Author Archives: tavistock_books

Collecting Antiquarian Bibles (What Better Time to Discuss than at Christmas?)

By Margueritte Peterson

The Bible is the most common English-language book in the world, so it would hardly seem like an ideal focus for rare book collectors. But the history and variety of Bibles make collecting them a diverting and challenging occupation—especially because one can often start a lovely collection without spending too much money.

Image source: tntoday.com

Finding Your Focus

The sheer number of editions of the Bible can make it difficult to choose a scope for your collection. Many amateur collectors start out with their own family Bibles and simply collect other Bibles that catch their fancy. As you get more serious about building your Bible collection, it’s important to decide on a specific direction because the array of Bibles and editions is dizzyingly diverse; in their oft-cited bibliography, Frederick Moule and Thomas Herbert identified over 239 different editions of the English Bible…and those were all printed before the King James Version was first published in 1611.

A few common ways to focus a Bible collection:

Version: The King James Version is undoubtedly the most famous, with multiple revisions over the centuries. Before it appeared, there were nine other major versions. And after the King James Version appeared, numerous other versions have been published. Many collectors choose to focus on one specific version.
Language: The Bible has been published in over 400 languages, and almost always in translation. After all, the original texts of the Bible were in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and historically very few people have been proficient in all three. A collector might look for different versions of the Bible in a single language, such as German, or try to collect Bibles in as many languages as possible.
Publication location: The Bible is a difficult book to print, due to both its length and its many textual features like numbered verses. It wasn’t uncommon for sections of the Bible to be printed in a given location, followed by the New Testament, and finally the entire Bible. The famous Bay Psalms book (1640), which included a novel translation of the Psalms, was the first volume published in the United States. The first complete American Bible didn’t appear until over fifty years later, in 1663, and it was John Eliot’s Algonquin translation.
Errors: It should come as no surprise that some Bible editions include scandalous or entertaining errors. The so-called Wicked Bible of 1631 says “Thou shalt commit adultery,” while King David exclaims in a 1702 edition, “Printers have persecuted me without a cause.” One could easily build an entire collection of these error copies!
Annotation: Bibles often served as repositories for family records, such as family trees and dates of birth, christening, marriage, and death. These annotations can be fascinating for those interested in genealogy or those who simply love that personal connection to the Bible’s original owners. Still other versions of the Bible include published maps and annotations, which can be fascinating in their own right.

With Bibles, “Old” Has a Whole New Meaning

Our holding of a 1576 1st edition thus, New Testament. Someone had some thoughts on the writing!

In 1526, William Tyndale published the first complete translation of the New Testament. The book was deemed heretical, and almost all known copies were destroyed. The first English edition of the Old and New Testaments was published nine years later. Given that Bibles have been published for so many centuries, the word “old” takes on a whole new meaning. In the world of rare and antiquarian books, we usually think of a book that’s more than sixty years old as an antique. But a Bible isn’t really “old” until it’s been around for two full centuries.

Serious collectors generally consider Bibles published in Europe before 1700 the most collectible. And because Bibles were often used regularly, they’re not often in pristine (or even very good) condition. When you collect antiquarian Bibles, be prepared to embrace dog-eared copies filled with marginalia.That said, value isn’t always directly tied to age. Some 100-year-old Bibles are more valuable than others that are twice that age.

Bible Collecting Resources

Collecting rare books of any sort requires discernment and research. The same holds true for Bibles. The volumes below are exceptional resources for the collector of Bibles:

Frederick Moule and Thomas Herbert’s Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture is the most commonly used and cited bibliography among Bible collectors. It has gone through muliple reprints and includes bibliographic details on Bibles in 600 languages.
Margaret Thorndike Hill’s The English Bible in America encompasses American Bibles published between 1777 and 1957. It’s the preferred bibliography for collectors of American Bibles.
P. Marion Simms’ The Bible in America delves into notable versions of the Bible in the histor of the United States.
See Christopher de Hamel’s The Book: A History of the Bible for an illustrated survey of Bibles, starting with the earliest manuscripts.

“Newly Translated out of Ye Original Tongues…” Are we sure about that? Check out our holding here!

Some reference works may actually even find their way into your collection. For example, Thomas Wilson’s Christian Dictionary is useful to the scholarly collector…and a new somewhat scarce title.

Related Rare Books & Ephemera

Children in the Woods

Theodore Beza’s New Testament

Holy Bible Printed by His Majesty’s Special Command

Book of Isaiah, Translated into Navajo Dialect

Illustrated Scripture History for the Improvement of Youth

A Warm Welcome (High-Five Included) to the Newly Nominated Vice President of the ABAA!

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Our very own Vic Zoschak Jr. has been recently announced to be the new Vice President of the prestigious Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (the ABAA). We pick his brains about the new role (and how he is to be bribed when in said position…) below!

Photo courtesy of the Florida Book Fair.

So we are looking at the new Vice President of the Antiquarian Bookseller’s Association of America! How does it feel? Are you nervous?

Well, not quite so fast Ms P… I’m nominated. Which means that the membership has yet to vote me in as VEEP. However, should they do me the honor of doing so, I confess, I’m a bit humbled by their expressed trust in me to act on their behalf, as well as pleased at the opportunity to continue to serve. And yes, I also confess, I’m a bit nervous, for the VP job is a bit more direct responsibility for the health & welfare of the Association from that I’ve assumed in the past as a chapter representative to the national Board of Governors, or as a chapter officer.

Level with us, V… have you ever dreamed about the day you’d be Vice President and then President of the ABAA?

Ha! Only recently. I threw my hat in the ring for the VP position, and it was “picked up”. I can only say again, I’m honored by the selection.

