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Book Collecting In General
Some might state that book collecting is a hobby for fools with too much money. I would be hard pressed to dispute that assertion. A first edition, first printing of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, with its original dust jacket now costs over $25,000, while one can walk into almost any chain book store and mass-market paperback of the same title for $7.95. The story is the same: Gatsby throws his summer partys in his Long Island mansion, but he never wins his Daisy. Instead, in a case of mistaken identity he ends up shot dead in his swimming pool in retrobution for a vehicular manslaughter committed by Daisy. His Daisy, the woman he has been pursuing with a single-minded obsession, flees abroad with her husband, who planted the idea, which lead to Gatsby's murder, that is was Gatsby behind the wheel of the car that had committed the hit-and-run. Justice is not served, but perhaps no one deserved justice.
So the question remains, why pay $25,000 for a first edition of Gatsby when less then $10 buys you the same story? There is a difference that justifies the cost. In the 20th Century, publishing houses printed millions of novels. The vast majority of these novels were at best lowest common denomonator reading fodder, which have been lost to time. Even some of the very good works that were written have been forgotten by the reading public. Of the books from the 20th Century that we still read or study today, most are great works of art. Some may even be described as containing sparks of genius. But of that number, only a select few changed the way that novels were written. Only a few had, for lack of a better term, true influence, true impact on the novel as an art form. Gatsby was one of those works. In fact, the editorial board of the Modern Library rated Gatsby the second greatest book of the 20th Century. The first printing of Gatsby represents a turning point of literary history. Therefore, it not only contains the story within its covers, but it represents a significant part of the story of American literature. While I may never own a first edition, first printing of Gatsby, it is a thing of beauty to contemplate.
Book Collecting as a Personal Hobby
I am not certain how I started collecting books. It was a gradual thing. Pehaps like many collectors, it started with the discovery of an author whom I loved, but the bulk of whose catalog was out of print. Thus began the chase to track down the missing books that were not readily available at Barnes & Noble or Borders. This path lead to local used book stores, then to local rare book stores, and then to rare book stores further afield. I began learning more about the older book editions, and att some point during the process, the collecting bug kicked in.
Identifying true first editions, first pressings is itself especially a challenge. Even today there is no standard method for denoting first printings, but there are a few general rules that a collector may use that will work for most major publishing houses. Before 1970, however, it was total choas as each of the publishing houses used its own distinct method for denoting first printings. It takes a lot of self-education and, unfortunatley, some costly mistakes before one begins to know a fraction of what there is to know about how to detect true first editions, first printings from other copies that are less desireable to the collector.
Sometimes the book collecting gods just smile upon you. I do not know why that is, but you walk into the store and you find something wonderful that you were not even looking for.