Chapter 59 Blocked

Now that I have gathered all of the pertinent books for my purpose and am ready to make the Dante catalogue a priority, I’m having a hard time writing it. I guess I could call it writer’s block. (Read: horrible, horrible bout of procrastination.)

This inability to focus is not for lack of reference books, lack of bibliographical information, or even lack of interest in the subject. I love these particular books, but I also love having a book business, so it’s time to offer them for sale. When I thought about why I was having trouble completing my catalogue, I discovered that having one’s workplace in one’s home can be a problem. For instance, I start typing and realize I have really important household chores to do, like re-organizing the kitchen cabinet that holds pots and pans or getting dust off the baseboards. I also started a major clean-out project in September, one area of the house each week, and to keep up with my cleaning list, I am sacrificing catalogue writing time. Everyone’s dresser drawers and closets look really clean, though. When I do sit down to write, my thoughts wander to what I’ll be cooking for dinner that night to wondering what I will buy my brothers for Christmas. Then my mother or my best friend call me. Well, then it’s just plain too late to spend the rest of my free hours focused on writing a major undertaking like a print catalogue. I write a blog post like this one instead.

I won’t give up. The catalogue will be written. Since this is the first time I’ve been home without children in almost ten years, I am still discerning the balance between household management and bookselling. I trust it will work itself out in the end. But, if you’re wondering why this darn catalogue of only 50 items is taking so long to produce, now you know.

I have a binder that I call my “Household Management” binder that I use to keep myself organized. It holds sections of To-Do Lists, Grocery Lists, Meal Plans, Cleaning Chore Lists, Phone Numbers, Kids’ Sports Team Information, Medical Information, Holiday Planning, Car Maintenance Records, etc. It keeps me organized and without it I would forget lots of tiny details (like the fact that I promised to drive on Tom’s field trip this week and that Huck has Show and Tell on Friday). It sounds silly, but it works for me. I am toying with the idea of creating a similar binder for bookselling. If I write down my tasks, I can see what I actually need to do (sell books, buy books, catalogue books, write, learn more about bookselling) and plan my time more efficiently. Except that making said binder and organizing it will take away even more time from the Dante catalogue.

I know what I really need to do: Take out all of the Dante books and just look at them together and think about them for a while. Then I need to sit down in my chair and not move until I am finished sharing them with the rest of the world through my catalogue. When that happens, you’ll be the first to know.

See you in the stacks!

P.S. I am still very interested in reading your stories of fingerspitzengefuhl. Email them to me at chris @ bookhuntersholiday . com.

Chapter 58 Members Early Sale at My Favorite Library Sale, Or, the Return of Fingerspitzengefuhl

On Saturday, my favorite library sale had its annual Members Early Sale. Those who are members of the Friends of the Library get to enter the sale an hour early and hunt for literary treasures at their leisure. I arrived at 8:00 a.m. to get a ticket for the 10:00 a.m. opening. After picking up my ticket, I headed off for breakfast. It was a classic autumn day in the San Francisco Bay Area — grey foggy skies, a few trees which have already turned color and the scent of an approaching rainstorm in the air. At the cafe, I ordered pumpkin spice pancakes with walnuts and maple syrup. Though I probably should have had something healthy, like steel-cut oats, I couldn’t resist how perfectly the hearty food fit the weather.

Fortified, I headed back to line up before the sale opened. I think those wonderful FOL volunteers must be saving special treasures for this very sale. After finding nothing at another book sale I attended last weekend, this sale offered more than I could carry out in one trip. Fingerspitzengefuhl had returned!

First, a Stanford professor had donated his entire collection of books written about Soviet-era Russia. As I travelled to the former Soviet Union as an exchange student in 1990, this subject is a personal collecting interest. My collection is made up of personal narratives written by westerners who visited the Soviet Union. I found a dozen good books in this subject alone, including some ephemeral, typed reports written by exchange students like me. I love to find primary source material, even though it’s not usually as pretty as a book.

You already know of my love for all things Laura Ingalls Wilder, so it will probably come as no surprise that I also have a large collection of books written by or about pioneer women. Today I was thrilled to find a first edition of Calamity Jane’s Letters to her Daughter.

