NOTES OF A USED AND OUT-OF-PRINT BOOK DEALER

Issue #6. June 4, 2001

Published by Continental Books to provide useful and entertaining perceptions, opinions and projects on and about books.

Contents

• Book collectors in their variety
• Game #5. Something like a happening
• For sale. An unusual geology book

ON A FEW TYPES OF BOOK COLLECTORS

"Book collector" is one of those shimmering identities that describes a category either rarely encountered or so common that it approximates the universal. We gather books at different moments in our lives and are book collectors, yet in everyday life we are anything but. It is something like looking for a Yankee. Down south he is everyone north of the Mason Dixon Line but in New England he's always down the road, over the hill, but certainly not me.

Buying books professionally for a book business or for a library doesn't qualify you as collector even as your acquisitions mount into the thousands. You approximate instead the status of "buyer" as in the professional buyer in the department store. Occasionally such a buyer may call himself "collector" to differentiate from "seller." When you say, "I am a collector" this way you really mean "I am not a dealer." Anyone with a transient interest in books of a certain topic, like Jung's turning to the occult, would be a collector to some, but for others only those agglomerating rare fine first editions of modern novels would qualify.

The question: In the social encounter of two persons does Able say, "You're a book collector," and Baker say, "I'm a book collector." Do they agree? Do they know it when they see it?

They are most likely to agree, I think, when Baker is in the market to buy privately for himself according to a larger plan of what he ultimately wants to own; that he has the means to gain his objective against the competition and the reluctance of others; that he keeps his acquisitions securely together and has knowledge of the value and significance of what he has gathered; and, above all, that he has no intention of turning a commercial profit

In this sense the book collector is involved in a gentlemanly pursuit that takes us back to the historical situation from which we emerged a couple of centuries ago where social values were asserted and preserved by the nobility alone. In the more democratic society such collecting becomes the opportunity and obligation of the wealthy and successful. It is a form of cultural enjoyment and preservation. The collector organizes a neo-potlatch, an expression of power in the form of excessive accumulation. One's wealth and standing are converted from economics and politics to acclaimed honor. One gathers little values into a coordinated and complex larger value that would not otherwise exist. Major public libraries such as the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library are based on such private caches.

As a character type the collector exhibits a pattern of focused persistence. The inertia of motion, one continues in the same direction. Avidity, a slavering, the wolf on the hunt is there though sometimes concealed behind a bland demeanor. I want and I will not be denied. But the external signs are minimal only seen, perhaps, by the wily book dealer whose job is to feed the beast. Money enters again, desire backed by the means to gain its satisfaction. When this kind of collector comes on the scene even the coolest seller begins to sweat. The auction is electrified. The world tilts. The sailor, the cowboy, the miner is back from his isolation and danger and it's party time! The collector has a temporary materialistic charisma, attracting friends and spectators as long as his funds last. Then stripped down, all possessions drained out to the environment within which it had been built, he falls back into the dark night, alone and unknown, his fifteen Warhol minutes now history. I think of it as the Charlie Chaplin syndrome. This outcome is not inevitable. More frequently the funding holds, the pockets are deep, and the collection tops out. Now older or dead, the quieted collector or his heirs pass the value onward.

There is another collector type who buys as the ultimate consumer purely for his own edification and pleasure. He is committed to subject or to an esthetic and has no interest in, or hope for, public attention and acclaim. He climbs the mountain to get to the top not to wave the flag. This is the lovable mass of ordinary and anonymous collectors, who usually don't claim the title. There is no flamboyant show, no tampering with the Gods. They admire one author and buy him over and over. They study an animal and buy anything about it. They cherish bills-of-sale of long defunct companies. They seek the literary sources of inventions. They bloom in all their varieties. "Let a thousand flowers grow," said Mao before he cut them down. They are one of the expressions of freedom, each developing in his or her own way, expressing the human spirit uniquely. The grand collectors of the estate system and primitive capitalism are finally and hopefully replaced by the petite collectors of the so-called mass society.