What is the most important charge you would be tasked with in the new role?

Well, that somewhat depends on the incoming President, Mary Gilliam. I am at her service for the 2 years of her term, and whatever she designates as “most important” will be it.

You are no stranger to a leadership role within the bookselling community… you are currently Vice Chair of the Northern California Chapter of the ABAA. What drew you to be Vice of the NCC and was that your first official role in the bookselling community?

As I recall, yes, my first ‘official’ ABAA position was Vice Chair of the Northern California Chapter of the ABAA. The ABAA is a smallish organization, and much of its administration is accomplished by member volunteers. Without those volunteers, it’s my opinion the Association would grind to a halt. Anyway, having found my ‘peeps’, I wanted to give back what I could. That belief hasn’t changed, and I volunteered for this coming VP position with the same thought… to give back to the ABAA, in a small fashion, for all it’s given me these last 20 some-odd years.

Courtesy of ILAB.

That’s right, V, you’ve been a professional bookseller for… how long now? What’s your favorite part about it?

Actually, I’m coming up on 3 decades… started in 1989, so 2016 celebrates 27 years in the trade. But that quibble aside, two aspects of the trade I find compelling & keeping me involved… one is the challenge. It’s difficult to make a living in this business, but it can be done. I enjoy that challenge… usually. There have been anxious moments, I will admit! lol… and second, I came to the antiquarian book trade from a 27 year career in the US military, but here in the book world “I found my peeps”. In other words, people that understood my fascination with books. I’ve found that the trade acts like an extended family. And who doesn’t want to be part of a family?

What are you currently planning on focusing your energies on during your “reign” (taking it a bit far? oh well!)?

The ABAA has had a slightly declining membership for the last few years, so I will recommend we, the Association, focus on reaching out to qualified booksellers, and convince them that membership in the ABAA would be mutually beneficially. In my opinion, the ABAA’s continued viability rests on a vibrant membership, which means a constant, if not increasing, number to the member roles.

Let’s not forget the most important question of all… can you be bribed with a good bottle of Bourbon? 🙂

Ha! …Pappy?

Braving Rush Hour to Feed my Holiday Bibliophilia

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By Margueritte Peterson

Click, clack, click, clack… are these the sounds of the keys on my keyboard puncturing this blank document with letters as I write this? Maybe. Was it also the sound my heels made as they climbed the steps of the Berkeley City Club last night for the annual holiday dinner & raffle of the Northern California Chapter of the ABAA? Most definitely. That’s right, ladies and gents! Another year has passed us by and last night saw the usual cast of characters (minus a few) sharing cocktails, laughs and bottles of Single Malt Scotch Whiskey (for the raffle, of course… we aren’t alcoholics!) at a beautiful local venue.

Michael Hackenberg and his Raffle Surprise!

The night started out promising enough, as Kate Mitas, Vic’s Aide-de-Camp, and I braved rush-hour East Bay traffic for over half an hour to get to Durant Avenue. We then parked in a lot I know well only to be accosted for $8 by what I originally assumed was a homeless person trying to make a buck (not a bad idea, when you think about it). A glass of red wine later and we were sitting at the back table, watching booksellers all around us enjoy an evening with friends, spouses and colleagues. Michael Hackenberg, Chair of the NCC, hustled all (rather well, I might add, as only Michael can do) for the purchase of raffle tickets, and then introduced the new board of the NCC. Himself returning as Chair and Steve Blackmer continuing on as Treasurer, we have the honor of welcoming two new members to the board! Scott Brown of Eureka Books joins as Vice Chair and Alexander Akin of Bolerium Books as Secretary.

After hearing from the current Chair and Steve as Treasurer, current Vice Chair Vic Zoschak gave some words on some recent goings-on in the ABAA. One of which was this – at the recent Boston ABAA fair, the ABAA partnered with RBS to offer an educational seminar. It was attended by 44 people in all, 9 of which were booksellers (3 from Northern California alone!). The session was opened by intrepid president of the ABAA Tom Goldwasser and President of RBS, Michael Suarez. The seminar was very successful and there are hopes that it will be repeated in the future!

Missing out on eggplant!

After hearing from all parties, the meal continued! While a couple of us from Tavistock Books enjoyed a delicious roasted eggplant & polenta dinner (and another at Tavistock Books deemed it an alien life form and ate his usual salmon dinner), we exchanged pleasant dinner conversation with Rachel Eley, an associate at John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller (and an Associate Member of the ABAA herself) and her colleague Annika Green. As desert appeared on the tables I was suddenly thrust into the position of raffle item presenter (thanks a heap, Vic), and decided then and there that I should probably never apply for a position on a game show, no matter how low on cash I am! (I don’t think that game show hosts like it when the raffle presenter holds a bottle and when asked what it is retorts with “…it’s alcohol…”). In any event, the raffle each year is held to benefit the Elisabeth Woodburn Educational Fund which provides educational scholarships to booksellers (a great opportunity, of which a handful of booksellers in Northern California have been able to take advantage of to further their knowledge of the bookselling world!).

All in all, it was a pretty tame evening (compared to some other bookseller events I have been to over the last few years) but any night with books, wine and bibliophilia is a great night in our eyes! The holiday season has now officially begun!

Yours truly, Vic Zoschak & Kate Mitas of Tavistock Books!

This Thanksgiving, Be Thankful You Aren’t… David Colbreth Broderick, Victim of America’s Last Notable Duel

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On September 13, 1859, the “last notable American duel” took place in a ravine just outside San Francisco. Duels were illegal in California, but that didn’t stop David Colbreth Broderick and David Terry from squaring off to resolve their personal and political differences.

