A Hemingway may always be a Hemingway, but a first edition is a world apart from a cheap paperback reading copy. Beginners may write their names in their books, but they would never purposely deface them, any more than they would carve graffiti into a sculpture or draw a moustache on a face in a painting.įor a collector, a book’s edition is likely to be even more important than its condition. While there are not many of us who can do this, all collectors take care with their books. ![]() One of our favorite book collectors says that she can read any book from cover to cover without leaving any evidence of having done so. A lovely copy is more appealing than one that has been used and abused. Since collectors value books as beautiful objects, the books’ condition is important. Something about having a book on the shelf gives pleasure owning books enriches our lives. We see our collections as extensions of our interests, perhaps as a record of our intellectual and artistic experiences. We tend to take care of our books in the same way we care for the other valuable objects we own, like paintings or posters. Even if some of us do not understand first edition collecting, we have a shelf of treasured books, or even a library full of them. While many of us do not necessarily define ourselves as book collectors, we love the look and feel of our books. We see books as physical objects of beauty and romance. Those of us in the second group add another dimension, an aesthetic one, to our appreciation of books. The good news is that this disease, book collecting, gives pleasure and adds dimension to your life. It may be latent, but be warned, it is chronic. You might not think of yourselves as collectors, but you carry the virus. Although we are in the minority as regards the general population, there are still a great many of us. Those of you who are left are the fortunate ones, and not nearly as uncommon as you might think. We have found from experience that if you do not understand the difference immediately, you never will. If you are a book consumer, you need not read any further. Whenever we give a book-collecting seminar, we get the same question from the consumers in the audience: “What difference does it make, really?” And, for most of them, they already have their answer: “None.” And that ends the discussion. The Sun Also Rises in any edition has the same Hemingway text. After all, they argue, the words are the same. There is no difference between a hardcover first edition or a used paperback reprint. This black widow’s approach to reading is extreme, but not all that uncommon.įor book consumers, any copy will do. The point of her piece was that physically destroying books added to her appreciation of them. ![]() She went to the extreme of tearing out chapters when she was finished with them, so she could always find her place. She related with pride how both she and her father delighted in mutilating books as they read them. I once read an article by one of these people, the daughter of a world-famous book publisher. The physical book is nothing more to them than a reader’s fast food wrapper. For them, books are disposable items, intended to be used and then thrown away. These are the people who dog-ear corners, write shopping lists on endpapers, make marginal notes in ink, underline the text. When they are finished, they set it aside or discard it. When they read, they use the copy of the book in any way they please. ![]() For these people, a book is a medium that carries the author’s content-and that is all. We will discuss book consumers first, and then dismiss them, for they need not concern us further. The second, less common, includes those who see books as beautiful objects. The first, and much the largest, is made up of those who see books as consumables. The world of book lovers is broken into two opposing and irreconcilable groups.
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