Dichroic Reflections

Record of Acquisitions

Today I went halfway through Phoenix (meaning, I drove almost as far as I do to
work) for a mondo used book sale that is apparently held every year by local
charity. This thing filled one of the exhibit buildings; I'd guess it covered at
least an acre. I spent $48.50 on eighteen pounds of books, (yes, I weighed
them when I got home) which gave me a new understanding of Anne Fadiman's essay in
which she describes a birthday when her husband took her to a new (to them) used
book store and they emerged with nineteen pounds of used books. In case you have
not had the pleasure of a similar haul, I can report that eighteen pounds of
books, carried in plastic shopping bags, is fully enough to stretch one's arms by
a couple of inches. Next year -- you bet I'm going back! - I will either grab one
of the few shopping carts they have there or take an old suitcase on
wheels.

Actually, of the money I spent, $40 was on three books in
the Rare and Used section. I've rated the conditions mostly for fun, and tried to
rate on the low side:

• The Master of Ballantrae, by Robert
  Louis Stevenson, $8. Fine to VG 4to, blue cloth binding, no DJ. The pages look
  new, but there's just a tiny bit of wear on the bottom edges of the binding. It's
  a Heritage Press edition, from 1965. I haven't read much RLS, and have always
  figured I probably should.
• Barchester Towers, by
  Anthony Trollope, $4. Fine 8vo, except maybe a little dirt in the rough page
  edges. Leatherbound edition from the International Collectors Library, not dated.
  No DJ, but it's still got the insert describing how the binding was copied from an
  1891 edition of some other book entirely (WTF?), so I doubt it's even been read.
  There is a tiny bit of scuffing to the edges of the pasted endpapers, though. I
  like what Trollope I've read and expect to find this one much easier on the eyes
  than some of the tiny-printed modern editions I've seen.
• My
  real indulgence: The Oxford Book of English Verse, chosen and edited by Sir
  Arthur Quiller Couch. It's a frivolous use of $26 because I only just bought a
  copy of the book from Powell's -- but I couldn't resist. It's VG -- only a little
  bit of wear the gilding on the pages' edges -- with a Good DJ, in a nice little
  dark-blue 16mo that I think is copied from the original 1900 binding. Now I have
  to decide whether to sell one of my duplicates, take one to work, or maybe just
  give one away.

The other thirteen books cost me a
grand total of $8.50. Most of them were marked $.50 to $1, only a
couple were $2 or $3, and though the sale only lasts one weekend, they
mark everything except the Rare and Unusuals at half price on Sunday. Yee-
ha!

• Boswell's Life of Johnson: the only pb I bought,
  but it's in almost perfect shape -- looks like someone bought for a class and
  opened it but never quite read all the way through. It's abridged (by Frank Brady)
  but I have a feeling that may be all to the good. That is, if Brady didn't do the
  sort of expurgation poor Sam'l Pepys seems so subject to, but I have a feeling
  Boswell was less prone to showing his idol as having any coarseness anyway,
  despite Johnson's own writings.
• Kitty Foyle, by
  Christopher Morley, because I like the Parnassus books and especially the his book
  about Philadelphia. Good condition, clothbound 8vo, quite possibly a 1st ed -- all
  it says is Copyright 1939. Has an address label from a previous owner, that
  unfortunately came up with the price tag, but that is old enough not to have a zip
  code.
• Upstairs, Downstairs, by John Hawkeworth,
  because whatthehell, someone liked it enough to make a TV show out of. (Someone on
  PBS (or was it BBC?) so there may be some taste involved. VG 8vo with Good
  DJ.
• Mrs. 'Arris Goes to New York, by Paul Gallico. I
  like Gallico; a few of his books, like For the Love of Seven Dolls, were a
  wee bit disturbing (though still good) but the predeccor to this one was nothing
  but charming. A 16mo (I measured!) VG with Good DJ. I expect to enjoy this quite a
  lot, but only for about half an hour or so.
• Deafness and
  Cheerfulness, by A.W. Jackson. Good to VG but for a tiny bit of wear on the
  binding corners, in miraculous condition for something that appears to be the
  original 1901 pressing. Has names of two previous owners, both of which look to be
  written with dip pens. An odd little book I'd never heard of, about dealing with
  becoming deaf. No idea hy I bought it except that it looked interesting and cost
  only about a quarter. I'd give it to my mother-in-law, who does have hearing loss,
  but am not sure if she'd like it.
• "Where Did You Go?"
  "Out" "What Did You Do?" "Nothing", by Robert Paul Smith. VG 8vo with Fair DJ.
  Looked amusing -- written in the 1950s about being a kid in the 1920s.
  
• Auntie Mame, by Patrick Dennis. Good ex-library 8vo,
  with DJ and plastic cover. I've always liked both the msical and the book
  (previously read from the library, but picked this up mostly because I had just
  grabbed:
• Around the World With Auntie Mame, by
  Patrick Dennis. Good 8vo, in cloth binding. Never read this one before -- I didn't
  even know it existed.
• Famous Prefaces. My second
  volume from the Harvard Classics, but this one is leatherbound and would be Fine
  if the cover hadn't cracked near the spine. (Well, there's also a pulled-off-a-
  full-shelf indent in the top of the spine.) Prefaces from Caxton, Knox, Raleigh,
  Newton, Hugo, Whitman, and others. It seems like an odd choice of things to
  collect, but should be interesting to read.
• The State of
  the Language, ed. by Leonard Michaels and Christopher Ricks. Never heard of
  either, or most of the writers they include (barring Kingsley Amis and Anthony
  Burgess), but I have an abiding interest in the English language and its changes,
  and a shelf of books on the subject. Fine 8vo with a Good
  DJ.
• Penrod Jashber, by Booth Tarkington. Fair to
  Good, no DJ. I like Tarkington, I like Penrod, and I didn't know about this one
  before.
• The Nursery Rhyme Murders, by Agatha
  Christie. VG, with what would be a Good DJ but I got a bit of water on it while
  carrying it in from the truck, so we'll see. Dame Agatha's were the only adult
  mysteries I read for years and years, which may be just as well because I could
  read them at 10, when I might have been too callow for Sayers. I still like and
  enjoy her, though she doesn't inspire love as DLS does. This is a collection of
  three books whose titles are based on nursery rhymes: A Pocket Full of Rye,
  Hickory Dickory Death, and The Crooked House, so I get Poirot and
  Marple as well as Inspector Tavernor (of whom I've never
  heard).
• And finally, The Life and Times of Hercule
  Poirot, by Anne Hart. Fine, ex-library with DJ and plastic cover. My Christie-
  only days were pretty much also Poirot only, though I gradually learned to like
  Miss Marple even better, so I expect I'll enjoy this if Hart has done a decent
  job.

Rudder has already pointed out that $48 for 13
books is not such a bargain if they require spending several hundred dollars for
another bookshelf! The hard decision will be whether to sign my name in them. I
have been doing so with new books, because I buy my books to read, not to sell,
and because I enjoy seeing former owners' names in my used books. But in some of
these cases, a name could really reduce the value of the book. Maybe I'll sign
them, but use pencil in cases where it might matter. What do you all do?