# Rare books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 8, 2017, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118 "2017-05-08T11:18:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mavic\_Chen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mavic\_Chen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mavic_Chen)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/21 "2017-05-09T13:22:09Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > I collect rare books. Most often first editions, signed; but extremely rare first editions that are unsigned are welcome in my collection too. > > Does anybody else indulge in this hobby? Do you have a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows by Aristide Torchia 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/22 "2017-05-10T02:34:47Z")
> [@Mavic\_Chen](#): > > Do you have a copy of The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows by Aristide Torchia 😉 If you know someone with the ‘railway station’ copy of The 7 Pillars of Wisdom, we can swap 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/23 "2017-05-10T02:47:07Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Back in the late 80’s I lived in East Lansing, Michigan, and there was a used bookshop called Curious Books. It’s still there. 🆒 > **[Curious Book Shop](http://www.curiousbooks.com/)** > > Used and antique books and > memorabilia ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/24 "2017-05-10T09:51:35Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > I’d love to get Buzz Aldrin’s autograph. I’ve got it, in one of his books. Also John Glenn’s and Scott Carpenter’s, in their memoirs. Most recent acquisitions include first editions of Dorothy Parker’s _Death and Taxes_ (signed by the author, with marginalia by her) and _After Such Pleasures_, also signed. I also managed to acquire the first edition of _Two Little Savages_, by Ernest Thompson Seton. I’d love to get a first of _Wild Animals I Have Known_ by him. It’s a fun hobby! ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/25 "2017-05-11T01:45:37Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > Back in the late 80’s I lived in East Lansing, Michigan, and there was a used bookshop called Curious Books. > > I picked up and flipped through a home health care book from the very early 1900’s. It was authored by a female physician, more rare for those days. It was suprisingly frank and sensible, especially when it came to “female” issues, like periods and puberty. I didn’t buy it, as I had not need, but it rather impressed me. > > Much better than an antique book I saw in the house of a friend. It was part of a series and was called “What Every Young Man Should Know” It was the kind of book the spoke of “self abuse”, and the author assured readers he knew young men who’d gone insane from the practise. My local used book store in the Cheltenham Shopping Center, circa 1977, was where the bookseller recommended that I pick up a used paperback copy of [The Hite Report On Female Sexuality](https://www.amazon.com/Hite-Report-National-Female-Sexuality/dp/1583225692). I didn’t go insane. But I sure did learn an awful lot about what wimmin like and an equal lot about what wimmin DON’T like. 😃 The oldest book I own is from the WWII era. It’s a Blondie and Dagwood hardback book. Yes, back then, they were in a series of patriotic books. I’ve great respect for antiquities and adore books. Our tiny apartment is overflowing with them. And yet, I cannot get into the market of buying rare and old books. I think it’s because I wouldn’t want to NOT handle them. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/26 "2017-05-12T08:30:00Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > … And yet, I cannot get into the market of buying rare and old books. I think it’s because I wouldn’t want to NOT handle them. Handle them. They are books, they are meant to be read; they are not meant to be museum pieces. I read my rare books. They are fascinating, not only for what they contain, but how they feel. Rich, thick pages, deckle edges, the binding, the smell–these are real books, meant to be read and enjoyed. Of course, you want to treat them right, but there is no reason that you cannot handle and read them. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/27 "2019-04-28T05:04:58Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Most recent acquisitions include first editions of Dorothy Parker’s _Death and Taxes_ (signed by the author, with marginalia by her) and _After Such Pleasures_, also signed… Bringing this one forward to report that my bookseller located another Dorothy Parker for me: _Enough Rope_, published in 1926. Unsigned, but with an intact dust jacket. Slight restoration to the dust jacket; listed as “extremely good” condition. I had to buy it. After all, this is the book that gave us such aphorisms as, “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses,” and “Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.” I don’t know why collecting Dorothy Parker interests me so much, except perhaps that she contributed a few aphorisms to the English language. At any rate, now that I have _Enough Rope_, it’s time to get a first edition of _Sunset Gun_. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2019, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/28 "2019-04-28T16:33:59Z")
I went to Boston recently and stopped at the famous Brattle Book Store. Never got more than 10 feet from the front desk. That’s because their “comics” section was right up front. Mostly miscellaneous stuff of no real interest and little prose humor. Except for two whole shelves of P. G. Wodehouse. I don’t collect Wodehouse - he’s British and fiction and a bibliographical nightmare - but I noticed a biography of him that looked interesting. And then another. And another. I found ten books _on_, not by, Wodehouse on those two shelves. Some were even signed. _P. G. Wodehouse Man and Myth_ was signed by Barry Phelps, whose signature is very distinctive (think Trump’s with a capital B). And Francis Donaldson signed his _PG Wodehouse: The Authorized Biography_. To Charles Gould, the author of the Wodehouse chapbook _The Toad at Harrow_. And some stuff was stuck in that book. Signed “Barry” in that distinctive handwriting. Included was a letter to Gould trashing Donaldson’s book (“mad, bad and dangerous to read”) along with a page of factual errors he’d found. And a page from his forthcoming manuscript (_Man and Myth_) commenting on _The Toad at Harrow_ and asking for comments. Ten dollars each. Does anyone know of a Wodehouse scholar who’d like some good dish? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/29 "2019-04-30T18:15:48Z")
I don’t, but my uncle \*only \*collects signed first editions of books that were later turned into movies. He’s got the money for it, too! ---
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/30 "2019-04-30T19:54:00Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > The lack of an ISBN is probably all that saved it from the “Scanner people”, who, IMHO, are ruining these sales. What are scanner people? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/31 "2019-04-30T20:02:05Z")
> [@peedin](#): > > What are scanner people? They show up at book sales and places like the Salvation Army with a scanner in hand. A quick scan and they can see if the book has any real value. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2019, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/32 "2019-04-30T20:29:38Z")
I don’t specifically collect books _because_ they’re rare. I buy books that appeal to me and sometimes they’re rare. I like early 20th C. books with decorative and/or interesting covers. Some of these are rare and expensive; others are dirt cheap. I do have a first edition of the American edition of _Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone_ which is apparently worth a good bit. I only bought it because I read a review (in Publisher’s Weekly, IIRC), and that was before the hoopla really exploded. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/33 "2019-05-01T02:22:23Z")
I own only three books signed by the authors. One is a cheap paperback, signed by Spider Robinson. Another is **Eve** Goldens biography of John Gilbert, which she was kind enough to sign for me. I mailed it to her, along with postage for returning it, she signed and sent it back to me! Yay! BTW, this post is a landmark, my 20000th post. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118/34 "2019-05-01T09:57:24Z")
One of my prized possessions is a copy of the novel _Millbank_. It’s one of the few books that Laura Ingalls mentions her family owning in the Little House series. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rare-books/786118.md?page=1)