Books About Books -- A Singular Pleasure

One of the secret pleasures of minor illness is the freedom to read. I discovered this early in childhood when my mother, who liked the IDEA of reading, but was not so crazy about the execution of it, would leave me blissfully tucked into bed with a book as long I displayed visible signs of something contagious.  This was not so much because she thought I might as well learn something while I was out of commission, but because her hypochondria trumped her dislike of solitary pursuits. At any rate, I have always cherished reading when I’m sick, so was deeply disappointed when the ordeal of the past weeks strangely provided very little opportunity. Whether to blame the pounding sinus headache, the endless cough, the back pain, or all of the above, is anybody’s guess, but I have been plowing through the same book for twenty-four days! Last night I finally finished it.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I collect books about books and am especially partial to the memoirs of the great booksellers of the day. When Eric bought the books from the former NOBS seller who was moving to a retirement place I seized within seconds -- even in my weakened condition -- David A. Randall's Dukedom Large Enough. Randall spent much of his career selling rare books for Scribner’s and rubbed elbows with all the major players of the era including my heroine, Belle da Costa Greene,  whom he described as  "the FORMIDABLE  Belle Da Costa Greene" (use search box to find related blog post).

I’m telling you  those were the days to be an antiquarian though. The stuff Randall got his hands on included one of the few extant original copies of the Declaration of Independence, first edition, first state copies  of every major work by anybody who was anybody in American literature, and  the remains of Washington Irving’s  handwritten manuscript of The Sketchbook which still contained Rip Van Winkle in its entirety -- 38 leaves. But here’s the part that will blow your mind. During the Depression the high end commanded prices in four figures and sometimes as high as five! Book collecting was very much a rich man’s pleasure, yet it’s not really the prices that make me yearn for a time travel machine. It’s the reverence for the book itself, the pleasure of building an imaginative library one book at a time.

Imagine the shock and awe if these sellers from the past resurrected long enough to observe the current state of the industry, especially internet pricing and sellers who have never entertained the notion of learning anything about the trade. They’d probably have heart attacks and be dead again within the hour. Admittedly, they commanded the top of the food chain just as there are still sellers today who wheel and deal in colossal numbers. But there are also plenty of current ABAA sellers who sell many of the same books I do just as there certainly were back in the good old days. The difference is that then it was a lot easier to make a living, whereas now they find themselves jockeying for position with the “may haves.” In case you’re wondering who the may-haves are they’re the people who dominate the first page of nearly every online listing with low, low  prices and caveats that their books “may have” underlining, loose pages, cracked bindings, dog-ears, or just about any other fault a book can endure. It seems to me that the true definitition of understatement is this -- our current system of purveying antiquarian books is deeply flawed.

How I would have loved being a bookseller in the golden era! Of course it was a man’s game, but Belle played with the best of them  and so did Madge Jenisen who owned Sunwise Turn and the incomparable Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern, who discovered a long-lost manuscript penned by Louisa May Alcott. Actually men still dominate today at the antiquarian shows, but I don’t care a whit. It has nothing to do with me or what I’m trying to accomplish and they have been more than welcoming anyway. Besides, we're all shouldering the same changes, problems, and concerns for the future.

Well, this has certainly been a roundabout way to get to what I thought was my major point, but apparently wasn’t! I hoped to tell you about a great book I read and offer a list of titles I’ve loved in this genre. So if you’re interested in reading about books here’s a sampling in no particular order, just as they came to mind. Some are about the rare book trade, others about new books. I loved them all and have plenty more if you're interested

Time Was Soft There, A Paris Sojourn At Shakespeare & Co, Jeremy Mercer.; Picador, 2005

Dukedom Large Enough; Reminiscences of A Rare Book Dealer 1929-1956, David A. Randall;,Random House, 1962

The Adventures of a Treasure Hunter; A Rare Bookman In Search of American History, Charles P. Everitt, Little Brown, 1952

Sunwise Turn, A Human Comedy of Bookselling, Madge Jenison; E.P. Dutton, 1923

The King’s English, Betsy Burton; Gibbs Smith, 2005

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, A Memoir, A History; Lewis Buzbee; Greywolf Press, 2006

Old and Rare; Thirty Years in the Book Business, Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern; Abner Schram, 1974

A Memory of Vermont; Our Life in the Johnny Appleseed Bookshop 1930-1965, Margaret Hand; Harcourt, Brace, 1967

The Seven Stairs; An Adventure of the Heart, Stuart Brent; Simon & Schuster, 1962

Book Row; An Account and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade, Marwin Mondlein and Roy Meador; Carroll & Graf, 2004

Black Sun, The Brief  Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby, Geoffrey Wolf; Random House, 1976