And speaking of pioneering women, I also found a book about a woman who was a pioneer in the field of astronomy, Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel, by Mrs. John Herschel. (Published in 1876 by D. Appleton and Company). The first woman to discover a comet, Herschel lived from 1750-1848. Hers was truly a Cinderella story. According to my cursory online research, Caroline Herschel was born on March 16, 1750 in Hanover, Germany. Caroline’s mother did not see the need for a girl to become educated and preferred to make Caroline a house servant to the rest of the family.

At the age of ten Caroline was stricken with typhus, which stunted her growth. She never married, and later she became her brother’s housekeeper. Her brother, William Herschel, trained her in voice lessons and mathematics, and eventually she began to help him with his hobby, astronomy and telescope-making. She helped her brother develop the modern mathematical approach to astronomy.

In 1783 Caroline Herschel discovered three new nebulae. Between 1786 and 1797 she discovered eight comets. In later years, Caroline catalogued every discovery she and William had made. Two of the astronomical catalogues published by Caroline Herschel are still in use today. On her ninety sixth birthday, Caroline Herschel was awarded the King of Prussia’s Gold Medal of Science for her life long achievements.

Caroline Herschel, at age 97.

For those interested in my scouting methods, I did not know anything about Herschel when I picked up the book, but it is in very good condition. I could tell by its 19th century binding and the fact that its author was a woman that it might be of interest to me. At first glance, I thought it was a book about a pioneer woman coming across the Rockies. However, when I read in the introduction that she had named comets and then checked the nineteenth century publication date, I just had to have it. Are you wondering if it was a bargain? Such a nice book is not usually found for fifty cents, even at a library sale. It does take an investment. I spent XX dollars on the book and expect to sell it for XXX dollars. After I finish researching and writing a description for the book, I’ll let you know if that works out. I don’t mind paying more for a book I know I can sell for more than what I paid. This is one of the things that makes this sale one of my favorites — this FOL does mark up some of its more significant books, but not so much that a bookseller can’t make a good profit on the book. Because of this, I’ll shop there again and again.

I also picked up some ephemeral items related to old San Francisco. These will come in handy for the San Francisco Antiquarian Book and Paper Fair, at which I am exhibiting in February. Along with these I bought three magazines from 1915 and 1916, titled The Red Man, “Illustrated and Printed by Indians”. The covers were beautiful, and I bought these hoping that research into the authors, articles, and lengthy authorial inscriptions in each will lead to . . . falling deeper in love with the magazines, some interesting time spent on research, and a good sale price.

Finally, I picked up a book I am still researching, Bailey’s Light: Saga of Brit Bailey and Other Hardy Pioneers, by Josephine Polley Golson. Why did I pick it? It’s about pioneers and was written by a woman. It has a great pictorial dustjacket.

Now, for those of you who’ve read this entire lenghty post. I couldn’t get this lucky in one day without finding something to help out my readers, could I? I found a nice paperback edition (reading copy) of the book that started it all for me: A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books, by Nicholas Basbanes. If you haven’t read this amazing history of bibliophiles and book collecting and you’re selling books, you need to. The first person to send me the story of his or her favorite library sale find (What did you find? Where and How? What made you choose that book? Did you know right away that it was a great find?) will be sent the book free of charge. Second and third stories to arrive will recieve Stern and Rostenberg’s Old Friends, Rare Books, and Stuart Kelly’s The Book of Lost Books, respectively. Share your story of fingerspitzengefuhl! Email me at chris @ bookhuntersholiday . com. (My email time stamps so I can tell who was first.) And thanks for reading!

Tomorrow: Catalogue Writer’s Block

Chapter 57 Rare Book School Offers Scholarships

Did you read my recent post about the amazing courses offered at Rare Book School at the University of Virginia? I’ve blogged about it here and here and here.Were you thinking to yourself, “Well, that would be nice, but I don’t have any idea how I’d pay for it, so I probably can’t go”? When I first heard of Rare Book School, I had that same thought. I didn’t know there were scholarships available to help pay my tuition, and I figured I could attend after I sold my first $1,000 book. (I didn’t have any books worth more than a couple of hundred dollars at the time, so the prospect of selling a $1,000 book seemed light years away.) Don’t despair. Yes, you are a bookseller, and you could and should sell books to pay your way. But if you are just getting started in the business, as I am, you already know that despite selling lots of books there are a lot of other start-up expenses that seem to have more urgency than continuing education. What can you do? Read on:

When I checked my email Saturday, I was pleased to find a comment on my blog from Terry Belanger, founder of Rare Book School, I want to post his comment here, because I want to make sure that you know that full-tuition scholarships are available for attending Rare Book School. I even received one, and if I can do that, you probably can, too.