The Honorable David Culbreth [Colbreth] Broderick.

The Honorable David Colbreth Broderick.

In 1849, David Colbreth Broderick came to California from New York with the Gold Rush. By 1857, he’d established himself as a political don of San Francisco; in 1851, the “free-soil” Democrat was named Lieutenant Governor of California after his predecessor, John McDougal, was promoted to Governor when Peter Burnett resigned. Friends considered Broderick an honest man and pointed to his humble upbringing as the son of a stonecutter. But Broderick’s rivals saw him as a conniving saloonkeeper who picked up politics in Tammany Hall. David Terry, on the other hand, hailed from Kentucky and was a proud Southern Democrat. He came to California after the Mexican-American War. In 1855, he was appointed Justice of the California Supreme Court. By 1857, Terry was Chief Justice. Though Broderick and Terry disagreed over slavery, the two were friends.

That all changed in 1859, when Terry ran for reelection as chief justice and lost, presumably due to his pro-slavery stance. He blamed the opposing faction of the Democratic party—which was led by Broderick. Terry insisted on delivering a speech denouncing his abolitionist opponents, alleging that they were all “personal chattels of a single individual” and belonged “heart, soul, body, and breeches to David C Broderick.” When Broderick heard about Terry’s comments, he called Terry a “damned miserable wretch” and retorted, “I have said that I considered him the only honest man on the Supreme Court bench, but I now take it all back.” Terry immediately demanded a retraction, which Broderick refused to provide. Terry then immediately wrote a letter to “demand the satisfaction usual among gentlemen.”

The two men scheduled the duel for September 12, 1859. But news of the duel had spread, and the local sheriff showed up to intercede. He concluded that no law had been broken (yet) and went on his way. Broderick and Terry rescheduled the duel for the following morning. At the appointed time, a crowd gathered. Broderick and Terry took .58 caliber Belgian pistols and assumed their positions. Broderick fired first, but his shot landed in the grass short of Terry. Terry returned fire and struck Broderick. He initially thought he’d hit “too far out” to mortally wound Broderick.

The injured Broderick was taken to the home of Leonidas Haskell. Doctors confirmed that the bullet had penetrated Broderick’s lung. He died in the Haskell home three days later, on September 16, 1859, and to this day, the house is reportedly haunted by Broderick’s ghost. Over 30,000 people attended the senator’s funeral. Broderick’s death ultimately aided the Union cause by garnering popular support for the abolitionists. Historians consider the Broderick-Terry duel a critical factor in California’s remaining free of slavery.

Broderick had amassed quite the estate, mostly because he sold state positions of authority during his tenure as president of the state senate. His extensive real estate holdings—a total of 362 properties–were finally auctioned off on November 30, 1861. They included properties in prime locations like Larkin, Howard, and Mission Streets. If they were sold on today’s market, they’d undoubtedly fetch a nine- or ten-figure sum.

David Terry!

Terry was arrested and tried for participating in a duel, but was found innocent and released. He left California after the duel and later joined the Confederate Army during the Civil War, serving as a colonel in the Texas Calvary. Following the war, Terry returned to Stockton, California to practice law.

Terry is perhaps best remembered for representing Sarah Althea Hill Sharon in a lawsuit brought by her husband, Senator William Sharon. The senator sought to have the marriage canceled, and the California Supreme Court ruled in his favor after his death. Terry (who later married Sarah) blamed US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Fields for his loss. Then on August 14, 1889, Terry encountered Fields in the breakfast room of a railroad hotel. He slapped the justice across the face. Fields’ bodyguard, David Neagle, immediately shot and killed Terry. Neagle’s actions led to a jurisdiction dispute; state authorities claimed that the field marshal had committed murder, while federal authorities argued that he had killed Terry in the line of duty.

Related Rare Books and Ephemera

Documents in Relation to Charges Preferred by Stephen J Field, Public Auction of the Beidman Estate, Relacion de los debates de la Convencion de California, San Francisco Semi-Annual Trades Guide & Pacific Coast Directory, Steamship Yankee Blade, Thoughts of Idle Hours

Booming Boston!

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Our fearless leader, Vic Zoschak, took on the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair this past weekend (as a shopper and explorer). Known as a fantastic event hosted by the ABAA, this year was no different – packed to the brim with interesting items and perhaps even more interesting people! See V’s thoughts below, along with a couple fabulous items he took home with him!

The amazingly long entry line!

Boston was Booming! Well, perhaps I should qualify… the Boston Book Fair was Booming. Capital B. As is my wont & practice, every fall we head back east to attend the ABAA’s Boston Book Fair, et al. This year, the fair entry line STRETCHED all the way up to the mall entryway. Unprecedented in my experience [which goes back, ahem, a ways]. From the prospective of this shopper, the entire week was a success. Not only did I come home with lots of goodies [a presentation copy of OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, a lovely copy of NOTES ON NURSING, an 1847 gift book in jacket and other treasures to be named at a later date], the visit began Wednesday with fully subscribed all-day educational seminar jointly sponsored by the ABAA & Rare Book School.

Amazing seafood dinner!

Followed Thursday by a day of scouting & the ABAA Board meeting, followed by the Friday ABAA fair opening, followed Saturday by the shadow fair and more main event, with the week capped Saturday night by the Grolier reception & an excellent dinner at Oceanaire Seafood. I need a week to recover from my week. Which is a good thing. Put it on your calendar for 2016.

