Richard Russell - Antique Trader® book collectors price guide

Antique Trader

Book

Collectors

PRICE GUIDE 3rd Edition

Richard Russell

2009 Richard Russell

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700 East State Street Iola, WI 54990-0001
715-445-2214 888-457-2873
www.krausebooks.com

Our toll-free number to place an order or obtain
a free catalog is (800) 258-0929.

Cover photography by Kris Kandler

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009923188

ISBN-13: 978-1-4402-0372-5
ISBN-10: 1-4402-0372-5

eISBN: 978-1-44021-946-7

Books shown on the cover and what page more information on them can be found: Albert Goldman, .

Designed by Katrina Newby
Edited by Kristine Manty

Printed in China

DEDICATION

To Heather, Laurel and Scott

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Author wishes to thank the following booksellers for their advice, knowledge and photos:

Richard Murain of Alcuin Books, Scottsdale, AZ

Melanie James of M. James, Bookseller, Hertford, NC

Barry Levin of Barry R. Levin Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Santa Monica, CA

Fran Durako of The Kelmscott Bookshop, Baltimore, MD

Kevin Johnson of Royal Books, Baltimore, MD

Tom Macaluso of Thomas Macaluso Rare Books in Kennett Square, PA

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

When I started these books, as a guide for my daughter to go to garage sales, almost fifteen years ago, printed it at Kinkos and sold a couple thousand copies, the object of it all never really dawned on me. As I said in the introduction to the first edition of the series as it was picked up by Antique Trader, I love to read and I hate to work. Ive only understood in doing this third edition, that we, my readers and I, are deciders. Literature, as an art, is in our hands, or should I say in our collections. Who else?

The academics? Who spent half a century arguing whether the greatest novel in English was Bulwer-Lyttons Pelham or Disraelis Vivian Grey? And I have, in my collection, the literary magazines where they argued it. They know how its been done, not how it will be done; we will decide that. We will decide the greatest novels, by collecting them.

The publishers? Who say, You may have written the greatest book of the century. Now you need to search out a friend of ours who gets fifteen percent of everything you make and kicks back a few bucks to us? What artist of any integrity would even agree to be published by them?

I was young in a world where literature was just beginning to take off in new and exciting directions. In America the Beats were doing new and wonderful things. In France they had a whole new form, nouveau roman. The barriers were being beaten down. Sexuality could be art. It looked like literature was ready to ride a rocket. God how it excited me. I waited for the next Claude Simon like it was the second coming. And what do our publishers hand us now? A little bat-faced girl with big breasts who is probably no better in bed than she is an actress to tell us how to make love like a porn star. Stephen King, the centurys Thomas Prest, pulp fiction in hard cover? Where is the literature? The great writers? Hell, a grocery list by F. Scott Fitzgerald or Arthur Machen would have been written better than ninety percent of what gets into hardback today. There isnt a single mystery published since 1961 that fooled me. No creativity, no art, just something as absurd as If I Did It, or something that makes a movie. Want to write a best seller? Write something that fools Oprah Winfrey.

The critics? With their degrees in journalism. Trained to disregard both the art of language and that of telling a story.

No, its on us. We are the only people left who care. We need to read more, collect more, find the writers, because no one else is even looking. We need to buy some vanity press, small publications, and make them a larger part of the fourth edition of this book. Because thats the only way things will change. Shelley, Poe, they had to suck it up and pay, when literature got as bad then as it is now. And its probably the only way youll get something new, something without the stale lingering feeling that you read it before. Half the sci-fiauthors today change the planet and the characters names; read James D. MacDonald, if you can stomach a whole book of it.

Why not try In a Garden of Eden by Justin Vicari (Philadelphia: Plan B Press, 2004)? Out of print, it may cost, but its worth it. Or ForFucks Sake by Robert Lasner (Brooklyn, NY: Ig Publishing, 2002)? Its tickling $30, in first. Thats the future, the only possible future, unless the future is the pablum of the major publishers and the mind candy of movies and TV.

I was born five thousand years behind in my reading. Ive spent about fifty years trying to catch up. I havent read a book by a major publisher since 1987 that I hadnt read before with different locales and characters with different names. Where are the books like Recurrent Melody =: Passacaille: a Novel (Robert Pinget. London: Calder and Boyars, 1975)? A whodunit, whydunit, howdidit, ifdidit, huh? All at once, just fascinating.

I havent fallen in love since Marguerite Duras introduced me to a lady with Blue Eyesand Black Hair (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987) and I fall in love so easily. Ayesha, She who must be obeyed (H. Rider Haggard. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1887), Dejah Thoris, A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1917), Renee, La Vagabonde (Collette. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1955), Zuleika Dobson (Max Beerbohm. London: Wm. Heinemann, 1911), Charmaine LadyVibart ( Jeffrey Farnol. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1932) are just a few of my former lovers; why isnt there someone my age, someone like Zuleika, to die for? My tastes are only for a woman created so artistically that I fall in love in spite of myself. Maybe, in my own way, I am Cheri (Collette. Paris: Artheme Fayard & Cie, 1920), fascinated with things older than I. Modern authors dont hold that fascination, just someone like Nora Roberts rewriting Lady Charmaine, badly. Romance writing has become plagiarism, or something perilously close to it. Where are the love letters like the one O (Pauline Reage. Paris: Olympia Press, 1954) wrote?

The point is that the only people who can change things are the people who buy this book, collectors and readers. In this edition Ive tried to make it a bit easier and followed your suggestions as well as the space permits. I suppose the biggest change is the lack of detailed information on how to collect. The fact is that it doesnt fit. The first edition listings, the pseudonym dictionary, have both grown well beyond the limits of front matter. Perhaps at some time in the future I may try to make a separate book out of it all. That is if publishers want you to have the information. I rather suspect they dont. Ask one how they mark their editions. I asked a new company and was basically told, Get outta here kid, you bother me. I suppose used books are competition, and theyd rather not encourage that. Of course they could search out better books than the older ones, the next steps in Beat or nouveau roman, but apparently theyd rather not.