First Edition Books
Walt Whitman—Patriotic Poet, Gay Iconoclast, or Shrewd Marketing Ploy?
By Lisa Hix — Modern Americans tend to think of Walt Whitman as the embodiment of democracy and individualism, a literary icon who lifted up the common man when he wrote, “I Hear America Singing” in his revolutionary free-verse poetry collection . But have you ever considered Walt Whitman, the brand? “Walt Whitman believed in this book. He knew that 'Leaves of Grass' was unique. It provoked people, and he realized the controversy would sell it.” Starting in the late 19th century and continuing today,...
Real Hollywood Thriller: Who Stole Jaws?
By Ben Marks — The first pages of Peter Benchley's 1974 novel, “Jaws,” as well as the opening minutes of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster, begin with the attack of a young, late-night skinny dipper named Chrissie Watkins, who’s dragged to her watery doom by a great white shark, feeding in the waters off the seaside vacation town of Amity. The book and film struck a chord, in no small part because they capitalized on our fear of the unknown—in this case, of being chomped to death by untold rows of unseen...
Rare Books: The Time Machine
By null — One of my favorite "books as objects" is the first edition of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine: an Invention.” Published in 1895, it was Wells’ first novel and is naturally regarded as one of the first works of science fiction. It is also the earliest sci-fi work based on time travel, and was described by Wells himself as “my trump card.” I say “book as object” because there is something extremely appealing about the first issue’s simple, plain, and elegant binding: the cloth is a fairly...
Letter from Jack Kerouac to Marlon Brando
By Helen Hall — In 2005, I moved to New York to head up the Entertainment Memorabilia department at Christie’s, New York. One of my first assignments was to go to Marlon Brando’s home on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles to select property to include in an auction of his estate. What a job! I spent around 10 days at the house. The last room to check was Brando’s office. Along one wall was a bank of filing cabinets. We started to pull drawers out, finding old insurance documents, receipts for work done on...
Rare Books: Collecting Forgeries
By Matthew Haley — Collectors of autographed baseball cards are alert to the existence of forgeries, so they know to be on their guard. But how many book collectors stop to wonder whether their newest acquisition is forged? One book forger who managed to fool some of history’s most celebrated book collectors was Thomas James Wise. A book collector himself, Wise knew that a forged book would become apparent when it was compared to the real deal—the complexities of paper, type, print, and binding make a...
Rare Books: Montana to Michigan, As Chronicled By a 15-Year-Old in 1865
By null — One of the most curious items in our auction on December 2, 2010, is the first book produced in its entirety in the Montana Territory. It is an account by John Allen Hosmer of an 1865 trip he took with his family from Virginia City, Montana, to Detroit, Michigan. The means of transportation included a wagon, a raft down the Yellowstone River, a steamer on the Missouri River, a stagecoach, and the railroad. Hosmer kept a diary, edited it, printed it on his own printing press one page at a...
The Last Word on First Editions
By Ben Marks — Strictly speaking, a book’s edition refers to the setting of the text. So the first time you set the text and print a book with it, and then sell a bound book that you’ve just printed, that’s the first edition, first printing. If you use the same setup of text and print it again, that would be the second printing—a printing is therefore a subclass of an edition. The printing is also called the impression, as in first or second impression. In general, the first edition, first printing...
To Catch A Thief: A Rare Book Expert on His Literary Obsessions
By Maribeth Keane and Anne Galloway — I don’t remember a time when I didn’t read books. In grade school, I devoured library books. I also loved comic books, and was wheeling and dealing them as a child—buying them for a nickel, sell them for dime. Bertrand Smith let me into the rare book room, and I bought a Maxwell Parrish "Arabian Nights." I bought an just for the illustrations. At the time I had no idea the artist was a Welsh woman named Gwynedd Hudson. Turns out she only illustrated two books—Alice and Peter Pan. I fell...