The 2015 Boston Antiquarian Book Fair saw 122 booksellers from 10 different countries take over the Veterans Memorial Convention Center from November 13 to the 15th. Want to be involved in the 2016 show? Keep checking the website for the fair, http://bostonbookfair.com/, to learn more about the 2016 fair! In the meantime, check out these FABULOUS items we brought back below!

Check out this Presentation Copy of The OLD CURIOSITY SHOP, inscribed by the author himself! “Mrs. McIan with the involuntary remembrances of Charles Dickens, New Year’s Night, 1842.” Bound in at the front flyleaf is an autograph note on coated paper by Dickens, also addressed to Mrs. McIan on New Years Night 1842. It reads: “The inclosed book belongs of right to you for you have beautifully perpetuated it. You who have done so much for the love of the fiction…” With the exception of some scuffing, the case and book VG to VG+. Come back soon to see our full catalogue description!

Do you collect Nursing items? Well then we’re the place for you! We are known (in certain circles, of course) for our lovely first editions of NOTES On NURSING – and here is no exception! Soon to be uploaded on our website – check back in shortly to get first shot at it!

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Shocking Christmas Tale

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We Interrupt your Weekend Activities to Bring You this Very Important Blog Honoring this Friday the 13th Birthday…

By Margueritte Peterson

On November 13, 1884, Robert Louis Stevenson received a request from the Pall Mall Gazette. The editors wanted a sensational story to publish in its special Christmas issue, and they offered Stevenson a generous £5 per 1,000 words. Woozy with morphine taken for a chronic cough, Stevenson complained that he wasn’t up to the task of writing something new. So he dusted off a piece he’d written back in 1881: The Body-Snatcher.

While the book fit into the long-standing tradition of telling scary stories at Christmas, it also went far beyond the spooks of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol or The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. The Pall Mall Gazette ran ever increasingly dramatic advertisements for the story, which finally appeared in its 1884 Christmas Special. In fact, some of the advertisements were so graphic, police actually stripped the signs from the sandwich-board men. Both grotesque and horrifying, Stevenson’s The Body-Snatcher was not only shocking for its lurid content, but also because in its pages Stevenson accused a highly respected surgeon of committing murder.

A Novella Ripped from the Headlines

In The Body-Snatcher, the character of Wolfe Macfarlane is a wealthy, fashionable London surgeon who hails from Edinburgh. Early in his career, he had served as assistant for a Dr. K…, who purchased the bodies of murder victims killed specifically for the sale of their corpses. Macfarlane himself even commits one of these murders.

Stevenson draws the novella’s inspiration directly on the true story of the Burke and Hare murders, which implicate a real-life Dr. K…., along with his assistant, Sir William Fergusson, who rose to the rank of surgeon to Queen Victoria. The implication that Fergusson might have committed murder like his fictional counterpart scandalized Stevenson’s readers. By this time, Fergusson had passed away, protecting Stevenson from a libel suit—and ensuring that the truth remained buried.

The Real Dr. K…

Dr. Knox, circa 1830.

During the 1820’s, Robert Knox ran the most successful anatomy school in Edinburg. At the height of his career, the school had over 500 students. Endlessly ambitious, Knox wasn’t satisfied. He also built a private anatomy museum and pursued his own research interests. All these activities left Knox with one significant challenge: he couldn’t get enough cadavers.

At that time, the only cadavers that could legally be used for dissection were those of prisoners who were condemned to death and dissection—which wasn’t very many. Many doctors and medical students resorted to purchasing bodies from so-called “resurrectionists,” who were really grave robbers. They would remove bodies from cemeteries during the night and sell them to anatomy schools. Numerous doctors and medical students were actually charged with misdemeanors for possession of these ill-begotten bodies.

Given the shortage of bodies, a fresh cadaver garnered a high price: sometimes as much as £10. When a boarder died at William Burke’s lodging house, he and his associate William Hare decided to try selling it. It was so easy and lucrative, the pair decided to, in Burke’s words, “try the murdering for subjects.” They would go on to kill three men, twelve women, and one child. Robert Knox purchased every single one of these bodies.

Knox was especially pleased with the corpse of Mary Paterson. Her body was so flawless, he preserved it in whisky for three months before dissecting it and invited artists to capture her likeness. But there was one problem: when Burke and Hare brought Paterson’s corpse, one of Knox’s assistants recognized it: Fergusson. In his confession, Burke said that Fergusson “was the only man who ever questioned me anything about the bodies” and noted that he’d particularly inquired about Paterson’s.

A Sensational Court Case

But it wasn’t Paterson’s murder that drew the police’s attention, even though anatomy students recognized her. Rather, it was Madgy Docherty, one of Burke’s boarders. When Docherty went missing, two other boarders went looking for her…and found her body stashed under a bed. They immediately went to the police. Mary Paterson and James Wilson were also named as victims on the murder indictment against William Burke, Helen M’Dougal, William Hare, and Margaret Hare.

The press jumped to publish every bit of information available about the victims. Paterson was a resident at Magdalene Asylum, a home for at-risk girls similar to Charles Dickens’ Urania Cottage. James Wilson was a well-known street figure survived by his mother and sister. And Madgy Docherty was the only victim whose body was examined by the police. A thriving trade in hand-colored portraits of the victims quickly emerged, although only the ones of Wilson were actually drawn by someone who knew him.

Before the trial, the Hares agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for immunity. Burke and M’Dougal were tried on December 24, 1868. M’Dougal was acquitted, but Burke was convicted. On January 28, 1829, he was executed. In a turn of rather poetic justice, Burke’s body was dissected and exhibited publicly.

