How much would you spend on a single copy of a book that you really really want?
I am not a rare book collector, but every so often I treat myself to a (relatively) rare first-edition copy of a book that is meaningful to me. The most I have ever spent on a single book is $225 for a signed copy of “Amazons,” Don DeLillo’s novel written under a pseudonym (Cleo Birdwell) about the first woman to play in the National Hockey League.
The book is long out of print, and you won’t hear DeLillo talk about it, but it’s an odd and enjoyable book about my favorite sport by a great writer, and it pleases me to see it on the shelf where I keep my specially purchased first editions.
The book at the top of my “I’ve just won the lottery or a rich relative I knew left me a bunch of dough” list is a signed hardcover first edition of Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood,” which would cost me $12,000 for a copy in very good condition.
My favorite online source for used books is AbeBooks, a subsidiary of Amazon since 2008 — a fact I don’t love — but which primarily exists to give a central online marketplace to thousands of rare and used booksellers across the U.S. Every few months, AbeBooks sends out a newsletter of the recent most expensive sales, and I love having the chance to see what serious book collectors think is most valuable.
For the last quarter reported (July to September), the most expensive book sold was a copy of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” for $46,875. For $4 plus shipping there’s any number of sellers on AbeBooks who will send you a paperback copy of the classic story about what happens when you decide your looks are more important than your soul, but those copies will not be one of only 250 deluxe editions “in the original publisher’s parchment-backed grey boards” that were signed by Wilde himself.
Adjusted for inflation, T.S. Eliot made something like $50,000 on the combined first serial, UK book and U.S. book publication of “The Waste Land,” released in 1922, which would be enough, but not by much, to buy a copy of the U.S. first edition published by Boni & Liveright, which recently sold via AbeBooks for $35,000. Not bad for 434 lines of poetry that have been perplexing students in English classes for a century.
Most of what you’ll see in the most expensive lists are rare copies of extremely well-known works — for example, two copies of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1932) make the list ($25,000 and $15,000) along with a first printing of the British edition of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four ($17,750), but somewhat lesser known books that contain interesting connections of curios can be quite valuable also.
David Goodis was a popular crime/noir writer in his day, but the primary reason a copy of his novel “Dark Passage” sold for $16,000 is that it contained his inscription to producer and screenwriter Jerry Wald, who wrote the screen adaptation of the novel starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and a number of other major noir films, including “Mildred Pierce” and “Key Largo.” In addition to Goodis’ inscription, the book contains Wald’s notes that reflect what ultimately appears in the film.
If you think about it, every used book has one of these stories attached to them. Every book has had a life prior to winding up in a used book shop. In the used book trade, some lives are more valuable than others, but they’re all interesting.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “This Tender Land” by William Kent Krueger
2. “The Judge’s List” by John Grisham
3. “The Last Train to London” by Meg Waite Clayton
4. “The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah
5. “The Heron’s Cry” by Ann Cleeves
— Carol M., Lombard
Can’t believe a decade has passed since this book came out, but it remains a reliable go-to for people looking for solid drama with strong story pacing: “Tell the Wolves I’m Home” by Carol Rifka Brunt.
1 “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry
2. “The Grandmother” by Georges Simenon
3. “Nora” by Nuala O’Connor
4. “This Side of Paradise” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. “The Other Paris” by Lucy Sante
— Norm W., Chicago
Norm’s got a bent towards (roughly) early to mid-20th century writers, so I’m going to send him to a little different strain of that time and a writer who doesn’t get quite as much notice as say, Fitzgerald, but deserves to be remembered. The author is John Fante, and the book is “Wait Until Spring, Bandini.”
1. “The Color of Water” by James McBride
2. “The Winemaker’s Wife” by Kristin Harmel
3. “Sooley” by John Grisham
4. “Our Share of the Night” by Mariana Enriquez
5. “The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post” by Allison Pataki
— Colleen S., Manhattan, Illinois
Colleen had the additional request of a read that she could listen to during her daily walk, so I’m going to keep that in mind as I recommend a classic collection of Oliver Sacks’ work, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.”
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to [email protected].