Professor Belanger’s comment reads:

“Thanks for posting this information about Rare Book School. Don’t forget that RBS has an active program providing full-tuition scholarships to applicants to the school. The Scholarship Committee favors applications from relative beginners in the various professions the school serves: notably academics interested in the history of books and printing and related subjects, antiquarian booksellers, conservators and binders, rare book librarians and curators — and those training to become one of the above. For a list of this year’s scholarship winners, click here.“

Go for it!

Chapter 56 I Love This Job!

I received an order on Sunday via my website. It was from a customer I hadn’t met before for a book written by a woman who was an early pioneer in Oregon. Last night, I received this message from the customer:

“Thank you! Thank you! I received the book today!

My Mom will be thrilled when she sees the book! [The author] is related to us. Mom’s maiden name is M——–. Mom is the Great, Great Granddaughter of [the author]. Which makes me her Great, Great,Great Granddaughter.

Thanks!”

I felt very satisfied to know that my customer was not only pleased with the book, but as I also have a great-grandmother with a (possible) connection to books, I was thrilled to meet someone else as interested in her ancestors as I am in mine. I’ve written before about the pleasures of connecting a customer with a book you know will be perfect for them, and I’ll say again that it is indeed a great feeling and one of the perks of being a bookseller.

Now, off to a job I don’t love as much as selling books — the dog needs a bath today!

Have a good weekend! I’ll be back Monday with a new post!

Chapter 55 Rare Book School Announces 2008 Courses

I’ve always wished I could have majored in Rare Books in college, and now, finally, I can. Today I received notification that the 2008 course descriptions and dates for the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia are available. Where else can a bookseller or collector go to learn historical and bibliographic information about rare books and how they were made? Aside from the Colorado Antiquarian Book Market Seminar, not many other places in this country give newcomers the opportunity to learn from the experts. If you can, try a course this year. If you can’t take a course this year, read over the descriptions and allow yourself to dream about what’s possible in the world of rare books. Rare Book School does offer scholarships to help with expenses. I plan to attend myself in either 2008 or 2009. Here’s a bulletin that lists all of the new courses along with all of the relevant links and information. Click on the course titles to read their full descriptions.

Rare Book School FRESHEST ADVICES November 2007

RBS 2008 COURSE SCHEDULE
The schedule for most of the courses to be offered in 2008 has been posted on our website: see Current Schedule. Six new RBS courses will be offered in 2008:

BIBLIOGRAPHERS’ TOOLKIT COURSES (G-20 and G-30)
Bibliographers’ Toolkit: Printed Books to 1800, taught by David Whitesell (American Antiquarian Society) will run 21-25 July; its mate, Bibliographers’ Toolkit: Printed Books since 1800, co-taught by Tom Congalton (Between the Covers) and Katherine Reagan (Cornell) will run 9-13 June. This pair of new courses is intended for those seeking a better understanding of how to recognize, evaluate and describe the physical aspects of printed materials.

DESIGNING ARCHIVAL DESCRIPTION SYSTEMS (L-90)
This new course, taught by Daniel Pitti (UVa), will explore in detail markup and database technologies, efforts underway to integrate the two technologies, and the opportunity provided by this integration for transforming archival description.

INTRODUCTION TO ARCHIVES FOR RARE BOOK LIBRARIANS (L-60)
Co-taught by Jackie Dooley (UC Irvine) and Bill Landis (Yale), this course is intended for those whose education and experience are principally rare book-oriented who now find themselves working with archival materials or managing the work of archivists.

