Antique Trader® book collector's price guide

400 Pages·2009·0.61 MB·English

by  Richard Russell

Antique Trader
®
Book
Collector’s
PRICE GUIDE • 3rd Edition
Richard Russell
©2009 Richard Russell
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a critical article or
review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio, television, or the Internet.
Published by
700 East State Street • Iola, WI 54990-0001
715-445-2214 • 888-457-2873
www.krausebooks.com
Our toll-free number to place an order or obtain
a free catalog is [phone].
Cover photography by Kris Kandler
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009923188
ISBN-13: 978-1-4402-0372-5
ISBN-10: 1-4402-0372-5
eISBN: 978-1-44021-946-7
Books shown on the cover and what page more information on them can be found: Albert Goldman, Ladies and
Gentlemen: Lenny Bruce!!; A.A. Fair, Up For Grabs; Blanche Grant, Doña Lona: A Story of Old Taos and Santa Fé;
Agatha Christie, Sleeping Murder; John D. MacDonald, The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper; Edgar Rice
Burroughs, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar; William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch.
Designed by Katrina Newby
Edited by Kristine Manty
Printed in China
DEDICATION
To Heather, Laurel and Scott
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Author wishes to thank the following booksellers for their advice, knowledge and
photos:
Richard Murain of Alcuin Books, Scottsdale, AZ
Melanie James of M. James, Bookseller, Hertford, NC
Barry Levin of Barry R. Levin Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Santa Monica,
CA
Fran Durako of The Kelmscott Bookshop, Baltimore, MD
Kevin Johnson of Royal Books, Baltimore, MD
Tom Macaluso of Thomas Macaluso Rare Books in Kennett Square, PA
CONTENTS
Introduction
Americana
Art and Illustrated Books
Banned Books
Biographies
Children’s Books
Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction
Literature in Translation
Modern First Editions
Occult and Paranormal
Philosophy and Religion
Poetry and Belles Lettres
Vanity and Small Press
Vintage Fiction
First Edition Identifier
Method 1
Method 2
Method 3
Method 4
Method 5
Method 6
English Language Publishers Using Unique or Semi-Unique Methods
Bookman’s Glossary
INTRODUCTION
When I started these books, as a guide for my daughter to go to garage sales, almost
fifteen years ago, printed it at Kinko’s and sold a couple thousand copies, the object of
it all never really dawned on me. As I said in the introduction to the first edition of the
series as it was picked up by Antique Trader, “I love to read and I hate to work.” I’ve
only understood in doing this third edition, that we, my readers and I, are deciders.
Literature, as an art, is in our hands, or should I say in our collections. Who else?
The academics? Who spent half a century arguing whether the greatest novel in
English was Bulwer-Lytton’s Pelham or Disraeli’s Vivian Grey? And I have, in my
collection, the “literary” magazines where they argued it. They know how it’s been
done, not how it will be done; we will decide that. We will decide the “greatest novels,”
by collecting them.
The publishers? Who say, “You may have written the greatest book of the century.
Now you need to search out a friend of ours who gets fifteen percent of everything you
make and kicks back a few bucks to us?” What artist of any integrity would even agree
to be published by them?
I was young in a world where literature was just beginning to take off in new and
exciting directions. In America the Beats were doing new and wonderful things. In
France they had a whole new form, nouveau roman. The barriers were being beaten
down. Sexuality could be art. It looked like literature was ready to ride a rocket. God
how it excited me. I waited for the next Claude Simon like it was the second coming.
And what do our publishers hand us now? A little bat-faced girl with big breasts who is
probably no better in bed than she is an actress to tell us how to make love “like a porn
star.” Stephen King, the century’s Thomas Prest, pulp fiction in hard cover? Where is
the literature? The great writers? Hell, a grocery list by F. Scott Fitzgerald or Arthur
Machen would have been written better than ninety percent of what gets into hardback
today. There isn’t a single mystery published since 1961 that fooled me. No creativity,
no art, just something as absurd as If I Did It, or something that makes a movie. Want to
write a best seller? Write something that fools Oprah Winfrey.
The critics? With their degrees in journalism. Trained to disregard both the art of
language and that of telling a story.
No, it’s on us. We are the only people left who care. We need to read more, collect
more, find the writers, because no one else is even looking. We need to buy some vanity
press, small publications, and make them a larger part of the fourth edition of this book.
Because that’s the only way things will change. Shelley, Poe, they had to suck it up and
pay, when literature got as bad then as it is now. And it’s probably the only way you’ll
get something new, something without the stale lingering feeling that you read it before.
Half the sci-fiauthors today change the planet and the characters’ names; read James D.
MacDonald, if you can stomach a whole book of it.
Why not try In a Garden of Eden by Justin Vicari (Philadelphia: Plan B Press, 2004)?
Out of print, it may cost, but it’s worth it. Or For Fuck’s Sake by Robert Lasner
(Brooklyn, NY: Ig Publishing, 2002)? It’s tickling $30, in first. That’s the future, the
only possible future, unless the future is the pablum of the major publishers and the
mind candy of movies and TV.
I was born five thousand years behind in my reading. I’ve spent about fifty years
trying to catch up. I haven’t read a book by a major publisher since 1987 that I hadn’t