Knox Falls from Grace

Meanwhile, Knox was vilified for having purchased Burke and Hare’s bodies. He denied all knowledge of the murders, though his detractors pointed out that someone so accomplished in anatomy should easily identify a body that has died through violence. Furthermore, it’s simple to notice when a body hasn’t been pulled from a grave. Many researchers argue that Knox probably had an extensive network of body snatchers, supplying him with corpses not only from Edinburgh but also from Glasgow, Dublin, and Manchester. However, Knox claimed that his assistants (including Fergusson) handled cadaver acquisition on his behalf, so they were the ones who had actually purchased the bodies.

The public was unconvinced. On February 12, 1829, an effigy of Knox was publicly hung and quickly torn to pieces in the street. Popular ballads and caricatures reviled the formerly respected figure. Though Knox was cleared of any knowledge of the crime, his career crumbled. Unable to establish a new anatomy school, Knox resorted to translating French anatomy textbooks and writing for medical journals.

His assistant Fergusson fared much better. Despite the fact that he had even questioned Burke about the bodies, Fergusson was not called to task for his probable role in the entire affair. On the contrary, he moved to London and eventually established himself as a preeminent surgeon. It was not until Stevenson published The Body-Snatcher in 1884 that the public reevaluated Fergusson’s potential role in the whole debacle.

Legislation Quells Practice, But Not Public Fascination

The Burke and Hare murders, and others like them, paved the way for the Anatomy Act of 1832. As the cadaver shortage reached crisis in 1828, a Select Committee on Anatomy reported to Parliament. Chairman Henry Warburton drafted an Anatomy Bill that would allow schools access to unclaimed bodies of people who died in workhouses and hospitals. It failed in the House of Lords. But in 1832, John Bishop and Thomas Williams were also convicted of committing murder to get cadavers. Fearing an epidemic of similar murders, Parliament passed the Anatomy Act of 1832, expanding access to cadavers and establishing a system for documentation and inspection. The Anatomy Act did little to actually resolve the issues surrounding cadaver acquisition because many parts were intentionally vague. However, because a record of cadavers was created, it did eliminate the possibility of murder for cadaver sale.

By 1884, five decades had passed since the Anatomy Act went into effect. Yet the public still had an insatiable thirst for shocking episodes like the Burke and Hare murders, so it’s no surprise that The Body-Snatcher proved an overnight success. (And Stevenson probably regretted having refused the entire £40 payment for the work.) Stevenson would go on to explore the grotesque successfully in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, now perhaps his most famous work.

Related Books and Ephemera

College Papers No 1, The Master of Ballantrae. A Winter’s Tale, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain

A Christmas Carol in Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Yule Tide., Silverado Squatters, The Sea Fogs

New Arabian Nights

Giving Thanks to Your Local Bookseller: A Quick Guide using Collectible Books to Answer the Most Important Question of all… “Why?”

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By Margueritte Peterson

When I first became interested in rare books I took myself to as many antiquarian book fairs as I could. My first fair was in London, where I sheepishly wandered around as silently and as invisibly as possible and tried to pretend that I belonged in the same room as a million dollar manuscript of Alice in Wonderland by Charles Dodgson. I left the fair and called everyone I knew (so, basically, the five people on my speed-dial list) to tell them what I’d seen. They were all flabbergasted and amazed that I had seen an original, marked-up copy of the famous children’s story. But even I had to ask myself the question that everyone asked me (apparently they knew no one else in the business)… why a million dollars? Why? This is a question I’d like to briefly handle, in my own words, by discussing the main components of what gives books value (a question that is answered in-depth by our very own Vic Zoschak during his seminars at select California ABAA fairs… which you should all attend).

Edition. We all know that a 1991 paperback copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby sells for about $1.50 on Ebay to ten thousand US high schoolers every year. Why then are there copies of the same book selling for over $100,000 online? Those are first editions. We at Tavistock Books consider first editions as first printings of the first edition. The true first time the book was ever printed. Now, these copies are not only selling for so much because they are first editions. After all, sometimes you can find a much sought after first edition, first printing at a local used bookstore for the bargain price of $10! This point leads us to the next deciding factor, which is…

Condition. Condition of titles are essential to the demand for a certain book. The $10 bookstore copy of Gatsby is tattered, smelling of cigarette smoke, foxed throughout (foxing being the term for those brown spots that come up on book pages – a curious phenomenon between the ink, paper and chemical reactions), and with crayola markings where a desperate mother pushed her book into her sons hands for a moment of peace on the telephone. Condition, akin to location in real-estate, is of great importance in giving value to rare books – as it is very hard to sell a book that is in desperate need of a make-over unless it has a wonderful quality I like to call…

Rarity. Every bookseller has heard this phrase a thousand times from clients wishing to sell us books… “but it’s really old…” Yes, you may have a book from 1913 with a lovely gilt illustrated binding. But a quick search online shows hundreds of copies exactly the same, none fetching more than $30! Now, you think you may have an intact (or even not intact… for this example that doesn’t really matter) Gutenberg Bible sitting on the shelf in your grandma’s garage? The phrase should be “Now that’s a horse of a different color!” Only 48 known copies of the earliest moveable-type printed book are known to man, only 31 of which are perfect (complete). That type of rarity is far different than so many online and probably double that amount still sitting in your grandma’s garage. (I’m sure she’s a lovely lady but what she got doesn’t interest me and that leads us to my last point which is…)

Desire. Another instance of disappointment to clients wishing to sell booksellers their items is when they realize that even we couldn’t sell the book – meaning that booksellers try not to buy books when there are no customers for the title. You may have an interesting archive (from your grandfather’s family, which your grandmother gave you after he passed away) of family pictures from 1875. But a bookseller can only justify using his company’s funds to buy said archive if there is a desire for such a collection! Does he have a customer that would be interested? Does he know where he can find someone who fits the bill? If the answer to these questions are both “no”, then we won’t take the archive off your hands… no matter how cute your great grandmother was in her wedding dress.

