A Bookseller's Christmas

We got it! We got it! The antiquarian collection we bid on I mean. I was beginning to think the answer was no, as we bid on the weekend and only just found out late yesterday that the offer had been accepted. It definitely perked me up, as we had gone to see another “collection” so bad it was fairly stunning. You know you’re in trouble when the owner opens the basement door and the smell of must not only rises up to greet you, but nearly slams you against the wall. But even that hardly mattered as the books looked like they’d been run over by a tractor and buried in a peat bog. And even THAT didn’t matter because they weren’t any good to begin with. As I’ve mentioned many times, it’s endlessly frustrating the way people present their books over the phone even when you practically give them the third degree. This owner announced that his were all “antique”, part of an estate, and greatly loved by their former owner (his mother), which of course implied they’d been well preserved. Like so many others who’ve called, he couldn’t remember exactly what the collection consisted of, but was sure it was history for the most part. Turns out, the only history it ever brushed up against was its own. Novels. What he had were novels. By minor authors. Authors so minor I didn’t recognize a single one.

After declining them (in the nicest possible way) we stopped by the antiques mall with some new stuff for the weekend. It seemed pretty draggy over there, but the nightly report did show a couple sales. I think I’ve become a tad paranoid though after the shoplifting of Alice Underground because almost right away I spun into a panic when I couldn’t find a valuable Ohio title – Cherry’s The Portage Path. Eric formed a one man search and rescue party and -- voila! – ferreted it out of the children’s section. While that was a great relief, I was still fairly wired and had to do the grocery shopping yet. We ran around the store like trainees for the Boston marathon and got most of it done pretty effortlessly until I picked up a carton of eggs and wound up with egg white all over my hands. Words cannot convey the grossness of the moment. So the news about the collection when we got home was like winning t he lottery.

As it turns out, we even HAVE the books already. Eric got them this morning and dropped off my two big boxes on his way to the store. He wasn’t even out the door when I began rummaging for two specific books. Years ago we bought a collection of railroadiana from an elderly man who was moving from Medina to California. With it came a sole odd 18th century volume entitled Miscellania Curiosa, one volume of a set of three from the 1720’s. For years I’ve kept an eye out for the others, but never encountered any until we viewed this collection. Not only was there one of the missing books in it, but possibly TWO of them. It had been a long time since I’d looked at ours, so I wasn’t sure which one we had. They’re fairly pricey even at a single volume, so the whole set would be cause for dancing in the street. But do I HAVE a whole set? No, I do not. I ended up with a volume two and two copies of volume three. (See photos of books above). For one split-second I thought had them all because they were marked volumes one, two and three. The problem came when I looked at the title pages simultaneously and realized that one volume was a from different edition and the sequence of the volumes in it had changed.

Of course it was a long shot anyway, so I’m not really too disappointed. The collection as it stands is quite good and I’m pleased with it. I haven’t been through it all yet, but I’ve already pulled out some cool stuff, some of which I remembered and some I didn’t. That’s the fun part of buying a lot of books at once though. You can’t possibly remember everything, so it’s always a bookseller’s Christmas.