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 
It’s still there. 
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.