I tried to keep this blog short and sweet – a basic overview to our customers and other bibliophiles out there – as to what it is that antiquarian booksellers do and how they are able to figure out the pricing that they do. An essential part of the job is having an amazing research ability, not to mention the knowledge of the trade that comes from years of experience. Is there a National Antiquarian Bookseller month? Perhaps November would be a good time to give thanks for your local booksellers!

P.S. If learning more tricks of the trade is interesting to you, look into taking one of the courses Vic Zoschak leads – an annual reference book workshop giving you the basics of how booksellers begin their research, or the Book Collecting 101 workshop mentioned earlier and offered at Bay Area ABAA book fairs! You won’t be sorry…

Happy Birthday, Lady Lazarus

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By Margueritte Peterson

“I am terrified by this dark thing/ That sleeps in me; / All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.” The author of this quote, and many similar to it, was a haunted being. She struggled with depression throughout her life and eventually succumbed to the constant pain she felt and ended her life. Many think of her and immediately think “that lady put her head in an oven” (don’t lie… you did, didn’t you?). Banish it from your mind for a moment! Today, we’d rather focus on her fascinating life and haunting poetry instead. Her being, of course, Sylvia Plath. Though you may not think that writing a blog on Sylvia Plath at Halloween-time is very… original, we are going to do it – as today would have been her 83rd birthday. Plath was an extremely influential person – not just in words, but in her struggle to have her poems heard – despite seeming to have the world against her!

A young Sylvia Plath.

Sylvia Plath was born in October of 1932 and was raised in Massachusetts. Despite her father’s sudden death shortly following her 8th birthday, Plath did not begin to show signs of her mental illness until college. As an 8 year old child Plath survived and thrived through a tumultuous year – first with her father’s death, then her family’s relocation to Wellesley, MA, and also with her first published poem in the Boston Herald’s Children’s Section. Sylvia blossomed in academic environments and in 1950 when she began to attend Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, she discovered a whole new world, finding she loved being a part of an academic community. She became editor of The Smith Review and interned, as a guest editor, at Mademoiselle magazine during the summer after her junior year – a highly sought after position. Her mental illness finally seemed to surface during this time, when Plath was distraught after not meeting poet (and one of her idols) Dylan Thomas during one of his trips to New York. She quickly spiraled into depression, and at the end of the summer she made her first documented suicide attempt by taking sleeping pills and laying down in the crawl space beneath her mother’s house – where she was found 3 days later.

A happy Plath and Hughes after the birth of their daughter, Freida, in 1960.

Now, I know I said that we would be focusing on her fascinating life and poetry rather than her suicide, but bear with me! The events in this particular summer were of great inspiration a decade later when Plath began and published her first and only novel, The Bell Jar. (There is a method to my madness, you can see.) But let us not get ahead of ourselves. Despite her intense summer and a stay at McLean Hospital receiving insulin and electric shock therapy in the fall, Plath recovered and graduated the following June with high honors. She received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she continued to study poetry and was constantly published in the university paper, Varsity. The following February, Plath’s life would be turned upside down by her passionate romance with a fellow poet, Ted Hughes. The pair were married after a short four-month courtship. Hughes was described by Plath as a singer, story-teller, lion and world-wanderer with “a voice like the thunder of God” (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). Plath and Hughes moved to Massachusetts shortly after their wedding so that Plath could teach creative writing at her alma mater, Smith College. Hughes, during this time, taught at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. After spending a couple years in America, the couple moved back to London, where their first child, Freida Hughes, was born in 1960.

It was at this time that Sylvia’s first large book of poetry was published by William Heinemann, named The Colossus and Other Poems. It received mixed reviews (overall better in the UK than it was received in the US), but did not gain enough enthusiasm to raise Sylvia Plath to the point of literary fame. She finished her novel The Bell Jar in 1962 (though it would not be published for another year) and the couple moved to Devon, England, to a small house in the English countryside. Later on in 1962, Plath and Hughes separated after she became aware of his affair with Assia Wevill, the beautiful woman renting their old flat in London with her husband. After moving back to the city with the children, Plath rented a small flat in a house that was once lived in by William Butler Yeats. Plath, renting the flat on a five year lease, thought this a good omen. The poet experienced a final burst of creative energy in the winter of 1962, writing many of the poems that would eventually be contained in Ariel, her posthumously published book of poetry. The Bell Jar finally hit the shelves in January of 1963, published under a pseudonym, but, like The Colossus, was not the great success Plath’s ego needed. In February of 1963, Plath ended her life.

Her work continues to be immensely popular, but many fans of the author’s brutal poetry know very little of her previous works. By the time Plath entered Smith College, she had written over 50 short stories and had them published in local papers and school publications. Also part of her poetry works were her “landscape poetry” – much of which was centered around Northern England (Yorkshire) and is not given as much credit as her later works. Much of her writing is also contained in her private diaries, which were first published in 1982, though her mother published a book of her correspondence home, letters Plath wrote between 1950 and 1963. In 2000 a new book of Plath’s journals was published, when Hughes gave the rights to publish the journals still in his possession (as executor of Plath’s estate), of which over half was new material to the public eye. Though the last of Plath’s journals were destroyed by Hughes, an act condemned often by Plath’s fans – as he said he did not ever want his children with Plath to see her desperate and depressed last months of thought.

