Whats in your collection?

[Asa Adams]

Whats in your collection? hey everyone! Who here loves to collect old printed books. They can be from anywhere, by anyone. I have two collected essays books by Ralph Waldo Emerson. They are dated 1920! Also i have a Very beat up Macbeth-Macmillan malriculattion english text dated 1933

what are you collecting?

[amanda_isabel]

boys!!! lol

actually my collection is barbie dolls. kinda childish, i know.

[Manfred]

I have "The Pleasures of Life" (pt. 1 & 2) by Sir John Lubbock (1887).
A collection of "Milton's Poems" (1899).

[mono]

I have a few old books, including The Complete Works Of Shakespeare (1896), Poems Of Sixty-Five Years by William Ellery Channing (first edition, one of the transcendentalist poets, 1901), The Complete Poetry of Shelley (1900), The Poetry Of Horace (1909), hand-bound copy of Sonnets From The Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger (first edition), Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1908), Longfellow's Complete Poems (1906), and a few various signed books by Ricardo Sternberg, Dr. Martha Henning, and William Stafford.

[Petrarch's Love]

I have an entire shelf dedicated to my collection of tiny pocket sized books, including a set of twelve smallish volumes from the 19th century containing Shakespeare's complete works. I also have a beautiful first edition of the Wizard of Oz (1900) and a lovely collection of older editions of the OZ series from my grandfather. I've got facsimiles of the first folio of Shakespeare and of the Kelmscott press edition of Chaucer's works (which is absolutely beautiful), and I've been slowly collecting the Arden editions of all of Shakespeare's plays, but those aren't old or interesting "collectibles." The oldest written documents I own are a legal indenture from the eighteenth century, which is beautifully penned on a huge piece of vellum and a really great Spanish emblem from the 17th century. Someday when I'm actually earning money I'd love to own a book, or at least a document from my period in the 16th century, but I can always cure my incunable fix by running over to our special collections or to the Newberry, which really means I have access to an incredible book collection (at the Newberry for example, I can walk in any day of the week and ask to see Shakespeare's first folio and, voila, they just hand it over for hours of perusal in the rare books reading room. :))

[Asa Adams]

:D wow, some of these are really great! Barbies eh?? hmm are they classics?

[mono]

This thread makes me feel somewhat immodest, but Petrarch's Love's post reminded me of a few other 'nostalgic' books I have in my mini-library: The Æneid by Virgil (1928), The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer (1899), and The Complete Poetry Of Chaucer (1930).

[StompinGround]

My prized possession is an autographed 1st addition Deliverance by Dickey.

[Logos]

I've got a couple of charming old hardcovers/first editions sitting around that I have either bought, or, some I inherited from my grandfather and grandmother (replete with her margin notes and doodles! my grandfather was less, uhm, expressive about his studies :lol: )

no publish date but inscription is `A Happy New Year My Dear Hec, Jan. 1st. `[18]97' in a Henry Altemus copy of The Reveries of a Bachelor by `Ik Marvel'. Some of the little sketches are titled; "Over a Wood Fire" and "Over His Cigar"
undated (I hate it when they do that!) but told it's 1901 T. Nelson and Sons edition of Henry Seton Merriman's The Last Hope
1909 Macmillan pocket classics, Charles Kingsley's The Heroes
1923 Chatto & Windus, Aldous Huxley's Antic Hay
1927 Macmillan pocket classics, Charles Dicken's Tale of Two Cities
1928 Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
1939 Chatto & Windus, Huxley's After Many a Summer Dies the Swan
1952 Chatto and Windus Ltd., W. Somerset Maugham's The Narrow Corner
1953 Collins edition of W.H. Ainsworth's Old St. Paul's

[Asa Adams]

:nod: EXCELLENT :nod:

[RJbibliophil]

boys!!! lol

actually my collection is barbie dolls. kinda childish, i know.

:lol: I kind of think Asa was referring to books, but yeah, I have some of those too. Few and dear. My sister and I had a great big family, which was rather crazy....

Anyway, there's lots of old books around here somewhere, lot's of old things... I really don't know what there is, because most of it is packed away. Have some old fiction, and old Bibles and hymn books in Norwegian and German, and yeah...

