Books of Wonder

[ellenkushner]

 A wonderful visit today with Henry Wessells at James Cummins Booksellers on Madison Avenue, where he generously & affably showed my nephew, Theodora Goss, d_aulnoy , Kakaner and me some of the jewels of the collection, and taught us about cut and uncut pages and bound and unbound copies.  I read from first editions of Tristram Shandy, Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and Chesterton's [ETA:  my nephew informs me it is Lord Chesterfield I mean, and "not G. K. Chesterton"]  letters to his son - none of which I've ever read myself, not in any edition.  Now I want to read them all.  But I wonder if I'll find them as compelling in modern paperbacks?  They felt so dense and amusing and . . . real in their originals.  Plus, Chesterfield had some excellent advice on how a young man should get on when he first comes to town and tries to establish himself, which I read to nephew, hoping he'll find it of use as he is in precisely that situation.

A young Brit was also there, perusing the shelves for what turns out to be his collector's passion, pre-1830s colored prints.  As he was leaving, he turned to AJ & me and said, "If you're thinking of collecting I just want to tell you:  Do it.  It is one of the great pleasures of life."

Oh, dear.

Comments

[comrade-cat.livejournal.com]

Tristram Shandy is available used in a nice Everyman's Library octavo at various used bookstores scattered across the country (and world). It reminds me of Avram Davidson.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I know the text is readily available - but does it have the pages with the marbled paper? I do wonder if there is a facsimile of the original somewhere. I bet it's pricey, but not $7,000.

[comrade-cat.livejournal.com]

No marbled paper...but at least it feels kind of neat and old.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

OK! Turns out there's a "facsimile" online - but the many ways in which that does not really work are, um, many. For one thing, it's modern print. But you do get to see shots of the original Hogarth prints & marbled paper inserts.

[comrade-cat.livejournal.com]

How is that a facsimile then? Argh.

[bluestalking.livejournal.com]

It is too early in my morning for me to properly express my combined flurries of excitement and jealousy. HOWEVER, if you want more 18th-century recommendations, let me know.

My personal answer is that the books are still interesting enough to get an MA in if you don't read them in the original (or near-original) form. However, there is undeniably a greater pleasure in holding an old, old-smelling book with large type, textured paper, long s's, and knowing that is more like how it felt when people used to read that book for the first time.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Somehow it feels more *right* to be reading the original - like hearing the "original Broadway Cast recording" instead of seeing a local summer theater production.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

OK, thanks to Google I am now hot on the trail of an attempted facsimile of the Shandy - but the trail turns cold at:
Eighteenth century life: Volume 9
University of Pittsburgh. University Center for International Studies, College of William and Mary - 1984 - Snippet view
Sterne issued two volumes a year. The experience of reading these, and of anticipating the next, is quite different from ... For further information and a brochure, please write to Patricia Bruckmann and Diana Patterson, Steme Project, ...

Might your library have access to this volume?

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Years ago, I asked for a particular book -- Jessie L Weston's translation of the Middle Dutch Arthurian romance Moriaen -- at the Cambridge University Library. When it turned up, the pages were uncut. I took it to the issues' desk, assuming they would want it preserved in its pristine c.1910 state. They handed me a paper-knife. Books in this library, they said, are for reading. It was an extraordinary experience (not least the realisation that I was the first person in roughly 80 years who had consulted that book). I have a early 20th C. edition of Dumas' La Comtesse de Charny, which I bought years ago for very little, of which only the pages of the first half of the first volume have been cut. I have to say I bought another, newer edition to read myself. There is a real magic to old books.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Amazing story.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

What an utterly splendid young man.

[6-penny.livejournal.com]

Is Chesterton the one who warned about sex that 'the position is undignified, the pleasure transitory and the expenditure enormous'?

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

There is a magical solidity and presence to firsts that isn't present, for me, in later editions, no matter how nice the printing and binding may be, and is entirely nonexistent in ebooks. Reading ebooks for me is like going to McDonald's in that real sustenance is absent from the experience.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

....speaks the woman who can hand-bind books herself! So noted - and not unexpected.

[akycha.livejournal.com]

Oh, my. I should love to handle first editions of those books.

I am afraid that one of the delights of my current job is the library, which contains a number of first and early editions which they actually loan out. I have a gorgeous decorated-cover Victorian-era thriller by the redoubtable Miss Braddon on my to-read shelf at this very moment.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a sweet gig!

[wildwose.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman, has come up multiple times recently in my life, and I think I will need to read some more of her work and that of Rev. Richard Price. He was her mentor and minister. I first encountered him through the Unitarian Universalist community, and then we are working our way through the David McCullough bio of John Adams, after watching the HBO series. John and Abigal sought a social refuge in the Unitarian Church of Price and Abigal wanted to meet and was inspired by Wollstonecraft's writing. Now you mention it. Excellent. The universe speaking to me.

I took up binding, and book construction a few years ago. Just simple stuff, working with craft materials, not high end, to learn construction techniques and understand one of my favorite things in life, books. I love well bound hard backs and hope to learn enough one day to repair some parts of my collection.