Different collections

Do most collectors have different subjects/topics they collect?
I collect a limited number of British crime authors, a small number of historical novels. But besides that I collect books on the discovery of the Ancient Near East (1830 - 1900). The works from Layard, Rawlinson, Smith, Botta, Flandin,...
Do other collectors have a 'side-kick' or is it all concentrated on one topic. And if so why? Because multiple subjects limit the resources for the main theme. But it will give you more chance of finding something in a shop. Looking forward to your reactions.

I have two "official" collections, and I flirt with a couple others. I guess it's more symptomatic of enjoying different things not answered by the others than a lack of focus. That's what I tell myself, at least. For instance, one collection is on one subject, the other is by publisher. And there are sub-sets within each. No, I don't have a problem... I could stop if I really wanted to...

I have several collection domains, but they're relatively narrow. Which means that I wouldn't get to, um, ... "score" very often if I only had one domain.

Sometimes I also just 'adopt' a subject to collect, because nobody else is collecting it and that seems wrong.

At least, unlike benjclarck, I can admit that I have a problem. The solution is simple too: once I've collected every possible book, the collecting addiction will be over!

(Of course, when that happens, new collection domains will appear...)

Most collectors have at least one primary and several secondary collections. Some collectors only collect one genre, while others acquire anything that interests them, and our interests change over time. I say go with the flow and buy what interests you.

Dictionaries and quotation books were the first kinds of books I collected. Soon, it was Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, Books About Books, and almost every genre except modern first editions and fantasy. Today, over twenty years later, Books About Books, and Samuel Johnson are my primary collecting interests, with too many offshoots to mention. As for my other collections, I'm slowly but surely down-sizing them.

I've gone through three stages in my collecting (since 1966). The first was simply antiquarian books. If it was published before 1850, I bought it. I also began collection first editions of american writers, any era. that bin has stayed constant through today. Just the other day I added a first of a Dean Koontz book and the first american edition of the bell jar/plath. The second obsession I started on was circa 1984 -- U.S. Presidents. I had to have at least one biography of each president. You might be surprised how difficult it is to find ANY, to say nothing of "modern" biography on such as Chester A> Arthur, Van Buren, et al. But I did it! Now, of course, I could care less. That was a passing fancy, as was my third obsession with motorcycling magazines, specifically the American Motorcyclist (AMA house mag). Now I have four shelves and almost the complete AMA publications since 1947 and I could care less (any one out there a biker mag buff?) What stayed strong all the way through, though, are the first editions of american and british writers (classicists such as Wolfe, Dickens, Fielding, et al.

Hope this answers your question.

I do have different subjects I collect. The reason is indeed that you have better chances of finding something in shops or on the net. But for me, collecting is a sport and when I complete a collection, I need a new one. To have various subjects, means to have a permanent need to search, buy, stay alert, etc.

My primary topic is Dutch literature after world war 2. But my topics within that are:
- a number of Dutch authors (Nescio, Bordewijk, Adriaan van Dis, Marcel Möring)
- all publications from the organisation CPNB, an organisation devoted to promoting reading in the Netherlands. They organize the annual bookweek (boekenweek) where you get a free book during a week, but there are also several other CPNB publications during that week. They also organize the children's bookweek (kinderboekenweek), also with a free gift and other publications, the month of the suspense novel (Maand van het Spannende Boek) with free gift and other publications and some more. See my library for the tag "CPNB" and you'll find out that it's a huge topic to collect.
- new years giftbooks from publishers
- several smaller series of books (annual literary publications, e.g. the annual publication for poetryday (gedichtendag). These are not in my library yet, I'm still working on it.

So, I collect a limited amount of topics/themes: enough to keep me busy, but not too much because of my financial situation. It means that every now and then I delete a topic from my list, so that I can concentrate on my main topics.

regards,

sneuper

As already said, I collect A.H. Layard and the discovery of the Near east (1830-1900). I read that, due to their succes, the books by H. Layard (published around 1850) were very soon republished in pirated editions (same period). I was wondering of any one has information on how to locate (place, publishers,...)these pirated editions.

Collecting the Modern Library, we run into piracies as well. About 100+ years later, but you could run into the same problems. One is that pirate copies often do not use their own name as the imprint. They'll just use the legitimate imprint name and go from there. That means you have to rely on a very knowledgeable cataloger to know the difference, and when someone has only handled the one copy, well... you get the idea.

However, in the early 1800s (and before), copyright laws were a little harder to enforce, and not as many people took them seriously. So, pirates would go right ahead and put their imprint on the book. Or, here in the US, they would keep the UK publisher name, but change the city.

With Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon I notice there an 1853 edition by John Murray of London, a lot by the Harper Bros. in NY and also George Putnam in NY. Unless someone has written a good bibliography, it's going to take handling a lot of these copies, digging into publishing records, etc.

Hopefully someone can give us all a good recommendation on a book giving an overview of book piracy.

Book piracy has a lot to do with copyright. In 1899, Augustine Birrell provided a good overview on Copyright in his lectures at University College, London:
Seven Lectures on the Law and History of Copyright.

Touchstones weren't working when I posted. Go to http://tinyurl.com/7v883n

Thank you both for these very interesting comments. I will definitely look into the mentioned site and Lectures.

Coessens,

If you collect books on the discovery of the Ancient Near East (1830 - 1900), you might want to get A View of the Holy Land by George Thompson, Wheeling, Va. 1850. There are a few copies available on abebooks.com and amazon.com.
The complete title is: A View of the Holy Land, Its Present Inhabitants, Their Manners and Customs, Polity, and Religion. Antiquities and Natural History of Egypt, Asia and Arabia; With a Curious Description of Jerusalem, As It Now Appears, And Other Parts of the World Mentioned in the Scriptures. Interspersed With Remarks, Notes, and References of Modern Travelers; Together With Historical, Geographical and Miscellaneous Notes by George Thompson and Others.

I gave my copy of this book to one of my sons. I also had an early copy of Layard's Discoveries..., but I sold it on ebay two years ago.

I only/mostly collect books that I am intending to read. My main interests are mostly in fiction, including classics, fantasy, science fiction, detective stories/novels, etc., but I also like philosophy and history.
I try to purchase only fine books or limited editions now - some of them are (much) more expensive than an average hardcover book, so I am getting very selective with my purchases.
I guess I could say that fine books and limited editions in fiction is my main collecting interest, but it feels to me like it is way too broad...

I, like a lot of you, have several areas I collect in. Press books/fine printing has been an interest of many years, a sub-section of which is the Limited Editions Club. I have a general antiquarian interest, but am selective there; it must be something I wish to read. We have a small Tolkien collection and although I have read a ton of fantasy books, I have not collected them specifically other than JRRT and the works of Robert E. Howard. Our interest in Egyptology has resulted in also collecting murder mysteries set in Egypt, either ancient or recent, as well as books on Egyptology itself which are not "collected" so much as acquired for our continuing education. My wife has a penchant for collecting editions of The Secret Garden and The Wind in the Willows, her two favorite books.

Collecting in several areas can cause a conundrum as to which gets the bucks at a given time, but in the end, we enjoy ourselves immensely in our quest for the next acquisition.

I really enjoy reading vintage books about cycling trips and so it just follows that I try to collect these books. In addition I have a number of early diaries about bike trips in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

>13 Glacierman:
Limited Editions Club books constitute a substantial portion of my library, too. A lot of them are still surprisingly affordable for such amazing quality and thoughtful designs (with readers in mind).
>14 rathad:
Biking is a fascinating topic for book and diaries collecting! Are these books easy to find? Do you come across them often in stores and online?

>3 Steven_VI: "I can admit that I have a problem. The solution is simple too: once I've collected every possible book, the collecting addiction will be over!"

Ha! This might be my situation, too, if I weren't married. As it is, my wife is extremely tolerant. But I will say that, while I am not attempting to collect every book, I am attempting to read them all. Sometimes people will ask me why I'm reading a particular book. I say, "It was on the list." What list? "Well, I'm trying to read every interesting book available in English. This one was on the list."

>8 benjclark: "However, in the early 1800s (and before), copyright laws were a little harder to enforce, and not as many people took them seriously."

And even later than that, evidently. I recently read a dual biography of Gilbert and Sullivan and learned to my shock that, even while they were alive, "pirate," unauthorized productions of their works would go on tour that G&S had no control over and derived no income from.

I have a modest collection of Modern Library editions, and I enjoy looking out from them, though I don't as a rule shell out big bucks for them.

