Foreword

As IOBAns on our internal Announce List know, I was recently elected president of the organization. The board of directors consists of a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer who are elected every year, and six members at large who serve staggered terms of three years each. We also have eight standing committees (Bylaws, Education, Ethics, Finance, Internet, Membership, Public Relations, and Standard), but some of these were dormant and even vacant. My first goal of dual service whereby board members also chair committees has already been realized. The advantage of this is that board members are more fully invested, and frankly it is easier to find ten motivated people than it is to find eighteen. If you want to give back to the organization, you start off by joining the committee of your choice, you may chair it some day, and after that the sky is the limit (or such sky as a small trade association has to offer at any rate).

Small can be good, but so can big. I am firmly in the camp that believes IOBA should have 500 professional members by now, rather than 250 to 300. Part of the reason for slow growth has been inertia on the part of the leadership fed in part by apathy on the part of the membership, and we had a couple of withering internal debates some years ago, but it is mostly related to the stormy seas of online bookselling in general. We have also fumbled the annual renewal process on occasion, in terms of effective and timely announcements and reminders. 300 seems to be a magic number for independently minded bookselling organizations such as ours. The only one that has cracked it lately has been the search service Biblio. If ABEbooks can attract 13,500 booksellers, many of whom are of professional caliber, IOBA should be able to reach 500.

Membership will be my first priority. The Membership Committee does the most everyday work in IOBA. They vet and they vote. In the very beginning vetting was unnecessary, as most of us were the same professionals that helped companies like Interloc, Bibliofind, and ABE pioneer online bookselling to begin with. When the floodgates opened, however, standards suffered as we took pretty much anybody without review. Many of those were “instant booksellers” and they have long since departed. We now go about this differently. The Membership Committee basically requires the following. Primary online business is selling books, a minimum of 200 books listed, no more than 10% of total stock should be priced under $5, should own at least 90% of books listed (this bars “megalisters” while recognizing that some specialty stock is ordered directly from the publisher), a standard satisfaction guaranteed returns policy, and full and accurate descriptions (no boilerplate) of the actual book in hand. Automated pricing and similarly lazy or eyebrow-raising practices are frowned upon. Specialization and having your own website are considered a plus. Most successful applicants spend one year at the Associate Member level ($30/year) and then move up to the Professional Member level ($60/year). The first step may be waived at the discretion of the committee co-chair, and needless to say we are very desirous of adding top shelf booksellers to our ranks.

For borderline entry-level booksellers, we want to formalize a mentor program, to be administered through the Education Committee. The Membership Committee will recommend mentoring in those cases where the applicant may be able to meet the standards within a reasonable amount of time. There is also an expectation that they will maintain these standards, adhere to the IOBA Code of Ethics, and grow as professional booksellers. We don’t mean to be elitist with all of this, but IOBA was formed over a concern for slipping standards, and it is natural that we would institute our own. For a refresher on what IOBA is all about, it’s right on our home page in five short paragraphs.

I mentioned apathy on the part of the membership, and I would like to clarify. Most IOBAns are not at the very top of the food chain, with decades of experience, a bricks and mortar presence, and tens of thousands of stellar books in stock. We have some ABAA and ILAB members and many highly accomplished and specialized bricks and clicks and internet-only dealers, but as a trade association of independent online booksellers, many of whom are relatively new to the profession and want to better themselves in the modern absence of traditional apprenticeships, we take more of a big tent approach. There has been board discussion in the past about requiring all members to participate at some level, kind of like some food co-ops do. I don’t favor this, as it would require a lot of administration and would engender headaches and departures. Board members and committee chairs have consistently noted signs of apathy over the years, and such discouragement often leads to inertia. From my perspective as editor of the Standard, for example, I spend over 150 hours per issue and get perhaps one response (this is not a plea for feel good feedback…just an observation); or I email IOBA members several times asking for a profile or other contribution and don’t even hear back (I am tempted to order a book from them just to get their attention). Others joined only because of the ability to sell through IOBAbooks, and when that did not produce enough profit they packed up and left. Varying levels of participation is a common occurrence in most organizations, and indeed throughout history. The 300 Spartans were awesome, but they got a little help from a pan-Greek army and untold numbers of everyday citizens you don’t hear too much about.

