It seems like a new generation has discovered that rare books still represent the vital pulse of world culture. I’ve exhibited at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair for over 20 years, and this year’s fair, the biggest ever, gives the lie to all the whining about the impending death of the physical book. The fair was jammed with smart, sophisticated, and to a remarkable degree, young collectors.” This was Tom Congalton, a high-end dealer in modern first editions, speaking about the 52nd edition of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair held this April. This was only my second time at the fair, but even I noticed a number of young people at the booths, carefully examining items and striking a deal.
There is no need to preserve or save or collect every printed book. What we need to preserve are the stunning examples of the printed book, the truly rare book and first editions of good books. At the great auction houses around the world, manuscripts, rare books and first editions command new prices. The 10 rarest, most expensive, most sought after books seldom turn up at auctions, but when they do they easily break the million-dollar barrier. A complete two-volume copy of the Gutenberg is so rare that if one does turn up, no one can say how much it will go for, and how prolonged and fierce the bidding will be. What comes up for auction these days is usually a leaf from the 42nd line Bible which sells for upwards of $50,000 — just a page. Previous copies of the Gutenberg have sold for five million. It is perhaps not the most expensive antiquarian item (Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks, The Codex Leicester, sold for more than 30 million) but it is undoubtedly the most desired as a stunning example of movable type from the 1450s.
Ptolemy’s Cosmographia, 1447, not only becomes the first printed atlas but also the first work in print to feature engraved illustrations. The few surviving copies have sold for upwards of four million. What circulates in the market today, however, are individual maps from broken-up copies.
Book dealers say that the second, third and fourth Shakespeare folios have become just as rare as the first, making William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories & Tragedies (to give the First Folio its full name) from 1623 one of the desired items in print. A 1,000 copies were printed. Today, 228 copies remain, auctioned at prices starting from two million.
The Birds of America by John Audubon is another hotly pursued book. Very few complete copies of this book come up for auction. Most copies — about 110 of them — are in museums. When a copy does come up for sale, it usually breaks records. A copy sold this January for $7.9 million.
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| (Clockwise) A gemstudded copy of Omar Khayyam; a single page of the Gutenberg sells for more than $50,000;Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound Of The Baskervilles; the much sought after first editions of Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links; Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger; J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye; Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan Of The Apes; copies of Ptolemy's Cosmographia have gone for over $4 million |
Tamerlane is a slim, plain booklet of poems; 50 copies were printed in 1827 and since the author was unknown (identified simply as A Bostonian), most copies disappeared. Perhaps only 12 copies survive. A copy of Tamerlane is so scarce that the discovery of one becomes international news.
At a Christie’s auction this August one copy sold for $662,500. Why all this fuss? Tamerlane, on later examination, turned out to be Edgar Allan Poe’s first book .
The mainstay of collectors is modern first editions and the bookwork of fine and private presses. The first edition of The Great Gatsby is the holy grail of modern first editions. The first printing in 1925 itself has several states, and even a copy without the dustjacket is highly collectible, highly valued. A true first printing with a decent example of this book’s very scarce dustjacket can go for $180,000 and an inscribed copy for $550,000. There can be, of course only one holy grail, but if there is a close contender it is a J.D. Salinger signed copy of a first edition of The Catcher in the Rye in a near-fine unrestored jacket.
Equally sought after and collected are limited signed editions and association copies. Any interesting edition of Ulyssesis much desired. The various editions of Alice in Wonderland, Moby Dick, the Peter Rabbit books, the children’s classic The Wind in the Willows and signed (Milne and Shepard) first editions of Winnie the Pooh, the first issues of Burroughs’ Tarzan with dustjackets, Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of Baskervilles, the early firsts of Fleming’s Bond (Casino Royale, Goldfinger) books, a first printing Dracula, Lolita, the first Harry Potter, the early Chandlers and Hammets (The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon) and The Hobbit.
Highly desired and collected copies of books are not only antiquarian, rare and first editions but also fine bindings. Magnificent, jewel-studded medieval books: Islamic bindings, the Book of Hours, the Lindisfarne gospels, North African Korans, the Cosway-Rievere bindings and the fabled Sangkorski Omar Khayyam. Perhaps more artistically valued is the work of the modern binders and typographers: William Morris and Cobden Sanderson and their stunning bookwork from the Kelmscott Press and the Doves Bindery.
The focus of all these books is not the text but the physical book itself. As Philippa Marks, curator of bookbindings at British Library noted, ‘The advantages of the electronic book may be many, but who can deny the visual and tactile appeal of a beautifully bound book?” And bibliophile-author Paul Collins writing about a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio couldn’t help remark, “Books bear a tangible presence alongside their ineffable quality of thought: they have a body and a soul.”
Pradeep Sebastian is a bibliophile and columnist
(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 24-09-2012)
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