As a lover of Joseph Conrad, I have a whole small bookshelf of Conrad works, in some cases several editions of the same novel. I have developed a tradition that, whenever my wife and I travel to a country where English is not the first language, I look for a copy of a Conrad novel translated into the language of that country. Hence, I have Conrad novels in Spanish (several), French (a couple), Croatian, Finnish, Czech and Hebrew. Maybe one or two more.

>15 booksforreading: the older ones, prior to the 1920’s are harder to find. Reprints are fairly available at not much money. Diaries are very difficult, but worth the search.
I have never found any cycling books in a store, maybe lack of patience on my part. My best source has been EBay and ABE.
I have a list on my page of ones I am looking for that might be of interest for you. I also have the books I currently have under the “cycling” tag.

>17 rathad:
Thank you!

not sure if this is still active, but i collect childrens illustrated books from 1880-1929 have couple of local rare bookstores here that are great fun to visit. Have lot of Rachman, Paris, Dulac but always like discovering new ones

>19 cindydavid4:
This sounds like a lot of fun, but it also could be an expensive subject for collecting -- it seems that children illustrated books from that period are pursued by many people.

>19 cindydavid4: When I first started collecting I liked the Brandywine artists like Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, and Jessie Willcox Smith, but later started collecting artists like Gustav Tenngren (his early work) and Harry Roundtree. There were a lot of good illustrator, you just have to decide which ones you like. You might try looking through some of the books on the topic like "Richard Dalby's "The Golden Age of Children's Book Illustrations", but there are plenty more. You just have to be careful who you pick, some can be very hard to find, and expensive. Now my main interest is more in books with Fantasy content, although I will still buy a nice illustrated book now and then, and the two topic are not exclusive. William M. Timlin's "The Ship that Sailed to Mars" is an example of early Fantasy illustration, although it is an expensive one in the original edition. Probably one of the harder to find and more expensive titles of the period.

thanks, I have that dalby book and found some that are similar to Brandywine artists, but like you notice they tend to be more expensive than the others. and yes, its an expensive hobby- the guy I go to has good prices comparable to other places on the net, which helps. I only get one or two a year anyway so i am picky

Saw tenngren books and like them. Didn't realiz he was also an illustrator at disney. Am looking for more books of that time by women illustrators. Have Wilcox Smith, Kay Greenway. Any suggestions!

>22 cindydavid4: Well, there were Willcox Smith's house mates Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley. I like Green, but I never cared much for Oakley myself. Not that her work is bad, It just is not really my thing. Tenngren has a few different styles. His later work never did much for me, but it is alright. Like his style for the Golden Books, which are good enough, but not up to his early work. I think my favorite book of his is "Dicky Byrd" by Elizabeth Woodruff. It was later reprinted as "Stories from a Magic World" which is not of the same quality. This book is very much like Rackham. I also like W. Heath Robinson quite a bit, but you have to like the unusual to like W. Heath Robinson. For women illustrators I guess you could look at a few that illustrated L. Frank Baum's works, Fanny Y. Corey and Maginel Wright Enright although they may not be to your taste. At a slightly later period, I am very much a fan of Dorothy P. Lathrop. I think her black and white is better than her color work. The problem you will find is that good books are expensive, especially in First editions in nice condition. Sometimes you may have to be willing to accept a copy in a lower condition binding to get great illustrations. I have quite a few items that I would love to own, but the cost is just too much. I always wanted a copy of "The Knave of Hearts" by Maxfield Parrish, but I would never spend the money for a copy. Someone tried to talk me into one of the reprints in a spiral binding, but that is a cheap reprint that I would not pay much for myself. I have one of the modern Calla reprints and I will probably have to be happy with that. I got it at Half-Price books for about $20. I considered a First Edition many years ago that was $400, but at that time I could buy quite a few really nice books for that same $400, so I passed. A friend ended up buying the book. Things were different when I started collecting 40 years ago or more. I have always been mainly interested in Fantasy. I wanted Tolkien and some of the other early Fantasy author's like Lord Dunsany, William Morris, William Hope Hodgson, etc. But I found very little of that where I lived. I shopped some of the local stores and the local thrift shops. In those days you might find really great books in some of the thrift shops, something you probably would not do today. So while looking for Fantasy, which I found little of, I found some great illustrated books. I became interested in them, but especially ones with some Fantasy content. I found some surprisingly good books for good prices, but not what I really wanted usually. So I opened a part time used book store and sold what I did not want. That way I got more money to spend on my own collection. But the expenses of keeping a store open are not cheap, so I no longer have a shop. To really run a shop you have to have quite a bit of money to spend, both for new stock and for help in the shop. I always tried to do everything myself, and I do not recommend that. It is always better if you have a helper, in a lot of situations. Well I have gone on too long, but I hope that is of some help.

Thank you for all of that! I googled Dorothy P. Lathrop images and oh my that is my style. I'll look up the others you mentioned. I also love fantasy and have found a few older versions (but not 1st) Like Poe which I could get. I can see anything Tolkien would be hard to find.. Do you use any sites like bookfinder.com? Ive found cool stuff on there 1st or not.

I love the fantasy illustrations but I don't tend to buy those. I should look further.

and yeah, I always wanted a book shop but don't have the financial skiils and people skills to be sucessful! and yeah I am another that wants to do everything themselves, which has gotten me burned out. I have worked at a few, been fun.

you have been helpful! Thanks

>24 cindydavid4: You might want to look at Harry Clarke, especially for the Poe. And another woman you might like is Gertrude (Alice) Kay, some of her work is wonderful. Most of the modern Fantasy art does not do much for me, but I like some of the early work. I am always looking for older odd Fantasy titles, not the usual thing. Books like "The Clan of Munes" by Frederick J. Waugh. It might not be to your taste though. At one time you could find it reasonably priced, but you might not today. At one point I was collecting Fern Bisel Peat because I could find it fairly cheap, but the prices have gone up. And have you looked at Jessie King. The prices will be high for her work though. And if you like unusual you might try Pamela Bianco the daughter of Margery Williams Bianco who wrote The Velveteen Rabbit. She actually illustrated the original edition that was published in Harper's Bazar magazine (Later Harper's Bazaar). I would look around and find an illustrator that you like that seems to be ignored right now. I bought some of the Elmer and Berta Hader books when not many people had an interest in their work. I even have a few with large color drawings on the half-title. At the time Maggie Page, who was a major dealer in Children's books asked why I bothered as there was no market for their books. But I think there is more of a market today. Good luck.

I forgot to mention that I use ABEBOOKS and EBAY the most. I only use bookfinder if I am having problems finding something. I also use viaLibri which is similar to bookfinder. The problem with these sites is that they do not always find all of the hits at an individual site. I also use ETSY, and Biblio, and rarely Alibris, and a few other sites. I have been looking for very many years now and I have my share of tricks for finding a book, if it can be found. The problem with all of these sites is that there are too many bad sellers on all of them. If a seller will not give a good description of a book I avoid the seller. I especially avoid any that will not answer questions. I figure they have something to hide. And you have sellers that are trying to sell other dealers books by copying the listings and raising the prices. If they seem to guess at what the book is like, they are probably not someone you want to buy from. I have been buying from ABEBOOKS since they were first opened. I started on EBay about two years after they started. They did not have many good books at first. And my favorite site was Bibliofind which has been bought up by Amazon. I found them in the first week they were in business. For several months it was almost my private buying site.

>25 Bernarrd: t the time Maggie Page, who was a major dealer in Children's books asked why I bothered as there was no market for their books.

I don't care about the market. I collect these books because I want them (yes Id love for my family to get a good price on them when I am gone, but im not collecting for an investment

BTW was she the owner of the Alephbet book store? Its closed now but I loved looking through their catalogue - so expensive but fun to look at all the books they had!

Oh I love the old fantasy illustrations too. But Im sticking with one collection; Ill just admire them from afar

thanks again for names, Ill make a list so the next time I go to 'my' shop Ill see what he has.

>26 Bernarrd: oh I love ABE books! I usually go there first, and then like you , use bookfinder. I haven't used ETSY for books, didn't realize they sell them there, i'll have to take a look. I like Biblilo and Alibris. im also very careful with those listings. I avoid anything that isn't described enough. Ive been burnt once or twice, hard when you can't see the cover. I have been pleasantly surprised to find some decent copies on Ebay. But what I love is discovering something wonderful in some out of the way bookstore or thrift store. One of my fave was finding a StampKraft book in decent condition, for a good price. The are sticker books that tell a story most early 1900sheres an example of one Had to find more so I ended up going to Ebay and finding a lot, in very good condition, and many with the stamps still in their envellope!.tho most of mine are in much better condition. So I spent several trips around to see more, and when I couldn't I hit ebay, which I have fun browsing in as well

>27 cindydavid4: No Maggie Page had Maggie Page books. At first she was in Arkansas (where her husband worked) and then later moved near Cincinnati, Ohio. She passed away several years ago. At the time the major sellers were Aleph-bet Books, Jo Ann Reisler Books, and Maggie Page Books. Maggie used to travel quite a bit buying and would come to my shop now and then. I would also buy from her catalog. Later I would run into her at Book Fairs now and then. The last I heard, her husband Josh sold off most of her stock but was selling some of the remainder on ABEBOOKS. I have not run across any of his listing recently though. Aleph-bet Books was Helen Younger and her husband Marc. Helen passed away a few years ago and her husband decided to sell out their stock and retire. I think in both businesses the wife was the one with the strong interest in books, although the husbands helped with the business when needed. I was at Maggie's house a few times, she collected illustration original art and had a number of pieces scatter all over her house.

>28 cindydavid4: I have seen books with stamps, but I am not sure if I have seen the StampKraft books before or not. One or two of Jessie Willcox Smith's books had Stamps in them. I think my problem with them is that usually all of the stamps have been pasted in the books, so they are not as original. Which is the problem with all of that type of activity book. I bought a fine copy in jacket of a copy of "The Bettijak Book" (1914) by Clara Andrews Williams and George Alfred Williams, which was an odd book. The child was supposed to cut open flaps in some pages to reveal the picture on the next page. The copy I bought had none of the flaps cut. Apparently the book was part of a series of sorts, and had originally been part of a magazine serial. I bought it mainly because of the early dust jacket, which was fairly plain looking. Right now my main interest is in filling in a few last items in a few long time collections. I have collected Robert Lawson for many years and I have most of his books in 1st editions in jacket. I am still looking for a few jackets that I need, and a few jacket upgrades. I have also been trying to finish off a Babar collection. I only need a few jackets and one of the modern titles in a 1st printing (I have a second printing). I am not sure what I will do with the Babar collection when it is done. A few people have encouraged me to write a reference book on the Babar books since there is no good Bibliography on them.

>30I think my problem with them is that usually all of the stamps have been pasted in the books, so they are not as original. Which is the problem with all of that type of activity book.

Most of mine are that way, but the illustrations on the picture stamps are so good that I don't mind. I do have a few we found with the stamps in the envelope, which I of course keep that way

I have some interesting books, one large called the house that I built (need to check that later) Each page has a 1800s style room, with furniture the children cut out and paste where they want. Most of the cut outs are in the envelopes but some have been pasted on.

Do you have any Father Tuck? I have an board book of his where the pages open like an accordion. One side is a book about farm animals, the other side is Peter Rabbit. Another treasure discovered at an antique store. Would like to get more of his

>31 cindydavid4: No, I don't have any Father Tuck, at least not any of the really good ones. I may have one or two of the lesser items that they printed. I have owned a few of the Lothar Meggendorfer books over the years, but I sold them. One was Der Lustige Drebuilder or some similar title. It seemed to be a book similar to Der Struwwelpeter. It had wheels that would turn to change the faces in the pictures. And I can't remember the title of the other book, but it had some damage to the moving parts as I remember. It would have been great if you had another copy that needed repairs also. And I have owned a few of the reproduction Meggendorfer books also. But I have not owned many of the better movable books over the years. A friend of mine bought a stack of three Meggendorfer's at a book auction I was at, I thought he paid too much for damaged books, but he thought he could get them put back together. I never asked him how he did with them.

I do like moveable books, as well as pop up books. I have a Snow White pop up from 1960 that is very nice except for the chew marks on the cover from my moms dog! Theres another that you pull tab to show a different illustration. Lots of interesting reproduction of those that would be fun to get the originials

I bought a fine copy in jacket of a copy of "The Bettijak Book" (1914) by Clara Andrews Williams and George Alfred Williams, which was an odd book. The child was supposed to cut open flaps in some pages to reveal the picture on the next page. The copy I bought had none of the flaps cut. Apparently the book was part of a series of sorts, and had originally been part of a magazine serial. I bought it mainly because of the early dust jacket, which was fairly plain looking.

ok wow, just looking for the book I as talking about. The name of the book was The House that Glue built. Each page is a picture of a room, and the child or childreb pasted the furniture insuce inside. But whats interesting is that inside is a card for the children to use to tell them how to place them. The cards are still in the book, in very good shape. Would have been more fun if the stickers were there too, but still think its pretty cool. And oh btw the author and illustrator by George Alfred Williams, Clara Andrews Williams, from 1905!!! Will like to see the book you have.

>33 cindydavid4: I was just looking at some scans I took of the Bettijak jacket and cover. The jacket has some chipping, the worst is to the spine. There is only red text on a buff background. I send jacket scans to Mark Terry from Facsimile dust jackets, and this was one that I sent. I also sent him some scans of the cover. His comment was that although he likes early jackets, he can understand why plain jackets like this were thrown away. I am not sure how I could attach images to this group. I did find a cover image here ---https://www.biblio.com/book/bettijak-book-adventures-jack-betty-williams/d/862148508

You will notice the large face on the right is actually a hole that goes through the cover so that you can see the image below. That is sort of the theory of this whole book. When flaps are cut in the correct places, you can see a part of the illustration on the next page. It is an odd thing to have children cut into the pages of a book if you ask me though. I almost bought a second copy that had the flaps cut, but decided I did not really need it for my collection.

>33 cindydavid4: My copy is here https://www.librarything.com/work/27256317/book/207866499

hee, I recognize that drawing. cool ( I didn't mean I needed to see it, just that I wanted to check it out) but you can tell they were the same illustrators.

>29 Bernarrd: BTW love your story about Maggie Page, and clarificatio on Alepha Bet. Same thing happened at another huge collection: Arkdale in Wisconsin, owned by a couple who turned a huge slurrey into a castle, filled with books. Went there with some friends this place was amazing. She also passed away a few years back and most of the inventory was bought by another Wisc bookstore.

Looked again at the book I have on ABE "One of several titles from the GLUE series by Williams. The series and this title in particular helped to build the future commercial success of arts and crafts books for children' thought that interesting. i do like unusual style of books like that - its the teacher in me I think that is drawn (no pun intended) to them

>36 cindydavid4: I have had a number of copies of the Tony Sarg Book of Tricks -- https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=21353549937&searchurl=bi%3...
But my copies always seemed to be missing all of the extra parts. I had one Tony Sarg Treasure Book https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=21353549937&searchurl=bi%3...

It was about perfect. It has a netting in the hole on the front cover which is usually gone or at least damaged. And the book is very fragile. I took it to a book fair and while I was not looking some little kid put his finger through the netting. I turned around just in time to see him do it. I was so mad I think I would have killed him if his mother had not grabbed him and left. She knew I was not happy. It was more because the thing was perfect, and that brat broke it in a few seconds. I ended up selling it at a reduced price to a book dealer form Louisville, Ky, Cynthia Fowler. She was happy to have the book as it was with a finger sized hole. It was her type of book, so it was better with her anyway.

Are you familiar with Tony Sarg? He did toy books, pop-ups and a lot of novelty type books, besides the books that he just illustrated. I have a few of his illustrated books. I just got a copy of "Children Forever" by J. F. Macpherson in the 1908 original edition a few years back. I had the later edition of it and a "Children Still" in jacket which is a sequel, but they have a different illustrator. But I always wanted a nice copy of the Sarg illustrated edition.

Tony Sarg also designed the original balloon creatures for the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.

>36 cindydavid4: Oops! Here is the Treasure Book - https://www.ebay.com/itm/393332840240?hash=item5b9476d730:g:9nsAAOSwMntgpBiK

>38 Bernarrd: Oh my goodness I would have been heart broken. It wasnt the kids fault, they don't usualy know better. would have had something to say to the mom, like ok your kid broke it you bought it. Which is why I would not make a good bookseller!

I do not know Tony Sarg at all. Cool about the Macy parade connection! Just checked the Children Forever and do love the illustrations. Interesting that he was originally a puppeter. Ill add him to the list.

I love the fantasy illustrations in the last hero illustrated by Paul Kidby. He did lots of the Discworld covers, but he is at his best in this one. Reminds me a lot of the Dungeon and Dragons covers.