Speaking for myself, this general malaise isn’t ideal, but it does not bother me greatly. We are all busy, and the more time you save for selling books the better chance you have of staying in business. To me it is all about the IOBA logo that can be displayed on your website and elsewhere. That logo stands for something. It is reassuring to colleagues and to book buyers. The logo alone is worth $60/year, even if the organization is not always incredibly vibrant or active. Luckily the founders erected a pretty good framework, and there are always some dedicated members who step up and give of their time and talents. I am not especially well suited to be president of my own sock drawer, let alone a disparate group of booksellers, but one reason I took it on is that I feel we are at a sink or swim stage. We can slide into murky depths at under 200 members or barely tread water at under 300 members, but please consider joining and/or giving back to the association if you are in a position to do so as we gear up for the goals and challenges ahead. Let’s reach a nice island (with modern amenities, and not Fantasy Island either) and IOBA can be our port in the storm now and our naval station later.

This year I will mainly be concentrating on infrastructure. The website, internet applications, membership issues, defining the roles of the committees and populating them with volunteers and, either this year or next, revising many of the bylaws. IOBA does seem to have a short institutional memory due to high turnover at the top, and I would like to get some pages up in the Members Section that will explain how certain things are done, so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel so often. I’m also interested in improved internal and external communications; advertising and promoting and internationalizing IOBA; and improving IOBAbooks.

Now that I’ve aired our organizational laundry in public, let’s get back to finding and selling and reading and loving books.

In this issue, U.S. overseas internet book buying; a shape shifting eBay experience; an interview with book fair promoter Bruce Gventer; a wall-mounted hard drive; and Joe Perlman scales New Hampshire. Quirky QSLs qualify for the ephemera column; and the book review is murderous this time around. Tool Box content includes book hunting, insurance, and contact info. IOBA Bookseller Profiles hail from Lehigh Acres, FL; Spring Hill, KS; and North Yorkshire, England. And Addenda.

The birdies around here are finally starting to tweet to each other and they should be empty nesters done with that part of their business when next we meet in July.

Live Free or Die: A Book Dealer’s Travels in New Hampshire

When I was younger and in the throes of child-rearing, my typical response to most requests quickly degenerated into, “Do what you want…you will anyway.” I have mellowed a bit in middle age, and I now say, “You are your own chairman,” or, when corrected by my wife, “You are your own chairperson.” This expression comes from my college days in the late 1960s. Group dynamics was all the rage and the psychology professors would begin each seminar session by stating, “Before the class begins, close you eyes and think about what you want to get from this class, and what you want to give to this class. Remember, you are your own chairman.”

In mid-January we spent a long weekend in New Hampshire, where the populace has extended “You are your own chairperson” even further through their motto “Live Free or Die.” My wife is an avid Nordic skier, so we have a tradition of spending Martin Luther King weekend up in New England. She bundles up and braves the cold, while I crank up the car and check out the used bookstores. In the past we usually went up to Stowe, Vermont, but this year the snow was supposed to be better in the White Mountains, and some cousins who live in Cambridge, Massachusetts are always bragging about their great book finds up in the land of the free, so we left at the crack of dawn on Friday morning and headed up to Jackson, New Hampshire. It was foggy and raining on Long Island, but seven and a half hours of a great audio book later (Benjamin Black’s Christine Falls) we arrived in a snow covered winter wonderland.

It had been at least twenty years since I was in New Hampshire. At the time, my brother lived up there in a town so small that even if you were looking for it, it was easy to miss, as the center consisted of a ten by ten foot cottage that was the town hall, post office and general store. Back then, the country gentry all lived in Vermont and this part of New England was like the Wild West. I was surprised by how much things had changed since then. We arrived at a beautiful old country inn (Thorn Hill Inn and Spa) in a town that looked like a Norman Rockwell Christmas card. There was a roaring fire in the fireplace, and an English Tea laid out for guests, with fresh baked scones, cakes and cookies, and bowls of clotted cream and fruits and jams, comparable to what one is served at Fortnum and Mason in London.

After we warmed ourselves with tea and I ate one too many scones, we received a guided tour of the premises. There was a spa with saunas and massage rooms, an outdoor hot tub, even a cozy library with a large selection of interesting novels by local authors. I might have traded some of my own books for a signed copy or two, but all of the free end papers had large “Property of” stampings. The biggest surprise was their enormous wine cellars. They had over 5000 different wines. Twenty years ago the liquor stores were all state-owned and you had a choice of Boone’s Farm, Gallo Burgundy, or the slightly classier Mateus rosé which I always pronounced Ma-toos, until I learned in Portugal that the proper pronunciation is Ma-TAE-us.