[behindblueeyes]

hmm i have nothing like that so i'll just list some of the old books i have lol
i got a 1928 edition of hugo's works
a 1942 "thesaurus of anecdotes"
a shakespeare's works book which i have no iea what it is
and a short stories paperback bookfrom the 40's

[Whifflingpin]

"there's lots of old books around here somewhere"
A 1709 collection of George Herbert's poetry,
A 1777 volume containing two novels - Zayde, translated from the French, and Oroonoko by Aphra Benn,
A French-English dictionary 1768 and an English grammar in Spanish 1791,
A heap of books from the 1800s and another heap of early 1900s stuff and so on.

I don't collect, but I like browsing in second-hand book shops, and I rarely leave quite empty handed as I think they need encouragement, expecially as the internet is killing the trade.
Obviously, finely bound books and some first edition books can be quite (very) expensive, but generally old books tend to be cheap enough - I got a first edition copy of Prisoner of Zenda (Arrowsmith 1893?) for under five pounds last year - less than a new paperback edition would have cost. My first American edition of Karen Blixen's Out of Africa (Random House 1938) came from the $1 tray (although the bookshop, in Philadelphia, where I bought it may have been a ghost shop, as I never managed to find a trace of it again.)

Inscriptions - I guess these lower the value of books, but I am delighted to read that my Book of Days, was given to Mary Inglis on January 1st 1865, and I have been intrigued for nearly fifty years to know who was Goff who gave Binks "Pioneer Stories all round the Compass" in July 1918.

I'm not a collector, but if you are throwing out any of Anthony Hope's less well known books, or pre-1900 song books I might just have space on a bookshelf to squeeze them in.

[behindblueeyes]

wow 1700's that's old

[grace86]

Most of the classics that I buy are the paper back barnes and noble edition. But my collection will be of used/antique/hardcover books...the ones I have read in paperback. The reason for this is I am a very messy college student, and my poor books get thrashed. But as of right now, even my paper backs are stored in the garage...my hardcovers will come when I have room to put my shelves back up. My first hardcover collectible will be Dracula.

[Syme]

I don't actually collect, but I do have a 1922 edition of Silas Marner in a small hardcover, and an "adapted" (heavily abridged & reworded) students' edition of Moby Dick from 1950. There are even quiz questions in the back.

[Pendragon]

Well. I'm eccentric in collecting books. I have the entire Tarzan series, the entire Doc Savage reprint series, the entire Avenger reprint series, the entire reprint Shadow series, Don Coldsmith's The Spanish Bit Saga Series, the entire 100 Little Stories series by Barnes & Noble, the entire Retief of the CID series, most of the Star Trek series, etc. You can toss in Doctor Who, Lee Falk's The Phantom (missing only one book), James Bond, Xanth, Clive Cussler, and of couse, humor and classics. My oldest classic is a crumbling 1901 edition of Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare, which now I am afraid to touch. ;)

[TEND]

Nothing too exciting, the only book I have predating 1950ish (that I know of) is a 1914, McMillans Pocket Classic's copy of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

[Manfred]

Today, at the local library's secondhand booksale, I purchased a collection of six Sinclair Lewis novels for $12. These books are identically bound blue hardcovers with Lewis' image and signature embossed on the front cover. They were released seperately upon publication.
They are:

Main Street, 1920
Babbitt, 1922
Arrowsmith, 1925
Ann Vickers, 1933
It Can't Happen Here, 1935
The Prodigal Parents, 1938

Very cool.

[stlukesguild]

In spite of having a rather decent sized private library of some 3000 books, I must admit to owning very few which are of any exceptional value... monetarily. I do own a nicely bound and illustrated Nana dating from the 1920s and lovely boxed edition of Walton's Compleat Angler. I also own any number of late 19th century editions of Keats, Shelley, Byron, DeQuincy, etc... none of which is is truly worth much more than an expensive new art book. This is somewhat surprising considering that I am a great admirer of the book as an art form... or the so-called "book arts" and livres d' artistes. Unfortunately, no first folios, Guttenberg bibles, or products of the Aldine press in my collection. In spite of this, I have needed to learn a bit about recognizing "valuable" books. After all, I am a visual artist who as a bibliophile is also something of a blasphemer or rather a heretic. I create art... collage... which is constructed from bits and fragments of old books. These books are chosen for the visual qualities of their various parts: the textures and grain of the papers (as well as its manner of absorbing ink/paint), the look of the font, the aged and yellowed papers and battered covers, and the inscriptions of previous owners. As a bibliophile I justify my work as something of a rebirth or recycling... a means of breathing new life into books no longer wanted. At the same time I am very careful not to damage something that might indeed have some real worth... financial or otherwise.