Recently I acqured THE KELMSCOTT CHAUCER; THE WORKS OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER, designed by Wm Morris, Illustrated by illustrated by Edward Burne-Jones. printed in 2008 in very larg format, the pages are just gorgeous.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174973651984?hash=item28bd3e0c10:g:sMEAAOSwOmthZGmc

>39 cindydavid4: I have an older and slightly less fancy copy published by World Publishing in 1958.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/115036446037?hash=item1ac8b4dd55:g:bE4AAOSwK3thXJsP

I have owned it for 35 years of more. I would have loved to collect Kelmscott press titles. I even considered it for awhile, but the prices were too much, even 40 years ago. In those days you could find some of the smaller books for $300 or $400, but that was quite a bit of money at the time. As I said earlier, I passed on a nice copy of "The Knave of Hearts" by Maxfield Parrish for $400. I have always been a fan of William Morris, and I have a number of his books, in the first trade issue, not the Kelmscott. I have a very nice "The Well at the Worlds End" in two volumes, but I doubt that there is a large demand for the book. It is done very much in the Kelmscott style, but it is not a Kelmscott. I found three or four of the volumes of The Complete Works of William Morris once. It was edited by his daughter after his death. I would love to have the complete set, but I have neither the money nor the space for it. That is one thing I have never been very temped to buy, sets of books. Someone asked me once why I did not like sets and I said I did not know of any authors that wrote in sets, they were all just reprints.

Tony Sarg illustrated a number of books over the years. He even did one or two of the Volland Press books. I collected Volland Press for awhile, never paying very much for any of them, but I have not bought any for years. Today you practically have to have them in the original boxes for collectors to look at them. I of course always looked for the fantasy titles, like Gruelle's "The Magical Land of Noom". There are a lot of modern reprints out today, but they can't compare to the original. I once saw a copy of Ruth Plumly Thomson's "The Perhappsy Chaps" with the Arthur Henderson illustrations, in an original box. It was at one of the Kentucky book fairs, maybe in Lexington. The seller wanted $600 for the book. I wanted that book very badly and I looked at it several times, but I left without it. My copy has no box and is missing parts of the spine, which is usual with that title. Henderson's art is very nice, but I do not think he did too many books. He worked for a Philadelphia Newspaper.

oops, I spent the last week under the power of an incredible fantasy writer, NK Jemisin, who this year was a new to me author who Ill be following in the future. Just came up for air. Incredible writer and world builder, still considering things, so I blame her for a late response!

So many more illustrators to look for! Henderson is good, not quite my style but they are lovely (and I love the title Perhappsy Chaps and might need to look for it just for the title alone!) Didn't realize this was Thompson's first Volland title, written before she took over writing the Oz books after L. Frank Baum's death.

Gruelle's "The Magical Land of Noom" is beautifully done.. Just saw that he was responsible for Raggedy Ann and Andy books that I loved as a kid and I can see the resemblance. Not a style I want to collect but am an admire of it

I love cover collections and just got this one

The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers, and Art at the Edges of Literature Lots of fun to look through

I would never collect all of Gruelle's books, but I like some of his more fantasy type titles. I have a handful of the Raggedy Ann books that I picked up cheaply over the years, but I do not go out of my way to get them. I have a First of The Magical Land of Noom in the gift box and a slightly later Donahue reprint in a jacket. Most of the Vollands came in a box rather than a dust jacket, although some later reprints had jackets (like The Tarzan Twins). I have had a few copies of it but I sold them rather than adding the title to my collection. I have a copy of "Man in the Moon Stories Told Over the Radio-Phone" by Josephine Lawrence that he illustrated, and several other titles. I do look for some of the more obscure Volland titles and the ones with nice illustrations.

I collect L. Frank Baum, so the Thompson book is just a continuation of that collection. Although the farther the books get from Baum, usually the less interest that I have in them. I collected his pseudonym titles for many years when they were fairly hard to find. Now many of them are becoming easier to find. I am not sure if this is because of older collectors dying off or if just more dealers recognize them now. Thompson wrote some little booklets (both advertising and regular trade titles) that were published before Perhappy Chaps, but it was her first real book.

I am not familiar with that book on covers. I am interested in the early dust jackets, although I do not have very many of the really early ones. Once you get back to pre 1900 jackets are quite hard to find. With Children's books, anything pre 1930 is fairly unusual, with series type books (Hardy Boys type books) being the most plentiful. Are you familiar with the Thomas G. Tanselle book on Dust jackets? https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30852324965&searchurl=an%3...

I like to look through it every now and then, and it is a nice reference for the times when I do find an early jacket. But it is not a cheap book.

I am not really familiar with Jemisin, but then I don't read a lot of modern Fantasy. I do occasionally find a modern author I like but I have so many older authors that I enjoy that I don't have the space or the money for a lot of new books. I did become a fan of Kelly Barnhill a few years before she won the Newbery Medal. I managed to get all of her novels in signed First Printings. That lady can write, although she has not done much since she won the Newbery. Her only book since was a collection of older short stories. I also have a collection of her early non fiction titles although some are ex library copies.

There are quite a few good illustrators that get very little hype. Are you familiar with Harold Gaze? He was from New Zealand originally but lived in California later on. I think he did work for Disney as so many of the best artists of the period did. His book are not easy to find, especially the titles not printed in America. The Merry Piper is probably his most common title. I like Copper Top also and The Goblin's Glen. There were quite a few interesting artists from down under. But they are not too easy to find in America.

Ok I am hooked

https://kellybarnhill.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/on-wildness-cracked-worlds-monste...

"This is why I like reading short stories, and this is why I write them — to be astonished; to be left breathless; to return to the world, shaken and dizzy, and looking over my shoulder, waiting for the monster to return."

>43 cindydavid4: Yeah, I ran across one of her books at a local new book store and after that I had to read the rest. I even considered trying to track down some of the magazines she contributed to, but between her collection "Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories" and what I found posted on the web, I have read quite a few of her short stories. I guess sometime I should go through what I have and see what I am missing. I think she could make you want to read the phone book if she had written it. I started buying her signed 1st editions from a bookshop in her area until I had them all signed. Her nonfiction early titles aren't too bad, even though they are not the type of thing that shows off great writing.

>42 Bernarrd: , when you mention older jackets on series books, I get what I can find and afford. Jackets prior to 1920 are rather hard to find on children's books. It was so common for the kids (and adults) to remove and even discard the jackets since the books looked better and more uniform without them. The early jackets are often very plain with a line drawing similar to the cloth stamped cover or no illustration at all.

The oldest confirmed authentic jackets we have here are from 1898. Some of the ones we have are perhaps the only extant copy with jacket. But even if they technically exist, getting them for series with any demand is very hard as I learned in the past few months on eBay when one seller was clearing out large portions of his collection now that he is 90. We got a couple 1911-era jackets from the auctions but had to spend several hundred dollars to win them since one collector from Florida seemed to have a limitless supply of money to throw at every item offered and he often prevailed. I'm glad to have what i got but the price was dear.

We have a tag earlyDJ that we use for the 1923 and earlier jackets. Not all of our books are tagged with it yet but we do have some 51 indicated. The comments field indicates the printing year of the jacket when it can be determined.

earlyDJ in Keeline

I have a couple jackets which appear to be earlier than 1898 at first glance but my mind tells me that they really cannot be. Though this book is from the 1830s, the publisher imprint is Lothrop, Lee & Shepard and that name only goes back to 1905 so it can be no earlier than that.

The Only True Mother Goose Melodies: An Exact Reproduction of the Text and Illustrations of the Original Edition Published and Copyrighted in Boston in the Year 1833 By Munroe & Francis



This book is one that is not normally recognized as a work by Edward Stratemeyer. It has his "Edna Winfield" pen name which he used for romances for adult women in the 1890s. This book was from 1898 and was not reprinted by Street & Smith.

The Little Cuban Rebel



Although we will never have all of our books in jackets, many of them we do have can serve as research opportunities.

I have the Tanselle book and others that mention early jackets or jacket design. Some of the early examples with printing on them go back to the 1830s but most extant jackets seem so start in the 1880s and 1890s. One could have an entire thread to show off the oldest jackets in one's collection. Of course the key is to look at not just the copyright dates but also the other clues which help to date the jacket. Often your 1910 text is on a 1920s or 1930s jacket. A Nancy Drew might have a 1930 copyright but really be from 1958 with a jacket.

James

>45 Keeline: I have a few pre 1900 jackets, but I know they are quite scarce. I have owned a few copies of Lewis Carroll's "Sylvie & Bruno Concluded" 1893 1st edition, in a jacket which is quite plain looking. Over the years I have seen at least half a dozen copies of this title listed in a jacket. I suspect this book was found in a warehouse find at sometime long after the book was published.