THE ART OF THE BOOK IN EDO AND MEIJI JAPAN, 1615-1912 (I-90)
The illustrated woodblock printed books produced in Japan in the Edo and Meiji periods represent a remarkable achievement in terms of their technical perfection, broad range of styles and subject matter, and their beauty; no comparable sustained tradition of artistically significant printed illustrated books existed in China or the West. Taught by Ellis Tinios (University of Leeds) as a complement to his
existing RBS course: Japanese Illustrated Books, 1615-1858 (I-85).

We expect that a sixth new course will be offered at Princeton in October on the history of children’s books, co-taught by Andrea Immel (Princeton) and Justin G. Schiller (Justin G. Schiller Ltd); further details shortly.

A seventh new course, Introduction to the History, Collection, Description, and Use of Maps (H-65), taught by Alice Hudson (NYPL), will debut in RBS 2009.

See you in Charlottesville, Virginia at Rare Book School!

Chapter 54 Empty Hands and Full Shelves, Or, Why I Need to Scout Less and Sell More

I attended a 50% off sale at my local historical society’s used book store over the weekend. I had to get there quite early, and I missed Huck’s soccer game in order to go to the sale. When I got inside, I found . . . nothing. Not one book that was right for my stock. And while I was finding nothing I had to listen to another bookseller’s excitement over his find of an early German edition of Hitler’s Mein Kampf (yes, for reasons too complex to list here, this is actually a collected book). While I know that not every scouting trip will be a fruitful one, I was disappointed to return home empty-handed. When I got home, I learned that Huck had even scored a goal at his soccer game and I missed it. I usually schedule any book activities around my kids’ events, but this particular sale is a once yearly event, so I chose to skip this one soccer game and that turns out to be the game where my kid scores a goal! I was doubly disappointed. Such is life.

At library sales and sales like this one, I often see booksellers leaving with several boxes full of books. Perhaps it’s wrong, but I’ve never bought books this way. Since I can only store a limited stock in my house, I am pretty demanding when it comes to title, edition, and condition, and I only buy books I really think I can resell for a good profit. Additionally, I buy at other venues in addition to library sales, so I don’t feel the need to acquire all of my stock there. It’s typical for me to leave a library sale with ten books or less, but they are usually better books, to be sold for $50 or more. When it comes to scouting books, it happens that sometimes I return home empty-handed and forlorn.

These are a few of the things I do to feel better after I’ve spent a morning searching unsuccesfully for good books:

1) I go home and look at the better books I do have, and remind myself that it took time to find the right book in the right condition at the right price.

2) I tell myself that I really need to spend less time going to book sales and more time cataloguing and selling the books I already have. While there’s nothing like finding a great book — a hymn to joy, the late bookseller Leona Rostenberg called it — booksellers actually earn their pay by selling the books. I don’t know if this is a problem with you, but I am exceedingly slow at listing new books on my website. I have a few hundred uncatalogued good books that I really should list and sell. Currently, my website only has about one hundred books catalogued and listed for sale.

3) I then resolve to spend as much time selling books as I do scouting them.

4) I take a book break and try to do something non-book related, like attending Tom’s soccer game.

5) As soon as I can get a free moment again, I go book hunting somewhere else. Another libary sale is coming up this weekend. Hope springs eternal!

6) I indulge in a cup of Earl Grey and a bite of chocolate. (You knew that was coming, didn’t you?)

7) I sell a few books. Sunday morning, a new order was waiting for me when I logged in to my website. Making a sale is a great way to feel better. It also makes room for more new finds on my shelves.

8 ) Finally, when I can’t locate any good finds at a book sale, I sometimes choose a book outside of my normal specialties and buy it on the speculation that I can choose a good book regardless of what I know about its subject. Sometimes that works; other times, not so much. At the very least, it helps me learn more and broaden my bookselling horizons.

After that, I’m ready to go out book hunting again. Wish me luck!

Chapter 53 Bibliographic Shorthand, Or, Take Care to be Accurate

Good booksellers can be identified by their abilities to do several things well. I’ve written before about book fairs and print catalogues being the hallmarks of a reputable antiquarian bookseller, and I’d like to add proper bibliographic description to the list of things that set such a bookseller apart from those who simply choose to scan books electronically and list them on the internet willy-nilly.

