Quick note on some wonderful William Black volumes

I have just obtained to small sets for a client that I thought I would mention as they are both quite wonderful, very different but connected. The older set is the 1924-25 three volume set from Nonesuch Press, The Writings of William Black and the 1927 Nonesuch volume, The Life of William Blake (bound to match the earlier volumes). This is a lovely numbered, limited edition set, typical of Nonesuch (quarterbound with marbled boards, very nice production values) and includes a handful of plates in each volume.

The other set is the Blake Trust/Tate Gallery, William Blake: The Illuminated Books six volume set. This is a richly illustrated collection, in color and b/w and supported by well researched and well crafted text. While it lacks the look and feel of the Nonesuch set, it is arguably the definitive reference for his illustrated materials.

They are, together, a really wonderful collection of books. If you have not seen/held them, I strongly encourage you to seek them out.

yet another of my flaws...

I have a strange and rather obsessive love of cataloging books. There is something about tracking down a volumes history, evaluating and grading its condition...if you are lucky, discovering and exploring an interesting provenance. It is way too much fun.

Then again, I am also somewhat fond of jacketing books as well . I have spent most of my life as a tech geek (and remain so)...I think I am also developing a very serious book geek trait as well.

Catching up…

Well, I did a horrid job of late with my intent to post once a day or so. I apologize to those who send me snippy, good-hearted notes and to those who did not, but were annoyed by my silence. I have been very busy of late and have failed to carve out those few minutes a day to post. I will strive to do better going forward. I have posted, below, a number of posts that I started offline over the last few weeks but did not get to a point where I felt I should post them (that is, most were of the single sentence, “expand this later today” variety.) It is interesting…and annoying…how easily “later today” becomes “tomorrow”…

Book sale update…

It turns out it was a great weekend for book sales. We also attended the Baxter Societies annual book sale and landed several additional great buys. They had some great K. D. Wiggins (of Rebecca fame), a reasonable number of firsts and several signed items. I picked up a signed copy of her Dickens tribute and two lovely copies of Susanna and Sue (illustrated by NC Wyeth) and a number of other items.

The surprise, I think, is how few other dealer’s attended this sale. The Baxter Society [LINK] is a bibliophilic society here in Portland. This sale raises money for one of the annual awards they give and books for the event are donated by members and supporters in the community (e.g. the Maine Women’s Writers Collection donated much of the Wiggin material this year). There are/were some wonderful items there. I look forward to the event next year.

I loath heat...

Hot…Hot…Hot…and humid. I want to curl into a fetal position at the bottom of a cool pond. Instead we when to S. Berwick to the 25th Annual Strawberry Festival. Arts and crafts, good food, bad food (literally and figuratively) and the S.O. Jewett house. A nice way to spend a day.

I love a good sale…

So I went to the Brunswick Public Library book sale preview event this afternoon. Someday, I will start just doing what my wife says without questioning here. I have a very funny, low-grade negative “thing” about these library sales. There is no doubt there are some good things to be found, and many great reading copies…but I often, before such events, feel like my time would be better spent elsewhere, etc…especially if I have to travel a bit for it. Thus far, every one we have attended as resulted in at least one or two jems…sometimes more. This preview was exceptional.

We arrived to the preview a bit early…there were already a dozen or so in line before us. The people-watching quality around such events is always high, and this was no exception. This event is quite large, on the order of 40,000 books, and it is in a nice college town so we were hopeful some nice items might surface. We joined the “Friends of the Library” so as to be eligible to attend the preview and waited. We were allowed 10 books each with our two special tickets (which was nice, as it allowed you to get a fair amount at the preview, but guarantees that there will still be some good stuff left for the event proper. The doors opened and the swarm descended.

It is interesting to watch how people split off. There are those who make a bee-line to the modern fiction, those who head to art books, gardening or non-fiction. I’d love, someday, to interview these folks and determine the underlying logic to their foci…I think there might be an interesting article on the traits and habits of book hunters. Suzanne headed off to skim the modern lit tables (8-10) for early, interesting items. Aidan and I headed to the “old and collectible” tables (2). We found some great gems in both areas. We picked up a nice collection of 5 early Grosset photoplays in their rather uncommon DJs, which was nice…and a few other nice items. The real finds, however, came from the oldies table. I picked up a handsome first edition of Winnie the Pooh, two early limp leather bound Roycrofters volumes and a limited edition, two volume piece from the Mosher Press (a well known Portland pirate) and a first edition (in French) of G. Stein’s biography of Picasso.

We paid our $3 per book and went out and celebrated at Friendly’s. I’m am not certain who was more pleased with the day…me with our wonderful purchases or Aidan immediately following his Monster Mash Sunday. It was a very good day.

Howard Pyle and King Arthur…

Well, I have yet another set of books I simply love. They are the Brandywine Edition of the Arthurian legends by Pyle. This particular set, bound in red, with nice gilt and pastedowns, also includes a color frontispiece by each of Pyle’s 5 well known protégées (NC Wyeth, et al) and a “recollection” by each of of Pyle. The stories are wonderful, the illustrations (by all) are outstanding and the books themselves are simply lovely on the shelf. I love books like this.

Portland Book Fair...

Well, the Annual Portland book fair was today and was great fun (but for the heat and humidity…which was painful). It is the only annual book event here in Maine, so a number of the local dealers who might not otherwise attend an event of this size, etc. go in order to support the community and all that good, heart-warming stuff. It was the second year I attended…again with little hope that I would sell anything, but looking forward to seeing the people who show up and the local marketing value is substantial.

Set-up was Sat. afternoon (hotter and moister than Sun, as it turned out). Suzanne was out of town, as I mentioned earlier, but Aidan helped me set up. For the record, Aidan was wonderful. That a 7 year old would not go stark raving made in 90++ heat and humidity, surrounded by a bunch of tedious adults, all of whom are a bit testy and playing with books he has very little/no interest in is remarkable…that he would be charming and wonderful to everyone and helpful to boot made me remarkably proud of him. To be fair, having a GameBoy helped a great deal.

We actually sold one book on Saturday, a 100% increase from last year and above what I anticipated for this year…so the registration was covered and all was good with the world. More importantly, it appears I lined up a cataloging project out of it and a new client who may well keep me busy for years. So overall, it was a great event for us. We sold a book, secured work, caught up with old friends and made one or two new ones. Good times were had by all.

Young book collector/dealer

My son has two miniature books (one a gift and one that he purchased) that he is bringing to the Portland Book Fair this Sunday. He is such a riot about them. He helped to catalog them and has memorized the publisher and pub. dates of each. He also said that he intends to use some of the money if either sell to buy more so he can have more for the next year. A book dealer is born (and a really cute one, at that).

Red rot

If you have ever had a leather volume suffer from red rot, you know what it is…if you have not, you have something to look forward to. I have found something that actually seems to stabilize red rot without changing a leather’s color or its look and feel. The product is called Cellugel and it appears to really work. I am not certain I would try it would try it with suede, but it works wonders with harder leathers.

101 reasons why Bookhound is fabulous…

OK, not 101, but several heartfelt ones. It is not often that I really “love” a bit of software. Bookhound is a cataloging database, for those who might not know, that also supports some rather strong customer management, inventory controls and catalog creation. It is build on the database FoxPro and is, thus, a very robust and stable relational database. What Alan Green has built onto the core of FoxPro is an intuitive and almost fun to use front end…worth every penny of the cost. At least as good is the great support he provides when one does unusual/dumb things and needs help with repair and how open and interested he is in development suggestions. I can not recommend this product highly enough.