Another Game with Books: THE VISCERAL EXPRESSION OF OPINIONS

This game is a step beyond the parlor into the arena of the cocktail party or the large buffet supper or an art show opening. It requires a large group, say 100 to 500 participants, but not a mob or mass audience like you would find at a convention or a sporting event. It is a cooperative game, calling attention to a large number of authors and their works. It is simple, requiring only the immediate responses of each individual, but it can lead to complex and lingering outcomes.

The preparations required will be obvious so let's jump to the simple outline of the game itself.

• First hour--Action
  The groups of up to 30 players each fill their assigned poster with facts, figures, opinions, and associations about their assigned author using the variety of tools (pencils, pens, pastels, crayons, and etc.) available. Actions aren't limited to literate inscriptions. Drawings, collage, color are acceptable as well. Each player should make an independent contribution but be aware of the context within which he or she works.


• Second hour--Reaction
  All players are free to visit any and all posters and record their reactions to what they see. They may also add more material as they are moved.

Finished posters should be photographed.

The game ends with the distribution of the completed posters by a random drawing in which everyone present participates. Everyone not winning a poster should get at least one photograph of a poster.

Leave the posters on display until the end of the surrounding event.

At end sing Hail, Hail The Gang's All Here

Next issue we will introduce Elmer Conshohocken, an old time book dealer whose stories and recollections we will relate. He is a mythical distancing device, a composite dealer. The characters in his stories will have pseudonyms to protect living people, but the stories will be true in their detail. The first story: "The Contentious Librarian."

Offering for Sale, AN UNUSUAL GEOLOGY AND MOUNTAINEERING BOOK

Fisher, Joel E. PROBLEMS IN THE GEOLOGY OF MOUNTAINS (Five Theses). Collected, re-edited and privately published, May 1944 no place indicated. Green cloth with gilt lettering on front cover and spine. 80 numbered and bound pages with one numbered extra leaf laid-in as initially issued. 37 photo illustrations of various sizes hand-mounted. One photo illustration on page 35 missing. . Seven sketches and figures. Appears to be hand-bound, many single leaves with extra margin on the inside bound in as leaf and stub. One leaf, 40A laid-in as an insert.

Autographed presentation note on free front end paper, signed and dated by author: "to Tolly, Sidney Ewart with complements of author from Joel E. Fisher. June 16/44"

A few pencil notes on rear free end paper. Many pencil marks in margins call attention to paragraphs. There are a few pencil marks in text. A few marks in text appear to be minor corrections by author. A few very light rub marks along edges of spine and along head and foot of spine. Text printed on a heavy stiff paper with very mild waves in some pages. A very good copy.

Making this copy unique is a laid-in typed presentation letter on Fisher's stationery to Sir Talbot Ewart and dated June 16, 1944. It is autographed by Fisher using his middle and last name over his full typed name.

The letter indicates that Fisher realizes that his solutions to five geological problems differ from "the classical teachings" but that they are based on nearly forty years of practical mountaineering and he is "willing to stick to them." In a post-script Fisher adds. "Now you see why I joined the ACC* as a life member -- so no one else could fire me as a heretic to the accepted teachings of geology!" It suggests a comic sub-text based on the idea of "theses." Is Fisher comparing himself to Luther? But this is never a formal part of his serious text. (*I think he meant AAC)

Fisher died on January 6, 1966 at the age of 74. He had residences in New York City and Mill Neck, Long Island. An Ivy Leaguer he had business interests in the shoe industry, but his intense avocation was mountaineering. He was a past president of the American Alpine Club and an active member of the Swiss, French, Italian and English Alpine Clubs as well and an honorary member of the Yale, Harvard and Colorado Mountaineering Clubs. In 57 years he made over 150 major ascents in the Alps.

His book appears to have been a uniting and revising of previously published pamphlets and articles.

Sir Talbot Ewart was the Fifth Baronet Ewart of Glenmachan, based in a county in Northern Ireland. He graduated from Harvard with the Class of 1901 and studied law at New York Law School. He had a career in law in New York City, and died in that city on October 23, 1959 at the age of 81.

Price: $650.00 postage paid. 5% discount for subscribers to this newsletter. Contact alkatz@continentalbooks.com

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copyright. Alvin Katz. 2001