Plath’s style has been difficult for scholars to describe, as her writings ran the gamut of emotion and subject. Death and resurrection was a consistent theme throughout her writings in The Colossus, where as in Ariel her more vengeful poems focus more on the rage and despair she felt as she coped with her mental illness. Her poems are almost autobiographical in nature, as she used herself as the subject for almost all of her work. Perhaps this is why she is so popular with readers – though Plath struggled using her personal self as fodder for her poems, she continued to do so. She unabashedly offered herself as a model for her poems – a difficult undertaking for any author. On this her 83rd birthday, we honor Plath and her contribution to the world of poetry – for giving other writers (as many have since given her credit in helping shape their own work) the strength to delve into their own psyche and use it in their compositions.

Fair Acquisitions at Tavistock Books! (Seattle items found here…)

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It’s that time of year again… the time after our exhibiting fairs of Sacramento and Seattle… the time when we place our new items up on our website and tempt you to look at them with blog posts, that is! Check out this post for an in-depth view of some of our newest (and hottest) items!

Dickens’s Works, Diamond Edition (1880). An original Dickens in original publisher’s binding in an original publisher’s box! Yes, that’s right ladies and gents… we nabbed a 1st edition thus of Chapman and Hall’s Diamond Edition of Dickens’s [sic] Works! This 16 volume set shows only modest wear, garnering it our VG+ rating! As we tell you, this economical edition in pocket format quite rare as it is offered here – a complete set with the original publisher’s box. You know what? I’m not doing it justice. See it here>

Our next item [regrets, this item now SOLD]: The Old Manor House (1822) in Two Volumes… Did you know that the founder of the famous Chiswick Press is often credited as one of the first printers to come up with the idea of printing cheaper, handy editions of standard authors for the common man? Even stated on the rear panel of a volume here is “[The publisher] means that his edition shall combine correctness, neatness, portability and cheapness…” This set a rare double-survivor, as the cheapness of the printing meant being issued in drab boards and on cheaper paper. Read more here>

Now, are you one of those collectors who like the more personal items? Are photograph albums and inscriptions your thing? Check out our Personal Guest Book of Ralph and Violette Lee. This guest book belonged to a California jeweler and art patron, and the founder of the Gensler-Lee Jewelry Company, one of the largest jewelry chains in the state of California around the beginning of the 20th century. This guest book is filled with personal signatures and inscriptions praising the patrons and their beautiful California home! See more on it here>

A 1st edition of David Copperfield from 1850? Sounds great! This 1st volume edition a VG+ copy in a later full blue calf binding (binding by Bayntun), spine only slightly sunned. Did you know that David Copperfield is a primarily autobiographical novel? In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens went so far as to state “like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name is David Copperfield.” This eighth novel of Charles Dickens is beloved by many. Is it beloved by you? Look at it here>

Are you expecting? We don’t mean to be intrusive, but take a look at our Mother’s Book! This 1831 1st edition by Mrs. Lydia Maria Francis Child is a primer for the new mother! Our attention is held by Chapter VII: “Advice Concerning Books” followed by “List of Good Books for various ages” where Child gives 10 pages full of recommended titles for ages 4 to 16. This title has everything a lady would need to know in the early 19th century about the “joys” of motherhood! Read more here>

Sleepless in Seattle: Kate’s Second Book Fair

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By Kate Mitas

Our smiling blog author and Aide-de-Camp, Kate Mitas!

Oh, Seattle. Coffee wellspring of the Pacific Northwest, home to too many musicians and artists for a mere blog post to recount, and, it almost goes without saying, annual host to a much-loved regional book fair. Which, of course, is why I found myself in the Emerald City last Thursday for my first visit to Seattle (not counting layovers or bleary-eyed glimpses from I-5) and the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair.

Between the abundance of flannel and the Space Needle dominating the horizon, Seattle is just waiting to be cast as the setting for a hipster version of the Jetsons: its city center glass, its art postmodern, and its denizens often bearded, bookish, and/or bespectacled, thereby rendering the game of “spot the bookseller in the bar” next to impossible to play. Did they see us coming, I wondered, these intellectual-looking, future-minded Seattleites, and would they care that a book fair was in their midst?

Trunks of books arrived and piled up in the FedEx store, belonging not just to Tavistock Books but also to our booth-mates, Books Tell You Why (and I think I can safely say that Joachim’s mammoth double-wide trunks plagued the erstwhile FedEx folks even more than ours did). Assorted vehicles packed high with boxes commandeered the hotel parking lots, including the white behemoth driven by the incredibly generous and possibly a bit cracked Brad Johnson (The Book Shop, LLC) and Jesse Rossa (Triolet Rare Books), who hauled the combined stock of eleven booksellers up the coast in one mad fell swoop (and then, astonishingly, brought it down again). Overloaded dollies trundled down the ramps of Seattle’s Exhibition Hall and returned empty. Slowly but surely, booksellers descended on the city from every part of the country and even from overseas, like a horde of collegial, misinformed locusts, who, rather than decimating the surrounding crops, amiably offer themselves up to be devoured instead.

But would it work, that was the question. Would a plain white banner tied to the Exhibition Hall’s railing alert people to our presence? Would the rain forecast for the weekend keep potential customers away? Most importantly, for this newbie to the fair circuit, who woke up at four in the morning most days of the fair with these questions in mind, would Seattle be a repeat of Sacramento for the good ship Tavistock?