I also found a copy of "The Sign of the Four" by A Conan Doyle that was published by L. Allison Company which is dated at 1894-1896 in the Doyle Bibliography. It is of course a reprint, bought mainly because of the jacket. Oddly the back side of the jacket has another jacket printed on it "Adventures of Famous Travelers".

I have the jacket for one volume of "Hugh Wynne - Free Quaker by S. Weir Mitchell and with Howard Pyle illustrations. Sadly it is only one of a two volume set.

I also have a few other early jackets somewhere in my collection, but I think the Carroll jacket is the earliest I have had.

When I first started collecting 40 years ago or more, I remember seeing a number of early jackets in bookstores but they were always for books I had no interest it buying. Today I would probably buy those same books.

>45 Keeline: Probably my best series book jackets are from L. Frank Baum pseudonym titles. I have a copy of the Edith Van Dyne "The Flying Girls" in a jacket bought 35 years ago from a Bookman's Weekly want ad for $8. And I have a few of the Floyd Akers Boy Fortune Hunter titles in jacket. A copy of the Schuyler Staunton "The Fate of a Crown" 2nd edition in jacket, a copy of Baum's Anonymous "The Last Egyptian" in a jacket, and four or five of the Edith Van Dyne Aunt Jane's Nieces and Mary Louise titles in jacket. I also have one of the H. Irving Hancock books "In the Battle for New York" in a second issue jacket.

>46 Bernarrd: W.L. Allison was a short-lived publisher. I know for Stratemeyer books the Allison editions started in 1897. I'd have to do some research to see if they were even in business in the 1894-1896 period of time. Most bibliographies are thorough on these matters but I've seen some extraordinarily inaccurate statements with regard to early jackets. One was making a list based on copyright alone (very dangerous) and ignoring the years when the imprint was in business. An example of this I can recall was a book with the Lothrop, Lee and Shepard imprint which can be no earlier than 1905 based on the date of the merger.

My serious collecting began in 1988, a mere 33 years ago, when I started to manage The Prince and the Pauper Collectible Children's Books. I was with them until 2000. Early on my main interest was Tom Swift in one form or another. In time my interests expanded.

This 1917 jacket illustrates part of the reason why the older ones were routinely discarded. This book has a glassine wrapper and a plain paper jacket with text as the only printing. Yet the cover of the book is rather ornate for the period. Most recipients of the book would simply discard the temporary wrappings and put the pretty book on the shelf.



James

>44 Bernarrd: "Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories"

Looking more at that book, several blurbs compare her with Neil Gaiman, who I just love. In fact I found the just released Good Omens that he wrote with Terry Pratchett. Turned me on to both of these talented writers. Over time I saw both of them in person and they signed it for me. Im not big on signed books but this was special.

Interesting discusiion about dust jackets; Have some books with box covers but most of those date after 1900. Didn't realize when the jackets were started and yeah I rarely fine a book that old with one. However I do have one of Baums Oz, not first edition, but copyright in 1903, tho I totally understand the dj might not be that old, in fact IIRC its not the same illustrator, need to go check

As a teacher of preschool kids I was always cautious about keeping the dust jackets out of their eager little hands. Then I realized one that they were too important to the story to keep them away, and two, these weren't exactly collector items! Still manage to still have most of them, among the ones I did not distribute when I retired

I have owned a few Tom Swift's over the years, very early on in my collecting I passed up a chance to buy a box full of Tom Swift titles in jacket. I had no interest at the time so I just passed on the box. I ended up trading the same lady a copy of a Jesse Stewart book for one of the Capt Hugh Fitzgerald (Baum) titles. I think it was Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea in the red cloth binding. We had a few other transactions over the years, but I can't remember much about them. I once had a copy of the Tom Swift and His Motorcycle in the over sized paperback Keds shoes edition. I think I had it for a day or two before I sold it.

>48 Keeline: yes I see that; most of my collection looks just like those and look lovely on the bookshelf, without whatever dj there was previously. Wonder when they started getting better designed ones, esp for children's books? Maybe when the caldecott awards started but I think that was 1937

>49 cindydavid4: I don't know of an Oz book from 1903. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was originally George M. Hill with a copyright of 1899 and a printing date of 1900 according to many sources. The next Oz book was The Marvelous Land of Oz which was originally published by Reilly & Britton in 1904. Most copies seen are not only after the publisher became Reilly & Lee but also after the color plates were dropped in the 1930s but before the sales spike because of the 1939 film. So there are a lot of copies of books without color plates that were sold and are found.

Although there were some jacket protectors before the 1970s, few booksellers or collectors had access to them until at least the 1970s or 1980s. A lot can happen to a jacket over the course of several decades of handling, especially if that was by children. I recently came upon some of the Random House Beginner Books from the 1960s in dust jacket. Most have proven to be first printings. It is so hard to find jackets on these and things like the 1940s Little Golden Books with intact jackets since the audience was not trained to handle the books well. It is a minor miracle that they survived at all. Enough do that comparisons of the Beginner Books have been made to identify which ones are the first printings. This is partly due to the large sale of these books. By 1968 the cumulative sale of the entire series was 55 million copies.

Knowing what would happen to unprotected jackets as you do, I have encountered either teachers or librarians who took the jackets off and put them in a drawer for safe keeping. The book may have had excess use but the jacket survived. When we acquired some caches of jackets like that, then it was our drawer that held them until we could find a matching book for not only the title but also the vintage/printing. As booksellers, people expected this from us. An individual might not have the same requirements.

James

>51 cindydavid4: As I mentioned, Grosset & Dunlap and some of the other similar publishers of series books started to make full-color dust jackets in the 1920s. The Radio Boys series, for example, started in 1922 and had full color jackets. Tom Swift, from the same publisher, did not get them until 1924.

The jackets for picture books from the 1930s had more color but were often a matte finish. I'm thinking back to the ones I have seen for Dr. Seuss titles from 1937 forward. Eventually the shinier covers started to become the norm.

Some of this comes down to the materials available which were evolving and the book designers started to take advantage of them.

James

>50 Bernarrd: I bought my first Tom Swift Keds books (Motor Cycle and Motor Boat) in the 1990s. I've had several since then and have upgraded them and passed along lesser copies.

A year or two ago I had some that were already somewhat damaged but packed in a cube-shaped box that was far too small for them. They were folded, bent, and destroyed. There were also some G&D hardcovers with the books and even these had their covers torn off. This was through Facebook Marketplace where there is no seller rating system so it's the wild west. Anything goes and there is little recourse. We lost out on that transaction.

Around the same time I got a chance to get a copy of the Keds Motor Boat with an extra wrapper. I had to pay a significant amount for this but figured that as a serious Tom Swift collector, I had to get it when it was available.



James

>52 Keeline: never mind; looked at the wrong copyright the 1903 was by baum and denslow but The latest copyright on this one is by the Bobbs-Merrill company in 1944. and the title is The Wizard of Oz, not the wonderful wizard of oz. This one was illustrated by evelyn copeland 'adapted from the famous pictures by W.W. Denslow'. Baums intro from 1900 is in there, (eta) We were talking upthread about Ruth Plumly Thompson being delgated to create more sequels. Wasnt sure if this was one of hers,or still Baums . Anyway its a nice copy tho not as old as Id like.

BTW if you read historic fiction, there is an excellent book about Maud Baum called finding dorothy Im really critical of some of these books but she does an excellent job of showing the connection between her and judy garland when the movie was made

, "I have encountered either teachers or librarians who took the jackets off and put them in a drawer for safe keeping."

yes, I did but then I decided instead to tack them up on the wall so the kids couldn't get to them unless they asked me and then we'd put it together with the book while we read. It was a great way for them to tell the book by the cover, and learn how to be careful (some where better than others on that lesson)

>55 cindydavid4: OK, in that case for The Wizard of Oz (same story shorter title), the 1903 date reflects when Bobbs-Merrill took over the copyright and publication for that book.

Oz publication and bibliographic details can be complex. This book is the best. It was $75 when in print and it may be out of print by now.

The book collector's guide to L. Frank Baum and Oz by Paul R. Bienvenue.