read before with different locales and characters with different names. Where are the
books like Recurrent Melody =: Passacaille: a Novel (Robert Pinget. London: Calder
and Boyars, 1975)? A whodunit, whydunit, howdidit, ifdidit, huh? All at once, just
fascinating.
I haven’t fallen in love since Marguerite Duras introduced me to a lady with Blue
Eyes and Black Hair (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987) and I fall in love so easily.
Ayesha, She who must be obeyed (H. Rider Haggard. London: Longmans, Green, and
Co., 1887), Dejah Thoris, A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chicago: A. C.
McClurg & Co., 1917), Renee, La Vagabonde (Collette. New York: Farrar, Straus and
Young, 1955), Zuleika Dobson (Max Beerbohm. London: Wm. Heinemann, 1911),
Charmaine Lady Vibart ( Jeffrey Farnol. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1932) are
just a few of my former lovers; why isn’t there someone my age, someone like Zuleika,
to die for? My tastes are only for a woman created so artistically that I fall in love in
spite of myself. Maybe, in my own way, I am Cheri (Collette. Paris: Artheme Fayard &
Cie, 1920), fascinated with things older than I. Modern authors don’t hold that
fascination, just someone like Nora Roberts rewriting Lady Charmaine, badly.
Romance writing has become plagiarism, or something perilously close to it. Where are
the love letters like the one O (Pauline Reage. Paris: Olympia Press, 1954) wrote?
The point is that the only people who can change things are the people who buy this
book, collectors and readers. In this edition I’ve tried to make it a bit easier and
followed your suggestions as well as the space permits. I suppose the biggest change is
the lack of detailed information on how to collect. The fact is that it doesn’t fit. The first
edition listings, the pseudonym dictionary, have both grown well beyond the limits of
front matter. Perhaps at some time in the future I may try to make a separate book out of
it all. That is if publishers want you to have the information. I rather suspect they don’t.
Ask one how they mark their editions. I asked a new company and was basically told,
“Get outta here kid, you bother me.” I suppose used books are competition, and they’d
rather not encourage that. Of course they could search out better books than the older
ones, the next steps in Beat or nouveau roman, but apparently they’d rather not.
I have added the dimensions you’ve asked me for. I’ve added more points of issue,
and designated them better. In a way, it’s a little ironic. A point of issue is a mistake
made by a publisher that identifies the first print run of a book. In point of actual fact,
the collectible and valuable book is the flawed one. The better book, the corrected
version, is readily available and hardly pricey. For example: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic
The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribners, 1925) has the following points of issue (ie:
misprints) designating the most valuable First State: “chatter” p. 60 line 16, “northern”
p. 119 line 22, “sick in tired” p. 205 lines 9-10, and “Union Street station” p. 211 lines
7-8. Perhaps that is why publishers are so sloppy and incompetent, we exalt their errors.
In any case, I have added nearly a 1,000 such points, isn’t it wonderful publishers are
incompetent enough to make enough mistakes that we need to catalogue them?
Another thing you asked for was limited editions, and there are about 1,000 added.
The caveat is that the ones I added are known limitations. Open-ended “limited”
editions such as those of Easton and Franklin Library aren’t covered and only the first
editions are listed for them. Not all such limited editions are signed; however, I give
you enough bibliographic data that it should be clear.
I’ve fielded a lot of questions about series books. This started with the first edition of
the Antique Trader series, so I started collecting prices and tracking series books about
five years ago. In this edition there are a tad over a hundred series, about 3,000 books.
There are a few ground rules to this.
First, I left out “house name” series. Syndicates, various other writing groups and
publishers have put out series that carry a single author’s name, but are in actuality
written by numerous authors for hire. Thus there are only isolated Carolyn Keenes or
Victor Appletons. Just the Stratemeyer syndicate alone would produce several books the
size I am contracted for. I have, however, included series that have several authors, such
as OZ and James Bond.
Second, certain books in a series are PBO (paperback originals), if that is the case,
the first edition is designated as the PBO and the first hardcover edition is also noted as
the first hardcover edition, not the First Edition.
Third, the last book or two in a series may have been completed by another author,
usually due to the original author’s death. Also this posthumous collaborator may
continue the series. In the first case the collaborator is noted as the author’s name and
the collaborator alphabetized by the original author. In the second case the book is
alphabetized under the collaborator’s name alone, without mention of the original
author.
Fourth, if a significant amount of time has passed before a series is continued, the
continuation will not be included unless it is by the original author. So what are
basically pastiches of famous characters, such as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Fu Manchu,
and others are not included as a continuation of the series.
Including both Limited Editions and series books forces me to acknowledge that
there are some books I cannot factually derive a price for. Every book has either a Near
Fine-Fine (NF/F) price or a Good-Very Good (G/VG) price; however, I cannot, in a few