Modern Book Collecting: A Basic Guide to All Aspects of Book Collecting: What to Collect, Who to Buy from, Auctions, Bibliographies, Care, Fakes and ... Investments, Donations, Definitions, and More - Softcover

Wilson, Robert A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1602399859 ISBN 13: 9781602399853

Verlag: Skyhorse, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Modern Book Collecting offers advice that answers all the basic questions a book lover and collector might have—what to collect and where to find it, how to tell a first edition from a reprint, how to build an author collection, how to get the best price from dealers, how to understand the prices and rarity of books, and more. With a handy dictionary of terms used in auction and dealer catalogs and a new section on Internet resources, this is a must-have guide for book lovers.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert A. Wilson was proprietor of the famous Phoenix Bookshop in New York City. He is a passionate writer and authored of bibliographies of Gertrude Stein, Gregory Corso, and Denise Levertov. Wilson specializes in rare books and manuscripts.

Nicholas A. Basbanes is a writer and journalist. His bestselling book A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction.

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Modern Book Collecting

A Basic Guide to All Aspects of Book Collecting-What to Collect, Who to Buy From, Auctions, Bibliographies, Care, Fakes and Forgeries, Investments, Donations, Definitions, and More

By Robert A. Wilson, Nicholas A. Basbanes

Skyhorse Publishing

Copyright © 2010 Robert A. Wilson
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60239-985-3

Contents

ALSO BY ROBERT A. WILSON, 
Title Page, 
Copyright Page, 
Dedication, 
INTRODUCTION, 
FOREWORD, 
PREFACE, 
CHAPTER ONE - WHAT TO COLLECT, 
CHAPTER TWO - HOW TO BUILD AN AUTHOR COLLECTION, 
CHAPTER THREE - STARTING WITH AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR, 
CHAPTER FOUR - IT'S NEVER TOO LATE, 
CHAPTER FIVE - DEALERS AND COLLECTORS, 
CHAPTER SIX - BUYING AT AUCTION, 
CHAPTER SEVEN - OTHER SOURCES, 
CHAPTER EIGHT - COLLECTOR'S CONDITION, 
CHAPTER NINE - HOW TO IDENTIFY FIRST EDITIONS, 
CHAPTER TEN - BIBLIOGRAPHIES, 
CHAPTER ELEVEN - A BOOK PRODUCTION, 
CHAPTER TWELVE - THE CARE AND PROTECTION OF YOUR COLLECTION, 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - FAKES, FORGERIES, AND FACSIMILES, 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - INVESTMENT, 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - DONATING OR SELLING YOUR COLLECTION TO AN INSTITUTION, 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - DEFINITION OF TERMS, 
APPENDIX ONE - LIST OF BOOK AUCTION FIRMS HANDLING BOOKS OF INTEREST TO COLLECTORS, 
APPENDIX TWO - SOURCES FOR MODERN FIRST EDITIONS, 
APPENDIX THREE - CLUBS FOR BOOK COLLECTORS, 
APPENDIX FOUR - THE FIFTY MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE PUBLISHED, 
SINCE THE END OF WORLD WAR II, 
APPENDIX FIVE - RESOURCES FOR ANTIQUE BOOKS, 
INDEX, 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, 
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR, 
A NOTE ON THE TYPE, 

CHAPTER 1

WHAT TO COLLECT

A true book collector knows whether he is one or not, just as the old saying has it about being in love. A genuine bibliophile is born rather than made. Thus "what to collect" is a question that answers itself. A collector collects what fascinates him. The fascination, in fact, comes before the collection, because most collectors do not begin to collect deliberately. The first step, inevitably, is buying books that reflect one's interest in a subject or in an author in order to read them. Whether or not they are rare or hard to get is secondary.

My own experience is a case in point. I have a complete collection of Gertrude Stein books; I began to buy them in the first place simply because I wanted to read them. Virtually none were in print. In fact, as recently as 1960, before the intense revival of interest in her work began, only one of her more than sixty titles was available. Anyone who wanted to read Gertrude Stein was forced to seek out copies wherever they could be found — generally in the form of first editions, because only four or five of them had ever existed in any other form. I became deeply involved in the search, and the result is my Stein collection. Nowadays all but two or three of those books are in print again and can be purchased with relative ease. But no matter. In the course of things I had discovered my love of book collecting and the joy that the search can bring.

Once the line between reader and collector has been crossed, there is usually no turning back. There is no cure for the virus. But a distinction should still be made between the collector and the investor. If the acquisition of a rare, long-sought-after book gives you pleasure, a glow, a lift, just because you finally own it, with little or no thought that you may be able to sell it at a profit, then you are undoubtedly a collector and are liable to remain one for the rest of your life. On the other hand, if you buy a book and immediately think, "Aha, I can double the price at X's," then you are primarily a dealer or an investor. It's really as simple and basic as that. (However, as both a collector and a dealer myself, I can testify that the conditions are not mutually exclusive.) In recent years a great many people have begun to collect books as an investment, spurred on, no doubt, by numerous articles in newspapers and magazines written in a breezy, offhand manner and emphasizing the profit motive to the exclusion of almost everything else. Of course, everyone likes to make a profit, and it is normal and human to be pleased when a book you bought a few years ago at publication price or a modest markup starts a price climb in dealers' catalogs or at auction. But the true collector would sooner die than part with his treasures. Many literally skip meals, wear threadbare clothing, are in arrears on the rent — in short, do almost anything to hold on to their books. Once in a while, a collector gives way to the temptation of an enormous profit. In my experience, which stretches over nearly four decades, in every single case the seller regretted the move almost immediately and forever after.

Most book collecting in this century is done in the field of literature, primarily novels, poetry, and plays. There are, of course, other popular fields such as the sciences, biography, criticism, travel, and so on. The literature of chess is particularly popular. The New York Public Library has one entire room devoted to a collection relating solely to tobacco and smoking (although, ironically, the library's rules forbid smoking even in that room). The Black Liberation movement of the sixties and seventies gave tremendous impetus to "black" collections, among white as well as black collectors. Your own taste will dictate what you collect. Some people follow trends and fashions, collecting what is most popular at any given time. But to my mind, these people are not true collectors, but faddists — or, even worse, speculators.

Many factors determine what you can collect, not the least of which is the question of cost. Very few collectors starting today can hope to form a collection of Elizabethan literature, much less of Shakespeare. Cost aside, most of the great pieces of Elizabethan literature have by now gravitated into institutions. For example, all known copies of the first edition of Romeo and Juliet are in institutional libraries, so no new Shakespeare collection could ever be complete. Even the great eighteenth-century books, while perhaps slightly more available, are for the most part four-figure items. Important early-nineteenth-century books, particularly those of the Romantic poets such as Byron, Shelley, and Keats, are now fetching prices beyond the reach of the average collector. This has had much to do with the rapid and seemingly endless growth in popularity of modern authors. The term "modern" is bound to be an imprecise one, the meaning of which depends in large measure on one's own age. To some it means only those authors who came into prominence during the twenties and their successors. However, because of the enormous interest in certain late-nineteenth-century American authors, many dealers and collectors start the modern period with Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in poetry and Henry James and Stephen Crane in prose. This book uses "modern" in the latter sense.

Another factor, equally as important as price, is availability. If the books are all but unavailable, with only an occasional title surfacing here and there at long intervals, sometimes years apart (as with Shakespearean firsts), there will not be enough activity to keep the collection — and your interest in it — alive. On the other hand, if everything is too easily procurable, if you can expect to gather all the items in a comparatively short time, there will also be little or no excitement....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Skyhorse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1602399859
• ISBN 13: 9781602399853
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 276
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar