Catalogue 138 - Language and Learning

*A note on condition

Some of the books in this catalogue, not yet having found buyers, have been on our shelves now for more than a few years. In our shop, as in bookshops around the world, books are pulled by customers to be examined, and if not bought, are returned to the shelf (and not always properly at that). Books are pulled again to go to book fairs, they travel in trunks, and if not sold, travel in trunks again only to be placed back upon the shelf. Book fairs have never once helped a book’s condition. Books sold out of catalogues are always sent on approval, and while we pride ourselves with having a minute return ratio, sometimes a book does come back and it is reshelved yet again. The books in this catalogue deserve better, and will be generally better off in the hands of collectors and librarians than in the hands of booksellers.

Dealers in modern books, by which I mean the 20th century and beyond, and dealers in antiquarian books inhabit a disjointed world when it comes to describing condition. While we may be on the same page, we’re definitely in two distinct paragraphs. The reason for this is the presence of dust jackets, which unlike the books themselves, are subject to the vagaries of use and time in a manner entirely different from cloth- or leather-bound books. The dust jacket is such an integral part of the 20th century book that having one without the dust jacket is almost like having an 18th or 17th century book without its title page.

Unlike books, but not unlike baseball cards (or stamps, or coins), dust jackets are of a single plane, and often – often enough for the on-line databases to sit up and take notice – are graded very much like baseball cards. We now talk about “rating” or “grading” a book as if it were as simple as A., B., C., or (heaven forbid) D. Many modern books are often offered in e-commerce in the same manner as baseball cards where condition is reduced to five or six grades, sometimes with the mathematical signs of plus and minus affixed, such as VG+/VG-, and what emphasis there is with regard to condition, usually concerns the jacket, not the book. The condition of the jacket generally trumps the condition of book.

With antiquarian books it seems different. The condition of the book and the book itself are joined in a way that the dust jacket and a modern first can never be joined, and neither one trumps the other. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works on the on-line databases where we are enabled in our searches, if not encouraged, to link book searches with condition. Antiquarian booksellers who list on AbeBooks or Alibris, for example, lose out when, in their searches, the uninitiated click "fine" and set off searching for life-time editions of Samuel Johnson (whose own books, by the way, were generally in deplorable condition).

That these databases offer fields limiting condition potentially creates a double disservice to antiquarian booksellers. By offering these fields they give the illusion that any condition less than very good is to be avoided, which as far as older books go, is nonsense. And it also means that inexperienced booksellers will ramp up their descriptions to the "very good" level when in fact the books are not that good.

I catalogue many older and rarer books and in my 35 years in the trade I have found, as many other booksellers have found already, that the older the book is, or the rarer the book is, the less important the condition. That's not to say that condition isn't important, but it's generally a lot less important on an 18th century book than it is on a modern first edition. "Good and sound" is not the pejorative for Johnson’s Rasselas as it would be when used to describe a first edition of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

If one’s focus is only on condition, one will miss the essence of the book. When I go scouting for books, or look for books at book fairs, condition is not the important factor in most instances. The first thing I see is the tangible object. Have I seen this before? Have I seen this binding? Who is the printer? Why was this book published? Now, depending on what the book is, condition may be very important, and this would be true certainly if it's a common book or, in many cases, a modern book.

The number of "fine" copies in original bindings of 17th or 18th century books, or even 19th century pamphlets, is tiny compared to the number of copies still in existence. (Which is one of the reasons why the books in the Macclesfield sale are getting the extraordinary prices that they are.) I have hundreds of books printed prior to 1801, but the number of them fine in unrestored, original or contemporary bindings is miniscule. I'm very pleased to be able to offer pretty much any 18th century book I can describe as "good and sound in contemporary calf" because to me, that's fine, if you get my drift.

Except for modern books, where perfection, or near perfection, is often attainable, books from before 1900, in general, are not attainable in perfect copies. That does not necessarily mean that perfect copies of 17th century books are priceless either.  A rebound copy of a 17th century Leiden printed Elzevir is in most instances worth less than one in a contemporary or original binding; but the difference there is exponentially smaller than the difference between a rebound copy of Moby Dick and Moby Dick in original cloth, and that difference is exponentially smaller still than a rebound copy of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, and one in the original dust jacket, original glassine, and publisher’s box.  The Waste Land is a common book, relatively speaking, so lesser copies will bring considerably less than the perfect one in the glassine and the box. On the other hand, a waterstained copy of Caxton’s Chaucer missing 40 leaves and rebound in 1970’s faux lavender morocco is worth considerably more more than the perfect Waste Land.

So, the older the book the less one should rely on "rating" or "grading" (words in the bookseller vernacular, I believe, only since the last quarter of the 20th century) and instead should rely more on – dare I say it – prose. All book people, whether they be librarians, collectors, or booksellers, must come to terms with words such as poor, fair, good, very good, and fine -- all good English words. I use these words all the time in my descriptions, but with various qualifiers in cogent prose when there is more to say about condition which cannot be generalized. So "else fine" is a perfectly good qualifier (to comment on a recent ExLibris posting) as long as the prose before it is quantifiably accurate. Knowing the difference between "good" and "very good" only comes with experience, and the handling of as many copies of a particular book, or a particular type of book as possible. Even the novice collector understands full well "last twenty leaves wormed with some loss of text." That’s much better than “fair.”

********

While the NUC (National Union Catalogue) counts remain accurate, OCLC counts (and counts from other on-line databases) may not be. We’ve once again spot-checked records in this catalogue only to find, for example, that a book processed three years ago which showed only two holding then, may now show five. These counts remain fluid and may not necessarily be precise. While we have the desire, we just do not have the time to continually monitor books that have already been processed.

Catalogue 138
Page 1, Items 1-100
Page 2, Items 101-200
Page 3, Items 201-300
Page 4, Items 301-400
Page 5, Items 401-500
Page 6, Items 501-600
Page 7, Items 601-670
Page 8, Barnhart Dictionary Archive
Page 9, A Note on Condition

HOME | TERMS & CONDITIONS | ORDERING INFORMATION
Contact Rulon-Miller Books at: rulon@rulon.com