James

>49 cindydavid4: When jackets were first used they were mainly a covering to protect the books until they were sold. Some have speculated that booksellers removed many before placing the books on their shelves. Some were plain and some have just a very simple title and author on the jacket. Some of the slightly later jackets had ads for things like patent medicines on the jackets. As for colorful jackets, some publishers started color jackets earlier than others. Some of the early Billy Whiskers jackets were fairly colorful even if the books were fairly cheaply made. As for Oz book dust jackets, the jacket for "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was a light green paper with darker green printing to match the original cover of the book. The early jackets for "The Marvelous Land of Oz" were fairly plain also. The first fairly colorful Oz dust jack was for "Ozma of Oz" in 1907, and it was not what I would call a full color jacket, it was more of a two or three color printing. The 1908 title "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz" was the most colorful yet and had a gold background to the front panel image. Baum and OZ books are very complicated, and if you have an interest in them I would recommend buying a reference book on the topic before spending much money on a book. The Oz Club has a Bibliography and Paul R. Bienvenue did "The Book Collector's Guide to L. Frank Baum & OZ" which is a nice book and with many color illustration throughout the text. It is a more expensive book than the club Bibliography though. If you would just like to see some Baum and Oz jackets, the man at Facsimile Dust Jackets has a very large selection of facsimiles for Baum/Oz books. Sadly he can't reproduce books with gold and silver in the images very well because the printer used does not have those colors of ink. The Oz books stayed in print for many years and there are quite a few reprints on the market.

>54 Keeline: Yes that is a bit nicer than the copy that I had. Although as I said, I did not own it for very long. I sold my copy for $250 after paying around $100 for it. The dealer that bought it from me had it priced at $500, but he had it for some time. My copy did not have the wrapper that your copy has, but it was a fairly nice copy.

>56 Keeline: The last time I corresponded with Paul Bienvenue he said he still had copies available, but that was a year or so ago.

>56 Keeline: Thanks for the info. I paid 95, and its in great condition..

>44 Bernarrd: Thank you for recommending Burnhill! Finished the girl who drank the moon and am now reading her short story collection. Will be looking for her others

just noticed that in February 2019 Kelly was the Literary Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker at the 37th annual Life, the Universe, & Everything professional science fiction and fantasy arts symposium (love douglas adams)mActually was able to find her lecture on you tube, havent listened to it yet.

anyway thanks again!

>61 cindydavid4: I am glad you are enjoying her writing. I keep a record of my online purchases and the first Barnhill titles that I have a record of buying were 3 Advance Reading copies of The Witches Boy, Iron Hearted Violet and The Mostly True Story of Jack in December of 2015. I did not keep a record of the books I bought in a book shop or at the Friends of the Library warehouse, except for on a few occasions. I believe I found a copy of The Witches Boy somewhere before I bought those ARC's because I don't think I would have bought them if I had not read one of her books. Around the same time I ordered a copy of The Unlicensed Magician from PS Publishing in the Limited Signed edition, although the limited was not released until June of 2016, that publisher was always slow at releasing signed issues. I soon picked up all of her early books in Signed First Printings and I also have ARC's of all of her novel's and her book of short stories. I later decided to try to find copies of her nonfiction juveniles, although they can be hard to find in clean non ex library copies. I have all but three or four of them in nice condition and I have the rest with some library markings. I still keep an eye out for clean copies of those titles. I can't say that those books are great, but they are not bad considering what they are. I think she has a great writing style, you feel like she is talking to you as you read. Actually I did not think she would win any of the big awards, not that she did not deserve them. But so many awards like the Newbery are so political. It is seldom the best book that wins the award.

Have you read the taxidermists other wife? oh.my.god. Im not a big fan of horror but this was wonderful. Brabury had that same writing. there was one short story about a witch that I had to practicallly close my eyes while reading. But it was still good

Where do you generally get your books? I have one particular seller I like to buy from but have had some sucess with Ebay now and again (until I didn't).

And I dunno, I know children's books and while Im sure there were many the same year that were in the running, I do think she deserved this award (and yeah I take awards or end of the year book lists with a grain of salt)

>63 cindydavid4: I am not sure if I read that story or not. I read several of the stories mentioned on her site that had a link to the story. I don't think I ever read the whole book of Short stories "Dreadful Young Ladies" though. As I remember I looked at the book when it came and thought that I had already read several of the stories in the book and I never got around to looking to see what I had not read. I should dig the book out and read it. I did the same thing with a collection of stories by Manly Wade Wellman "The Valley So Low" I think. I wanted this book for a few years but the price was fairly high. When I finally found a reasonably priced copy I found that I had already read quite a few of the stories somewhere else. Maybe I read them in the original magazine appearances. I think I have all but around 6 or 7 of her short stories that are mentioned on her website. One was in Weird Tales and a few were in anthologies and were not reprinted in Dreadful Young Ladies.

I usually look on ABE and EBay for most of my books. I do go to a new bookstore every now and then or I may buy a new title from Amazon. I was going to a Friends of the Library Warehouse fairly often, but I have have not been there in a few years. I got a few nice books there, but I never bought a lot of books from them. Sometimes I would just buy for my Great Nieces. I like EBay because I can see an image of the book. If they do not have actual images of a book, I usually will not buy it unless it is very cheap. I see too many scammers on EBay. They put up an image of the best copy that they can find, but that is not the book you will get. I have a lot of sellers I avoid altogether. I will not buy from Zuber books. They just plain lied to me about a book I had ordered, said it had been shipped but had no tracking info on it. I finally got my money back. I should have known better to begin with, but I needed a book that they had listed and the price was not bad. But if they do not really have the book, it does not help me. They are one of the sellers that sell you a book, and then they try to find a copy that they can have shipped that is cheaper. I don't play that game.

For awhile now I have mainly been buying to fill a few gaps in various collections. Although I will buy something I just want to read. I have been trying to fill in collections for Robert Lawson, Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff, Edward Eager, Arthur Ransome and a few others. I am also always looking for unusual material for my John Bellairs collection. I have a full run of First Printings, but I still look for signed copies or Advance copies, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I did not mean that she should not have gotten the Newbery Award. I just think that the committee very seldom picks the best book, or one even close to the best book. Another case was "A Wrinkle in Time", not a book that you would think they would pick for the Newbery, although I am glad that it won. They are too much into fads with their picks.

Well Ive now read two of her books and looking for more! Found out she has a new one coming out in 2022 When Women were DragonsThink I'll read witches boy next. And talk about covers, I love hers! And I just noticed that the dragonfly from dreadfull young ladies is actually a braid! any idea of the illustrator

I know what you mean about awards; still miffed that the book March won the booker over the march Which I thought a much better book (tbh, I like Brooks non fiction, her background is as a journalist but don't care much for her fiction. ) Not that Doctorow needs any more awards but still....

I try to support my local bookstore so try to get as much as I can from there (I have a few discounts I use, and trade in lots of my boooks which helps) as well as the rare book seller in town. I like bookfinder.com - cant see the images, but there are some sellers on there who Ive had good luck with. Had on and off issues with Ebay but usually my purchase is as described.

I found a note that the cover of Dreadful Young ladies was by Sarah J. Coleman They often will mention the cover artist on the jacket flaps, usually the back one. I know that she has had other cover artists for other books, but I could not tell you off hand who they all were.

I was going to recommend The Unlicensed Magician, but I forgot that was in Dreadful Young Ladies. I read the stand alone book from PS Publishing. I was not able to get an advance copy of that title, their Advance copies are not east to find. But I did get one of the limited signed copies. The publisher still has the regular issue listed, but the limited was gone long ago. I just think it is very odd that they never mentioned that the book won the World Fantasy Award on their site.

I have not read March or The March, I mainly read Fantasy, Juveniles, and an occasional Mystery. I will read Occult Detective sometimes and some of the better Ghost Stories. I also read quite a bit of older fiction, either out of my own collection or what I can download as PDF's from Internet Archive or elsewhere. It is not my favorite way to read, off of a screen, but at times a book I want to read can be very expensive and very hard to find. So if I can find a PDF, I will read that. I just finished "The Caruthers Affair" by Will N. Harben who is best know for a Lost Race title that he wrote "The Land of the Changing Sun". Both titles are from the 1890's so you will not find them at a new bookstore. I have heard the Caruthers Affair compared to Sherlock Holmes, but the only resemblance I saw was that his sidekick was a Doctor. I guess it was not a bad mystery, but I would not call it great in any way. I think the solution was fairly obvious from early on in the book. I have not read his Lost Race yet, but I have heard it is fairly good for a Lost Race. They are not usually the best writing, but they are interesting at times for some of the ideas of the authors.

I do buy from some local bookstores when I want a new book, which is not all that often. Unfortunately the one good Children's Book Store will have a book I want, but not in a First Edition. I guess after 40 plus years of collecting, I find I want a First Edition if I am going to buy a new book. They seem to be aimed at School sales, so they buy what they think will sell to that market. I guess they go for what they can sell best. I will often ask about a title, only to find that they do not even know the book. They will order the book, but you never know what printing the book will be on a special order. So unless the book is just out, I will look elsewhere. I do buy from what they have on the shelf when I see something that looks interesting. But I seldom find the books they recommend very interesting. I just do not think their interests are the same as mine.