It was almost dusk and too late for outdoor activity or book scouting, so we explored the number two tourist attraction in that part of New Hampshire which are the outlet shops in North Conway. After two hours of watching the chairwoman try on clothing, the chairman was hungry, so we had dinner at an elegant restaurant in town. Its claim to fame is preparing food at your table. I passed on the Caesar salad with freshly made dressing because although they claimed to briefly scald the egg shells before cracking them, I still considered the egg yolks to be raw. I was more interested in the Bananas Foster. Every fifteen minutes one of the waiters would wheel a cart into the dining room with great aplomb and make the famous dessert for another table. I watched with great interest and kept asking the waiters questions about the process. When it came time for dessert, the waiter remarked that he had a surprise for us. A diner at another table had pre-ordered the dessert for us and paid for it. Maybe he thought I was not enough of my own chairman to order it for myself, or maybe he just admired the interest I took in the procedures, but it was a welcome surprise and the dessert was superb.

Saturday was to be my major book buying day. I dropped my wife at the nearby cross country ski center and headed down to Northwood, which was a longer drive than I expected, due to the fact that there are no real highways in Eastern New Hampshire. For many years the taxes were very low, so I guess there was little money for road construction. This was only a few days after the New Hampshire primary, but the only political signs I saw along the road were for Ron Paul. You would never guess who won the primaries.

Northwood Old Books was well worth the drive, a large shop crammed with interesting titles on all subjects. I purchased a large carton of books, and the clerk recommended that I visit the owner’s other, larger shop, about an hour’s drive due west in Henniker.

On the way I saw a sign that said “Old Books and Furniture,” so I slowed down and pulled in. It was a large shop filled with paperback books and used furniture. I asked the proprietor if she had any hardcover books, and she pointed to a few very common former bestsellers along the top shelves of the bookcases. “I’d have more but they don’t sell,” she told me. I apologized and told her I was only interested in literary hardcover books. I left a bit amazed that one could make a living selling used romance and popular fiction paperbacks. Maybe she made more money on the furniture.

I arrived in Henniker right on schedule, and before I reached my destination I saw a sign for an old book barn. This barn had been highly recommended to me by the cousins, so I made another detour and drove up into the parking lot. This, too, turned out to be a disappointment. I would call it “The Leaky Book Barn” since most of the books had a substantial amount of water damage and were in terrible condition. I bought one signed Russell Banks to see if I could salvage it, but despite my best efforts, it still looks pretty warped and I am hesitant to list it on-line.

Old Number Six Book Depot in Henniker is another wonderful old shop that one could easily spend a day browsing in. It has a broad selection of reasonably priced books in all categories, and again I left with a large carton of treasures, mostly for re-sale. I had a long chat with Mr. Morrison, the owner, who knows several of the older booksellers on Long Island from book fairs.

It was a slow two hour trip back up to Jackson, and I wanted to pick my wife up before the ski center closed and arrive at the Inn in time for their marvelous tea, so I headed north again on the two lane roads enjoying the scenery. I saw numerous signs that warned of moose and bear crossings, but that day there wasn’t a moose or a bear in sight.

After a few too many fresh baked scones and cookies, it was time to try the hot tub. I have always been curious about outdoor hot tubs in winter. Does your head stay warm in the cold air, because of the steam? If you stay in long enough are you warm when you jump out into the cold? I learned that your face does stay warm from the steam, but in 16 degree weather, if you have a big head like I do, you get icicles on top of your head, and when you step out you stay warm for about ten seconds, just long enough to throw a robe on and run inside.

By now, I had had enough of the frigid temperatures, so we spent the evening at the Inn, eating dinner in the elegant candlelit dining room, and reading in the lounge in front of the roaring fire. There were even such modern amenities as wireless internet in the lobby, so I was able to take out my laptop and check my e-mail for book orders, which were trickling in.

Sunday was to be devoted to the new bookstores in the North Conway area, of which there were three. My first stop was the one independent bookshop in town, as these shops are usually a good source of signed books by local authors. Immediately upon entering I saw a stack of signed copies of the latest book by the wonderful regional novelist, Howard Frank Mosher, who lives only a few hours away across the Vermont border. To my dismay they were all second printings. There were some unsigned first editions on the fiction shelves, but I figured I could buy an unsigned one much cheaper in New York, where he is not nearly as popular or well-known. I did manage to pick up a few interesting items, including a signed collection of nature essays, and a heavily discounted book about Vermont fiction writers (after all this was New Hampshire).