Good bibliographic principles are not hard to learn. I wrote about some books you can use to learn them here. Good bibliographic principles are numerous and, yes, somewhat tedious, and can be hard to remember until you get used to applying those principles on a daily basis. I always have a hard time remembering bibliographic shorthand — the difference in meaning between parentheses and brackets, for instance — but I take time to check what I’m describing and the format I’m using to describe it before I offer a book for sale. If I constantly published descriptions filled with errors (even small ones), I’d never build the reputation I hope to as a knowledgeable bookseller who does her research. I’m putting this information about bibliography on my blog so I can refer to it quickly when I catalogue books. I hope it is of help to you, too.

First, Joyce Godsey, queen of book repairs and erasers, has a post on her blog, Bibliophile Bullpen showing the appropriate order in which a professional describes a book. Do yourself a favor and print this out and save it for future reference. Keep it next to you when you’re writing book descriptions.

Next, let’s talk about citing dates. I just went to ABE and entered “Laura Ingalls Wilder”, “Little House on the Prairie”, and “First Edition” as my search terms. The search yielded 44 books, all described as first edition. The problem with that — not one of them is actually a true first edition. Because, like all good collectors, I am obsessed with all things Little House on the Prairie, I happen to know that the first edition of this particular title was copyrighted on September 26, 1935. The first printing, by Harper and Brothers, states First Edition (subsequent printings do not). Wilder’s books were so popular they have been reprinted many times since the 1930s, most notably in 1953, when all of her books were re-issued with new illustrations by Garth Williams replacing the original illustrations by Helen Sewell and Mildred Boyle. Most recently, modern-day writers have taken historical aspects of the real-life Laura Ingalls and re-written them as short chapter books for beginning readers (The Little House in the Highlands, by Melissa Wiley, among others). These books are great, but they are not first editions of Little House on the Prairie and should not ever intentionally be marketed as such by lazy or dishonest sellers.

Of the 44 “first editions” that appeared in my search, here are some of the publication dates listed: 1997, 1953, 1957, and 1998. Each claims to be a first edition, which in the mind of a savvy collector, means first printing. Only one copy, the most expensive at $250, lists 1935 as the publication date, but that copy is actually an edition published for school libraries by E.M. Hale and not Wilder’s publisher, Harper and Row. That particular seller has at least done his homework and lists his copy as “First thus.”

I have no problem with people wanting to perpetuate the exciting pioneer adventures of Laura Ingalls Wilder by selling her books, but I don’t like it when they don’t describe their books properly. I read descriptions on ABE all the time for fun (yes, fun), and you can bet I remember the names of sellers who get this kind of information wrong. I probably wouldn’t buy books from them, and if I did, I would verify all bibliographic information before making the purchase. I’m not saying booksellers don’t make mistakes from time to time, but there is no need to be so deliberately sloppy. Courtesy of my friends at the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar email list, where we’ve spent a lot of time discussing bibliography lately, here are the generally accepted ways to list dates in bibliographical descriptions so that your customer knows what you are selling — even when your book doesn’t list a date — within your bibliographic descriptions:

1935 = Date appears on the title page.

(1935) = Copyright date, which will not necessarily correspond to the date on the title page or to the publication date. If it differs from the date on the title page, you can list both the title page date (as above) and then the copyright date in parentheses after, like this: 1953 (1935).

[1935] = No date appears in the book, but this is known from some other (citable) source to be the publication date.

ca. 1935 = For a book with no date, but which can be dated via other means such as the binding or advertisements for other titles.

Sorry for the rant. I better have some tea and chocolate and go look at my own first edition copy of Little House on the Prairie.

Chapter 52 Compiling a Mailing List

When I was teaching high school English, I often advised my students, when they were writing, to “begin with the end in mind” and to “know your audience”. Surely, there is a special circle of Dante’s Hell reserved for us teachers, who dare to use such simple aphorisms to teach something as complex as good writing, and the punishment in that circle is that we teachers must heed our own advice. I now find myself in that place.

