Robicheaux, the angry father of one of the
three teenage girls killed in a car crash because
they were able to buy illicit mixed liquor at
a roadside stand (owned ultimately by
Robicheaux’s rich main suspect), a cast of
minor questionable characters, and you’ve got
another captivating Burke story that never
lets up, nor follows a straight path to its
denouement.

For those who have never read James Lee Burke,
I offer this example of his writing:

“Ordinary people sometimes do bad things. A
wrong-headed business decision, a romantic
encounter in a late-night bar, a rivalry with a
neighbour over the placement of a fence, any of
these seemingly insignificant moments can initiate
a series of events that, like a rusty nail in the
sole of the foot, can systemically poison a normal,
law-abiding person’s life and propel him into a
world he thought existed only in the perverse
imaginings of pulp novelists.”

Now, if I recall correctly Miss Forsythe’s
instruction in Grade 9 English, that’s what is called
“foreshadowing”. And, indeed, that paragraph
did foreshadow some rather black events.

Read James Lee Burke because he’s a fine
storyteller as well as an educator.

I’d appreciate it if you’d take a little time to
review the many collectible books available
for purchase on my website:
www.stillmanbooks.com

Remember, the only book purchase you’ll
ever 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.