My next stop was the local Borders, the only chain bookstore in the region, but unlike any other Borders I have ever visited. The front third of the store was all remainders, and you had to wade through them to get to the new books. I had a 40% off on any one item coupon that I had received via e-mail, which when coupled with no sales tax is a substantial discount, but the selection of books was so small I had trouble finding anything.

My third stop was a remainder outlet tucked away in the back of the large outlet mall in North Conway. The store was the size of a small supermarket with a large fiction section and I found a number of nice, pristine first edition remainders without that nasty remainder slash on the bottom edge.

Since I had exhausted the supply of local bookshops with a few hours to spare before I had to pick up my wife at the slopes, I had some time to don a pair of snowshoes and enjoy this winter wonderland for myself. The trail was snow covered and empty. I passed a single snowshoer on my two hour trek, so I enjoyed the tranquility and beauty of the snow covered white birch and pine trees until it was time to return to the ski center. As I tromped through the woods, I thought to myself this must be what they mean by “Live Free”…a long slow drive on a two lane country road, a quiet walk in an empty wood, a shopkeeper who can make a living selling used paperbacks, or one who can afford a large inexpensive space to sell used books. It was nice, but it was also time to take off my rustic ski cap and go back to being simply my own chairman. I already missed the highways, the crowded streets, and the energy of urban life.

In minutes I removed my snowshoes, met up with my wife and headed down the mountains to my brother’s house in Massachusetts, where he lives in a slightly bigger town (the town hall, post office and general store are actually three separate buildings) in time to watch the Giants win the playoff game. We celebrated Martin Luther King Day with most other Americans, instead of Civil Rights Day as they call it up there in the “Live Free or Die” state of New Hampshire.

Joe Perlman operates Mostly Useful Fictions out of East Northport, NY and can be contacted at http://www.mostlyusefulfictions.com.

Happy Hits

Excerpts from recent online book descriptions.

Blurbettes

The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet by Indur M. Goklany (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2007).

From the inside flaps:

Many people claim that globalization and its major components—economic growth, technological change, and free trade—degrade human well-being and the environment. As Indur Goklany illustrates in The Improving State of the World, such claims are myths, and we should consider how much worse the world would be without globalization.

A ground-breaking work, this book collects for the first time in one volume the long-term trends in a broad array of the most significant indicators of human and environmental well-being. It presents a wealth of data demonstrating how economic growth, technological change, and free trade have helped to power a “cycle of progress” that has led to unprecedented improvements in every objective measurement of human well-being.

Poverty, hunger, malnutrition, child labor, illiteracy, and unsafe water have ceased to be global norms. Infant mortality has never been lower, and we live longer and healthier lives. Global agricultural productivity is up, food prices are down, hunger and malnutrition have dropped, public health has improved, mortality rates are down, and life expectancies are up.

A significant milestone in the environment vs. development debate, The Improving State of the World is a tremendous leap forward in our understanding of how improvements in our lives and on our planet occur and can be sustained.

From made up April Fool’s Day-type testimonial blurbs on the rear panel:

“Way to go, Indur! You are the man! I wasn’t sure about the watery cover at first (looks like an oil slick), but this book is the Cato Institute’s wet dream. As you know, we stand for highly self-serving definitions of limited government, individual liberty, free markets, and peace (if it doesn’t come at the expense of the first three). Good thing you didn’t include any charts on how much more the right makes off reaming the planet than the left makes off defending it, or Al Gore’s head would be so far up your hairy butt that his next book would be titled An Inconvenient Poop! See you at our next international conference in Darfur (just kidding).”

—Milton Cranepool, Cato Institute

“When you were in my Interior Department you did a heckuva job Goklany. Especially your workplace computer emails attacking those global warming nuts. I’d read this, but the last time I picked up a book it didn’t exactly result in improvements.”

—President George W. Bush

“Mutant frogs don’t count!”

—Center for Biological Diversity

“James Surowiecki, a staff writer on the New Yorker, has written an unfairly critical review of Indur Goklany’s The Improving State of the World for Foreign Affairs. Surowiecki concedes that ‘Goklany's rebuttal to the environmental doomsayers is both welcome and convincing.’ But he then goes on to argue that: ‘Goklany's account leaves out too much that matters and pretends that incredibly complex phenomena can be explained away with a few catch phrases.’ Surowiecki then goes on to argue that political struggle and the state have played a greater role in human progress than Goklany suggests. Surowiecki then suggests that economic development is a complex business and future advance is not inevitable.