I’ve just about finished acquiring the items I want for my Dante catalogue, bringing the total to 50. Never mind the fact that only half of the catalogue has been written and only half of the items have been photographed or scanned. I’ll be working on that (feverishly) in the coming weeks. What I need to start thinking about now is a mailing list. I’m a novice antiquarian bookseller without an established customer base. Who should receive this catalogue? More importantly, who might buy items from it? Before I can write good descriptions, I need to think about those for whom I am writing them. I also need to look at my collection as a whole and figure out what’s so special about it anyway.

I have limited workspace in my house (a 3′X3′ corner of my dining room) and I store my books in various dark, dry, cool places throughout my house. I’ve been stockpiling those Dantes for a few years now. It’s time to get them out and look them over, not as individual pieces, but as a physical collection, next week. What started out to be a collection of Dante’s Divine Comedy morphed into a collection of illustrated editions of Divine Comedy. Then it morphed into illustrated editions of the works of Dante, and finally, it seems to be emerging from its bookshelf chrysalis as a beautiful collection of illustrated and unusual editions of the works of Dante. I’d like to say more about the unusual part, but think it best to let you see for yourself when I mail the catalogue.

Who on earth might want to buy these books? A Dante collector — sure, but I don’t know any myself (yet). Perhaps a university library with a special collection in Dante. Perhaps another bookseller higher up in the food chain who is assembling a larger collection of works by Dante. Perhaps a beginning collector who wants to start a collection with nice core of 50 items. Perhaps someone who just likes pretty old books. I have to write to each of these audiences in the catalogue’s introduction and in the descriptions of the books themselves.

For now, I plan to begin compiling a mailing list of the following:

University and private libraries that hold special collections in Dante. (There is a book called Subject Collections by Lee Ash where I can find information on which libraries have these — and other — holdings. I just have to check the book.)

Other booksellers I know, with a personalized note accompanying the catalogue.

ABAA booksellers I don’t know, but would like to, with a letter of introduction (Can get their mailing information from the latest ABAA directory).

My fellow seminarians from the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar. I didn’t meet any other Dante specialists there, but got feedback on an early draft of the catalogue and lots of requests to send it when it was printed.

I’ll send the catalogue to Firsts Magazine, Fine Books and Collections Magazine, and Americana Exchange, all of which review catalogues.

I’ll send the catalogue to my little list of previous customers.

I’ll send the catalogue to friends and family, so they can see what I am doing with all of my “free time” now that my kids are in school all day.

I’ll review the rules about doing so, and if I can, I will anounce the catalogue on any of the bookselling mailing lists that allow a bookseller to do so: Ex-Libris, Bibliophile Group, and Bookfinder Insider.

I’ll offer books for sale on Rare Books email list. This is an internet list which lists antiquarian books for sale free of charge.

And, of course, I will announce the catalogue on my blog and on my website.

Would you like to receive a copy of the Dante catalogue? Send an email with your mailing address and email address to me at: info @ bookhuntersholiday . com.

Over time, I hope to build a customer list, but I think the list above gives me a good list with which to start.

Chapter 51 Want List

All Huck may want for Christmas is his two front teeth, but I want this:

The Prairie Girl’s Guide To Life: How to Sew a Sampler Quilt and 49 Other Projects for the Modern Girl, by Jennifer Worick.

From Amazon: “Frontier fun meets a home-spun touch in this heart-warming mixture of pioneer projects and wistful nostalgia. Jennifer Worick teaches readers how to sew a quilt, master the art of bread-and-butter pickles, speak old-time slang, and much much more. This is for the legions of Laura Ingalls Wilder fans who have dreamed of what a pioneer life out on the prairie would be like. Combining step-by-step how-to on crafts, with tongue-in-cheek instructions on prairie slang, winning a spelling bee, and singing a lullaby, The Prairie Girl’s Guide to Life allows fans to finally act out their childhood dreams or to simply enjoy the vicarious thrill of reading about it one more time. This is a book that will pull at the heart strings of every childhood Laura and also teach us a few prairie-time crafts along the way.”

Yes, I know that there are many of you who will find it incredibly geeky that I idolized Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I did (and still do, secretly). I can’t wait to use prarie slang on Tom and Huck!

Santa Baby, I’ve been an awful good girl.

I’ll be back on Monday with a post on my experiences compiling a mailing list for my print catalogue. Have a good weekend!