I went to a different local Children's Book Store "The Blue Manatee" for a book signing by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman, sometime back. I liked her writing from the time I first read a sample of her writing. She wrote "Book Scavenger" plus two sequels. She is supposed to be working on something outside of the series right now. I find her writing interesting and I always like a bibliomystery. I was reading an article online about her new book on the day her first book was released and I read a sample of her writing. I liked it quite a bit and decided to see if I could buy a signed copy of the book for my collection. The store that had her book release signing said they did not ship books and I was having problems finding someone who was going to have a signing who would ship. So I wrote to her by email and asked if she could tell me where I could get a signed copy. She said that a book store not far from where she lived would ship books, and she would be having a signing there in a few weeks. I think it surprised her to have a fan looking for her signed book so soon. I have all three of her books signed. I think she is a good writer, but considerably different from Barnhill. And I don't think her Book Scavenger books would be considered for the Newbery, not the right type of material for them, but then I did not think any Barnhill books would win either. And the fact that her books are a series is a almost a killer for them. Her books are popular with kids anyway. I felt very comfortable with her writing immediately. I find that many books just do not have a good feeling right from the beginning, and I know I will not like them.

Happy Holidays! Been thinking of you and realized I did not respond to this. hoping you and yours are well

Funny about signed books. At the indie bookstore I go to, all of the books of authors who have come (virtural or live) already have books signed before sale. Granted they aren't the books you are collecting, just didn't realize it would be hard to find them (I usually don't get them anyway for new books, Im more interested in signed rare)

Thanks for the recommendation. You have been spot on with several books so I'll look for book scavenger

Have you read Indian Summer by William Dead Howells? Its a book recommended in Readers Delight, a collection of the authors fav OOP books*. Never heard of the author, but apparently he was very popular at the time, he has a long list of books and he edited the Mark Twain Library book of humor Anyway found it through bookfinder. Liking the premise but its slow going. Probably distracted by other events.

Need to make a run to my rare bookstore for my birthday, see what goodies i can find.

* pre net, of course

ETA I totally misread your post and thought the Blue Manatee was a book. No wonder I couldn't find it!

I guess I should not have put the store name in quotes. The Blue Manatee was once called The Blue Marble but that name was licensed from a store of the same name in Northern Kentucky. I always thought that was a little odd because they were not really related. I ask the owner of the original Blue Marble about that years ago and she said they were approached about using the name and came up with an agreement and price for the use of the name. I guess the buyers of the name thought they would get business by being tied to the original store. Anyway after the store changed hands a few times the most recent owner changed the name, I guess so they would not have to pay the naming fee. Both stores are Children's book stores.

I have a few titles by William Dean Howells in my collection but mainly ones that are of a fantasy or supernatural nature like "Questionable Shapes" and "A Traveler from Altruria". I read a few of his books many years ago, but I do not think he is my type of writer. He wrote quite a few books and I used to look for his few Fantasy related titles when I was younger. I don't think most have enough fantasy content to interest me anymore. Not a bad writer as I remember, but a little slow in developing his story.

Actually I do not often recommend an author. From years of running a used bookstore I found that people have such different tastes that it is a hard thing to do. I once was asked by a woman that was home schooling her children what I would recommend and after she kept asking me I finally told her I always liked the book "Rabbit Hill" by Robert Lawson. She came back some time later and said she did not like books with talking animals. I felt like showing her the door, she never bought much anyway. Oh well, it just shows that you never know what someone may think. I think the real problem was that she seemed mainly interested in the historical rather than the fantasy.

Actually I am working on trying to complete my Robert Lawson collection of books he wrote or illustrated. I have collected his books for as long as I have collected books, but I decided around 15 or 20 years ago to try to find all of his books in a First Edition in jacket where one was issued. Most of the books are not too hard to find, but the jackets are very hard to find for some titles. Recently I have found several titles that he illustrated that are not in the usual lists of his works. I am still looking for more and trying to fill in the last few jackets that I do not own. I finally bought a First edition of "Slim" by William Wister Haines a few months back without a jacket, so I have all of his books in First editions although I still need 5 or 6 dust jackets which I may never find at a price that I would pay. I have a few of the jackets in facsimile jackets, like the jackets for the two William Wister Haines novels that he illustrated. The price of those books in jacket is more than I want to pay. Here is a link to my Lawson titles. I have not added his unknown titles to the list yet.

https://www.librarything.com/catalog/Bernarrd&tag=Robert+Lawson

Actually I do not often recommend an author. well youve given me several that Ive enjoyed! Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

been busy catching up on reading, I am in way too many groups here! Happy new year, happy reading!

Happy New year and good reading to you. I have been reading the original appearance of "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett in The American Magazine 1910-11. It has some small differences from the later book edition, and the illustrations are different. The magazine story was illustrated by J Scott Williams and I like his work very much. I am not familiar with his work, I assume he mainly did work for magazines. I like the Maria Kirk illustrations from the 1st book edition also, but these are different and interesting to see. I also searched for and found the magazine serial of "The Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner in Child Life 1938. I had heard that the magazine serial was different and wanted to see what it was like. It is much closer to the original 1924 edition than to the later 1942 and 1950 editions. It seems to be different from both the early and the later editions, I guess somewhere between the two, but closer to the original. A few names have been changed and the beginning was altered to make it less harsh for young readers. I have the 1924 and the 1942 editions in my collection. From what I have heard the 1950 edition is much the same as the 1942 edition.

I just received a book that I have wanted for several years now from Australia. It is an Occult Detective story by Uel Key titled Yellow Death. It is very hard to find, and I doubt that it is great writing, but I like Occult Detective stories and I have always been curious about the book. I read a previous book by the author titled The Broken Fang which was short stories, this is a novel length story. I can't say that I was impressed by that first book, but as I said I was curious about this title. I set the book aside when it came and the covers started to warp a bit. I have placed some books on top of it trying to flatten the covers out again. I have seen this type of thing before. I think it is caused by the differences in humidity from one place to the other. I guess I will have to let the book sit for awhile even though I really want to read it.

>70 Bernarrd: I have gathered some periodical editions of classic (children's) stories to compare with the book publications. These two you mention interest me and I'd like to get scans of them. I can probably find The American Magazine on one of the online sources like HathiTrust.org. I don't know about Child Life. I'm well aware of the 1924 Rand McNally edition called The Box-Car Children and its differences from the 1942 and 1950 and 1977 editions. It would be interesting to see what you saw in the serialized version.

ETA: I note from this page that the Child Life serial is between the 1924 text and the 1942 text and has a blending of elements, sort of an intermediate editing stage for it. So while it is not unknown among the deepest fans of these stories, probably few know it well.

Among the stories I have found in serial form are "Treasure Island" by "Captain George North" (RLS), "The Black Arrow", and "Kidnapped". I also looked up the Wells stories like "The Time Machine", "War of the Worlds", and "First Men in the Moon". Some of these have some differences between the UK and US serials and the UK and US books. I've also gathered "Pollyanna" and "The Return of Pollyanna" (aka Pollyanna Grows Up) by Porter, "The Five Little Peppers Midway" by "Margaret Sidney", and the Professor Challenger stories in serial form by Doyle. Some stories were also serialized in publications like The American Boy or Boys' Life or St. Nicholas Magazine. It is fun to see the text differences and the illustrations which are often different from the books.

I collect Jules Verne so I have also gathered periodical versions of his stories. Some are French serials or feuilleton versions of some of his stories. But others are in US, UK, Canadian, etc. newspapers or magazines. Just by looking at the chapter counts several differences become apparent such as the wide differences in post-novel serializations of titles like The Mysterious Island, one of his longer stories which fills three volumes in some editions.

Recently we bought a "copy press" (which most erroneously call a "book press") and we had some flooding in our garage. I was able to save a couple books by pressing them flat as they dried.

James

>71 Keeline: The Child Life magazines can be found on internet archive. I have the issues for The American Magazine in my collection, but they can be found on HathiTrust. The Secret Garden runs from November 1910 through August of 1911. And The Boxcar Children or The Box-Car Adventure as it is called in the magazine runs from February through September of 1938.

I have a book press myself somewhere, but it needs cleaning and repainting. I bought it years ago at a flea market for $10. I guess I should try to get it back in good shape again sometime. My book did not get wet, it is really more a problem of a change in the humidity I believe. Half of the problem is that the English book has very thin boards. The book seemed to be fine when I unwrapped it, but when I looked at it a few days later the boards had started to bow outwards. I will try just putting weight on the book and if that does not work I might try introducing a bit of humidity into the air near the book. Maybe between the added humidity and the added weight the book may go back into shape. If I had been thinking about it I would have put the book under weight when it arrived. It is not the first book I have gotten from the UK that has done this. I think our houses in America are kept a lot drier and that is part of the cause.