“To me this is a classic case of arguing that an author should have written a different book rather than reviewing the one that he did write. I think Surowiecki should have written a different review than the one he did write.”

—Ferraris for All Blog

“Let me get this straight. Environmentalism and regulation are bad, but when countries reach a certain level of affluence their citizens become more interested in directing the state to halt pollution, which is good. Thanks for clarifying this.”

—Union Carbide Spokesperson

“Why the tree-hugging doomsayers are wrong: the state of the environment is actually improving! While Al Gore and other liberal Chicken Littles continue to insist that the sky is falling, Indur M. Goklany has a view that is more sober—and more accurate. Relying on a wealth of data, in The Improving State of the World: Why We're Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives On A Cleaner Planet, Goklany shows that the most accurate information about the state of the environment today is actually good news: innovation, increases in affluence, and key institutions have combined to halt the environmental degradation that sometimes results from growth. And simultaneously, poverty is also in retreat all over the globe.”

—Conservative Book Service [didn’t have to make this one up]

Book Blogs

The Bookshop Blog

http://bookshopblog.com

Posted by Jessica Stockton Bagnulo 2/13/2008

A Book Nerd’s Dream: Stories Toward Opening My Bookstore

This is the beginning of a story that (I hope) will have in it the part about me opening my own bookstore. I hope the story doesn’t end there – as you booksellers know, it’s the ongoing narrative that’s the stuff dreams are made of, not the single moment of opening the doors. I’m a bookseller too, and have been for quite a while, but I haven’t yet made it to that climactic moment of owning my own store. In hopes that it will prove interesting both for booksellers and for those with entrepreneurial ambitions, I’d like to offer my story, unspooling behind me as it unfolds ahead of me, for the Bookshop Blog.

Chapter I. The First Bookstore Job

Not to get all Dickensian or Salingerian on you, but I’ll begin at the beginning of my life – because I wouldn’t want to open a bookstore if I wasn’t the person that I am. I grew up bookish, which isn’t unusual. But I was homeschooled until sixth grade, with a mother for a teacher who believed that we’d learn just as much by reading for pleasure as by sitting down for lessons. I edited the high school literary magazine, wrote poetry, worked on the newspaper, did great in English classes, and everyone seemed to think I’d become a writer or a professor – and I guessed I did too. But I needed to find out somewhere completely different, so I left my California hometown on a scholarship to New York University.

And I almost went home after the first year. It’s a dark, dirty city when you’re far from home. Luckily, I made a few good friends, did okay in class, and got some good jobs – not jobs that paid well, but ones that gave me the safe place I needed. My first gig in a warm little family-run bakery probably saved my life, and I later worked as the night manager of a Dean & Deluca – I never thought that would come in handy for my career, but the diversity of nationalities and languages in that coffee shop taught me a great deal about how to talk to employees and coworkers.

I had a great poetry teacher my junior year – a grad student who understood what I was trying to do in writing and could help me find my way to doing it. She took our class out for an end-of-the-year party at a Mexican place (that served pitchers of Margaritas and never carded), and at some point asked casually if I was looking for a job. I was sick of the night shift in Rockefeller Center and said yes, and she revealed that she was leaving her job at a bookstore to finish her master’s. She gave me the proprietor’s number and told me to get in touch.

And then I totally forgot about it. I didn’t make the call until my teacher called to remind me, and it’s weird to think how nearly I missed out on my life. I went in to the bookstore, Three Lives & Company in the West Village, one afternoon. I later heard it described as a jewel of a bookstore – a tiny spot, but lighted well, with wood shelves and counters I later learned were homemade, and every book looking as though it had been specially placed in its spot, waiting to come under your hand.

The proprietor was a pleasantly brusque woman named Jill, and she took me down to her office and told me that if L.B. (my teacher) said I was okay then the job was mine. The place had always gotten its employees by serendipity, she said, and it always seemed to work out. She told me what shifts I’d be working and sent me on my way. I remember I bought myself a bunch of flowers (which I couldn’t afford) to celebrate on the way home, then pinned them on the wall of my dorm until they dried down to lovely husks – apparently I knew even then that that was a good day.