The trip didn’t start off very promising, frankly. Two days before we left, Vic’s van got totaled in a car accident as he was on his way to the shop (everyone unhurt, humans and pets alike, thank goodness). I somehow forgot until the last minute that I would need something nicer than usual to wear, and spent a frantic few hours the night before our flight at my trusty local thrift stores, manically amusing myself with thoughts of showing up in various ridiculous prom dresses for the first day of the fair (a.k.a., “fancy day,” when Vic planned to wear a suit and informed me that I should have on something complementary), before scrounging up a couple of things that I hoped would suffice. The airline misrouted Vic’s suitcase and then informed us that they wouldn’t be able deliver it to the hotel until midnight; the rental car service didn’t have the car we’d ordered. By the time we got a different car, picked up our trunks of books, and grabbed a bite to eat, we were grumpy and beleaguered. The fair, it seemed, was already taking a turn for the doomed.

The Tavistock Book In all its glory!

Nevertheless, we rallied and for a time not all was sad in Mudville. Vic’s suitcase arrived at the hotel sooner than expected, and this time around at setup, on Friday, when Vic left me to ready the booth while he scoured the wares of fellow dealers, I managed to get things situated with a little less agonizing than last time. The wonderful crew from Books Tell You Why — Joachim Koch, Andrea Koczela, and Brian Hoey — were, well, wonderful, and I was grateful to have them around for suggestions and shared laughs (not to mention book recommendations). We even sold a few things that day, and bought a few things, which I’m learning is the way book fairs should go. So, hurrah for us . . . right?

Well, let me back up a minute to say that for anyone who has been to the Sacramento but not the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair, or vice versa, there is a world of difference between the two. Sacramento is smaller, hotter, more tightly packed, and far, far more relaxed. Seattle, admirably well-organized by Louis Collins, while still not the creme de la creme of book fairs (or so I’m told), is certainly more imposing. Glass cases predominate and even have their own special crews, roving bands of handymen who do everything from adjust shelves to clean the doors with a bottle of zealously-guarded Windex. More importantly, dealers come from farther away, with better books and higher expectations. It costs more, so you have to sell more. Plain and simple.

And that, dear readers, is where the crux of the problem lies.

Like a pro – not showing any uncomfortable-ness! The Tavistock Team on Saturday morning, excited for a day of bookselling!

Saturday dawned cool and rainy, but I should have known that a little rain wouldn’t keep Seattleites away. It poured, and they still came flocking to the book fair. (I loved them for this, and still do, from afar.) Yet, all that morning and into the early afternoon, the Tavistock booth remained eerily untouched. Gradually, it dawned on me: we’d brought the wrong books. All of the right books were back at the store! As for those that weren’t wrong, well, they were priced too high. No amount of rearranging, no amount of petty thievery of the precious bottle of display-case Windex from its rightful place behind the back curtains, would change things. Then there was the matter of my dress — also uncomfortably wrong (what had I been thinking?) — and my shoes, which gave me blisters after the first fifteen minutes. I’d also bashed my elbow on one of the trunks during setup, and was burning through band-aids like no tomorrow. It was Sacramento all over again, except this time I was actually bleeding.

As you’re probably guessing, though, we did, in fact, finally sell something, a little Seattle-related booklet that made one nice man very happy. And soon enough, we were passing the invoice book back and forth and politely trying to outmaneuver each other for the calculator while sales piled up at last, much to our relief. Did it matter then that the band-aid on my heel somehow slid over to the top of my foot and clung there, unnoticed by me, for most of the day, completely putting the kibosh on my “fancy day” outfit? I assure you, it did not (once I finally noticed it). I was having too much fun.

However, much as I would love to be able to report that our Sunday sales flew along at the same clip as Saturday’s, alas, they did not. In fact, we didn’t sell a thing, and our rampant success Saturday turned out to be the only reason the weekend wasn’t a total ruin. Well, that and the finds Vic came across, which we’ll be adding to our inventory soon (stay tuned). Expenses piled up, and the fair that I’d been sure had at least outshone Sacramento turned out to be, when we sat down and crunched the numbers this afternoon, roughly equivalent.

Dinner at Crow, Sunday after pack-out. Having been on their feet all day two days in a row and spending hours packing their books to go back home… well, you’d never know it! Just look at those smiles.

So what’s a young bookseller with two not-so-good fairs under her belt to do? Well, after long and careful consideration, I have to admit that I’m in something of a bind: no matter how much I stare at our tally sheet and its glaring red total, and no matter how many choice expletives I thoughtfully lob in its direction, the 2015 Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair still feels . . . good. We sold some nice books, and if we could’ve made a little more profit on them we would’ve done very well, indeed. The venue was lovely, if hot, and we met some great customers who may yet turn out to be future customers; even some past customers stopped by to say hi and introduce themselves. The booksellers I met were invariably kind and welcoming, and I finally had the chance to see some of my brilliant fellow assistants. Even a few of my fellow 2015 CABS grads (Jon Munster (The Book Bin, Corvalis), Rebekah Medford, and Ken Mallory (Kenneth Mallory, Bookseller)), were there. And finally, of the many, many things I learned this weekend, one may even be life-saving: never, ever have a rubber band fight with Ken Karmiole. He’s deadly with those things. In fact, I highly suspect this bookseller business is just a front for target practice (no wonder he like fairs so much — we’re like fish in a barrel).

Sure, I wish we’d blown our Sacramento showing out of the water. I also wish that my shoes had fit better, and that my band-aids hadn’t been so errant. Mostly, I wish I’d been less daunted (and less sleep-deprived). But damn if it wasn’t fun, in the end.

And as for the good ship Tavistock? What else? We’re patching the leaks, of course, and bringing new ideas to the table. It’s time to get a little creative.

See you in Pasadena, everyone.