I have read a bit about the early appearances of The Time Machine. I own a copy of the First American edition published by Holt in 1895 with his name misspelled as H. S. Wells. From what I remember there were two or three different attempts at serializing the story. I think one was never completed because the editor left the magazine before it was completed. From what I have read there were differences in all of the different editions. The American edition preceded the UK edition, but both stories were different in some ways. As a collector of Science Fiction/Fantasy I have always had an interest in H. G Wells, but I do not have a large collection of his books. I do own several of his titles though. My main interest is what he wrote before 1900.

>71 Keeline: The changes I noted in The Boxcar Children between the 1924 edition and the 1938 magazine serial were mainly at the beginning of the story. In the magazine story the parents are both dead at the beginning. There is no mention that the father was an alcoholic. I would suggest that these were changes that could have come from the editor of Child Life. The last name of the children and the grandfather was also changed and maybe the name of the doctor. I do not think there were many changes to the story besides those changes. I felt that this story was much closer to the 1924 edition than it was to the 1942 edition. I somewhat suspect that the 1942 edition was changed because it became a supplemental reader for some schools. The changes may have been made to bring it more in line with other readers. I felt that the 1942 edition left out quite a bit of detail that was in the earlier editions. There may have been other changes that I missed, I have not read the 1924 edition in several years. I also noticed in 1942 edition that they no longer had the children drinking from streams and creeks. They found pumps or fountains to drink from.

I think i mentioned this before, but I hate stories being changed 'for the children" If they can handle Grimms Fairy Tales, they can handle unpleasant situations. A well know example of this is when the Harry Potter book the philosophers stone was published in the states, the title was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone" because the kids wouldn't know what a philosopher was.....sigh

This however is a change I can accept "I also noticed in 1942 edition that they no longer had the children drinking from streams and creeks. They found pumps or fountains to drink from." and yet kids should learn about different ways people got water. ..ah well. I have a much newer edition (probably from the 70s) it would be interesting to compare the two and see what esle was change!

ETA I have the one from the 50s, my big sisters copy

I know what you mean about the change in humidity affecting book covers. I have a lovely 1st East of the sun, West of the moon That I bought in San Fransisco. After spending some time at my very dry desert home, the covers started curling. I put stacks of books on it, fortunatly it wasn't too bad by the time I noticed

Love HG Wells, and FYI the New Yorker this week has a very good review of a new bio of him The Young H.G. Wells:Changing the World this might be interesting for books pre 1900.

>72 Bernarrd:

The Child Life magazines can be found on internet archive. I have the issues for The American Magazine in my collection, but they can be found on HathiTrust. The Secret Garden runs from November 1910 through August of 1911. And The Boxcar Children or The Box-Car Adventure as it is called in the magazine runs from February through September of 1938.

Yes, I have managed to harvest the relevant pages from both locations and have been cleaning up the latter. It should be interesting to make the comparisons at some point.

For some reason, one of the serials dropped a chapter (13 as I recall) for "War of the Worlds." Then some content was added for the book editions. It makes for something of an evolution of the story. Here, too, I'll bet that the Wells scholars and deep fans know of these but most people probably think that many of these "classic" stories have only one text.

One of the condition factors for books is foxing. I have noticed it more from books which were printed in England or where the paper came from there. It seems like it might be related to the differences in water and humidity in general that is different between the U.K. and U.S. Some books have more foxing than others so it seems to be environmental. It is interesting that foxing has long been a mystery with no clear origin. Perhaps it is better understood now than it was in the older reference volumes that I have seen over the years.

I trust that your book can be stabilized so you can enjoy it. The copy press I bought at a printer's fair in Los Angeles was nicely painted. I don't know if it had been restored. I bought it and a galley proof press at this event in October. The latter has some rust that I need to work on more but it is already much better.

James

>74 cindydavid4: Yes, I have to assume that the change of drinking source came from health concerns. It was probably getting to the point, or past the point, where it was very unhealthy to drink from untreated water sources. It always makes me wonder why some changes were made to books like the change of the name Cordyce to Alden, but the water source changes makes some sense.

I once had a Grabhorn Press book I had just picked up and I took it to show it to some friends the Nichols. It was a large thin book, I am afraid I do not remember the title, but on the way home I sat the book on the passenger seat next to me and I had only driven a few blocks when I though that the sun was fairly strong and maybe I should cover the book. It has already started to warp from the direct sunlight. Luckily the book was ok after getting it home and letting it sit under a pile of books. It was not really my type of book so I later sold it.

I found a copy of the Grabhorn Press title that I had years ago. It was "Ace High: The 'Frisco Detective or The Girl Sport's Double Game" by CE Tripp - 1948. I thought it was interesting, but it was not really my type of book.

I will keep an eye out for the Wells Bio.

>75 Keeline: As I remember one of the issues of The Secret Garden serialization has a frontispiece that is set apart from the other pages. Yes, I see that the November 1910 issue has an illustration on page 2 while the story runs on pages 17-31.

I know you are in to fantasy books, but another LTer was mentioning his collection of older sci fi books that I thought might interest you. https://www.librarything.com/topic/337586#7728935

>78 cindydavid4: Thanks for the link. I have a few of these titles, I have small collection of Andre Norton (Star Man's Son) and I have some of the Avalon published titles. The problem with the Avalon titles is that they were originally issued with old black asphaltic-edged jacket protectors that can leave marks on the book and jacket. I am sure they were fine when they were made but the black edge material deteriorated over time and it becomes like tar. You see other older titles with these protectors every now and then and the best thing to do is to replace them as soon as possible. This is one place where I would not keep the covers because they originally were issued with the book. I guess some collectors might remove the covers and file them away, but I just pitch them when I see them. I found a really nice First Edition of "Alas Babylon" by Pat Frank that had one of these protectors on it and it caused the only damage that the book or jacket had. I was able to clean up most of the marks made, but a few remain that would not come off. I think many of these books were aimed at libraries and so the pre-covered dust jackets must have been a selling point. They were having a discussion over on the Limited Edition Club group about the original plain glassine wraps that were on many of the books, keep or pitch. They almost always brown over time and can leave a brown stain on the end pages or cover. Some thought they should keep them and some said pitch them. A very few asked about replacing them with new. I am not sure if you can buy glassine like they made years ago or not. They sell glassine, but it seems to be different now.

>79 Bernarrd: RE: the LEC glassine wrappers. These were never intended to be permanent, but only to provide protection to the binding during shipment. I always toss them, especially---as you noted---because they brown with age due to their high acidity. Some collectors replace them with wrappers they make out of Duralar film. I haven't done that myself, as I am not constantly removing them from and replacing them into their slipcases. The minimal wear they get when I do doesn't concern me.

>80 Glacierman: , the same was said about the paper dust jackets. Most early ones had no or little printing on them. In time publishers saw the value of advertising other publications on them. They also began to evolve to what we know today with simple illustrations becoming colorful glossy items that don't merely protect the book in the warehouse and during shipment but also provide an inducement to purchase it in a bookstore.

I agree that a glassine is fairly generic. But collectors will want to have something like that be as complete as possible.

But it is your book to do what you want with it. I know series book collectors who, as kids, tossed the illustrated jackets because they liked the uniform appearance of the book covers. In this case, they threw away a lot of the potential value of their books.

James

I think the keep/pitch discussion for things like glassine varies collector by collector. And I have seen different types of glassine. Some seems to be almost like a wax paper while other glassine is more of a tissue paper. I personally feel the waxy glassine causes less issues down the road. I normally decide book by book if it is best to keep or pitch something like glassine. I actually had one case where a dust jacket was wrapped in a glassine wrap and it protected the dust jacket quite well over time. I assume it was added years ago by a collector on a First American Edition of Arthur Ransome's "Secret Water". I bought the book fairly cheaply just to see what the jacket was like under the browned glassine. It was actually quite nice on the outer surface, but the inside surface was browned in spots. Not a big problem for me. I tossed the glassine in this case and put the jacket into a dust jacket protector. But the jacket shows less fade than I have seen on other copies of this jacket.

I think some collectors place a higher value on the book being as issued, and the lack of glassine would count against a book that originally had it when new. When it is removed your book is no longer as issued. But as in cases of the dust jacket protectors mentioned in 79 above, you have to weigh in possible damage that could be done to the book by keeping the original item. And glassine can cause damage at times also.