(For any interested some examples of my work may be seen at my blog... which is not as actively added to as it should be:
http://stlukesguildohio.blogspot.com/2006/07/no.html )

[Petrarch's Love]

SLG,

Just as you had me wondering what Bach's music would look like on the Spenser thread, you provide me with the answer in your own artwork! I just happened to have The Well Tempered Klavier in the CD player when I came across this post (I've been mildly obsessed with WTK since I heard Barenboim play the complete thing just before I left Chicago in June), and I really love the way the music and your collages fit together. The progression in your pieces expresses the style of a fugue beautifully, and I like the use of the old fashioned papers.

Since you're intested in fragments of books as well as whole, I imagine you're aware of the term "cannibalization" being applied to books that are divided up either for other uses or to sell individual leaves. I was so struck the first time I heard an archival librarian referring to a "cannibalized" book, because the choice of words (so closely akin to cannibal) seems to show how much we can come to regard books as ourselves. Ah well, we've all been guilty of devouring a book or two in our time. :lol:

[stlukesguild]

P'sL;

Yes... I have heard the term "cannibalization" before. Perhaps the most egregious instance of such was the splitting up of the so-called "Shah Nameh of Tabriz". This was one of the most gorgeous illuminated manuscripts ever produced... perhaps the greatest example of the art of illumination in "golden age" Persia:

See the sad story here: http://www.iht.com/articles/1996/04/27/lon.t_3.php

More recently we have the horrible incident of the illuminated William Blake manuscript which surfaced a short while ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/arts/design/16blak.html?ex=1297746000&en=88dcb9b91217330b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

As a great Blake fan(atic) I must say I hope Ms. Howie dies a long painful death :rage:

[Petrarch's Love]

Yes... I have heard the term "cannibalization" before. Perhaps the most egregious instance of such was the splitting up of the so-called "Shah Nameh of Tabriz". This was one of the most gorgeous illuminated manuscripts ever produced... perhaps the greatest example of the art of illumination in "golden age" Persia:

See the sad story here: http://www.iht.com/articles/1996/04/27/lon.t_3.php

More recently we have the horrible incident of the illuminated William Blake manuscript which surfaced a short while ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/a...serland&emc=rss

Savages!


.

[Jean-Baptiste]

One of my prized possessions is a 1911 copy of William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I also own a number copies of James joyce's books from the twenties. The oldest book I have is called Gleanings for the Curious from the Harvest Fields of Literature by C. C. Bombaugh, dated 1875. That's a fun book. Then I have some collections of poetry dated 1912 and various other things from the teens and twenties. These were all acquired before I became a student and poor.

[mono]

I nearly forgot to mention a little event that happened a few weeks ago in a bookstore I frequent.
The very large bookstore (Powell's Books (http://www.powells.com/), by name) has a rare book room that I like to wander, noticing several books in protective cases and behind glass which I will never own, but enjoy seeing. Wondering of it, I requested to see Finnegans Wake by James Joyce cased behind glass; lo and behold, I held a first edition copy from the UK. I could have fainted from such greed and desire to own it, yet that seems the day I can magically discover the asked $6,000 in my money-clip. :lol:

[Jean-Baptiste]

HaHa, I'm off to Powell's with my $6,000! Just kidding. But yes that is one of the most wonderful bookstores I've ever been to. When I lived there several years ago, it was one of my favorite places to wander and wonder. And yes that particular room is rather impressive.
I forgot to mention my lovely dictionaries. I have a German, a Latin, and an English dictionary, all three from near the turn of the last century. Who says possessions can't make one happy?

[subterranean]

I nearly forgot to mention a little event that happened a few weeks ago in a bookstore I frequent.
The very large bookstore (Powell's Books (http://www.powells.com/), by name)


Powells, one of Portland's prouds ?? :D