Much of the store’s history and lore I found out later. It was first opened in 1978 – the year I was born. The name came from Gertrude Stein’s novel Three Lives, and from the three women who founded the store together. The store was run by Jill and her partner, Jenny – the third “life” had left for California long ago. Though a Barnes & Noble was just around the corner on 6th Avenue, the store never seemed to be in trouble. There were too many regulars, too many folks who came out of their way to go to the shop, too many people who came in just to look and came away with a book or three because of a recommendation, or just because they wanted to own a little piece of that place.

Why they kept me on there, I’ll never know. I was green and dreamy, sometimes forgetting to come in altogether, changing my schedule because of classes, and often making mistakes. But I’m grateful. I ran into Jill and Jenny a few months ago – apparently they’d been keeping up with my doings. “So you want to be a bookseller now, huh?” Jill said. “Who would have thought?” I didn’t say so, but it was partly her fault. Working at Three Lives made me fall in love with the bookselling life, and with New York, and started me on the path toward opening my own bookstore.

Jessica Stockton Bagnulo

www.writtennerd.blogspot.com

(The Book Shop Blog editor’s note: Stay tuned to the bookshop blog for the ongoing story. Jessica will be keeping us all updated with her dreams, goals and any progress made or pitfalls encountered. In order to not miss a story you can subscribe by putting your email address in the box on the top right or by clicking on the orange button if you are already using a feed reader.)

Ye Olde Booksellers

Notes on Printers and Booksellers, with a Chapter on Chap Books by Charles Gerring (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1900).

The first two parts of this work reiterate generally common knowledge. The opening passage and one illustration from each follow. The third part on chap books is quite rich, as this seems to be an area of special interest to the author, and is reprinted here in its entirety.

Printers

I hold in greatest veneration those excellent men who invented or discovered the Art of Printing, and also those Patrons who, with their money and influence nursed the Art when in its infancy in the fifteenth century. Had it not been for these, we should not have been able to follow the gradual development of that wonderful Art, nor should we be in that happy position we now find ourselves, with Cheap Books and Daily Newspapers.

Booksellers

It has long been acknowledged that from its very nature the successful carrying on of the Bookselling business requires a greater amount of intelligence than any other branch of trade. Authors, who must be considered good judges of the matter, have, as a body, testified in favour of this view of bookselling, and although disappointed writers occasionally show an aptitude to decry “The Trade” and its professors, yet the most eminent authors have seldom joined in such a condemnation. Dr. Johnson speaks of them very highly, for he designates them “The Patrons of Literature.” D'Israeli (the father of Lord Beaconsfield) says that “eminent Booksellers in their constant intercourse with the most enlightened class of the community—authors and others, partake of the intelligence around them.” In my experience of thirty years I have come across a large number of the fraternity, and in many cases it has been my good fortune to meet not only intelligent, but intellectual booksellers. I should not be considered veracious if I said all those who sell books are Booksellers in the true sense of word: but the following sketches of those I have selected for notice illustrate that Dr. Johnson and D'Israeli were both correct.

Chap Books

Uninviting, poor starved things, printed in the rudest manner on the roughest of paper, decorated with the most villainous of cuts, yet how large a part did the Chap books play in the lives of the men and women of a bygone age. Forming as they did almost the whole of the secular reading of the people, they performed a great, and often a good and generous part in the daily lives of the masses. Proud indeed were they who, being able to possess a book, could also read it for the delectation of the ready listeners they would find by the firesides of the farmhouses, or in the old country tavern. For the lads there were the tales of action, of adventure sometimes truculently sensational; for the girls were stories of a more domestic character; for the tradesman there was the “King and the Cobbler,” or “Long Tom the Carrier”; for the soldier and the sailor “Admiral Blake,” “Johnny Armstrong” and “Chevy Chase”; for the lovers “Patient Grissil” and “Delights for Young Men and Maids”; for the serving lad “Tom Hickathrift” and “Sir Richard Whittington”; while the serving maid then, as now, would prefer “The Egyptian Fortune Teller,” or, “The Interpretation of Dreams and Moles.” The aged had for comforters a large series of pious stories, while for the children there was the whole world of romance and fable to choose from.

And the seller of the books, worthy or unworthy, was a noted figure in his age. Toiling with his pack from village to hamlet, and from hamlet to lonely farm, he was at once the peripatetic Mercury of the day, suspected perhaps, but for all his knavery, a welcome visitor. For who but he could act as the local courier, carrying the gossip, the spicy tales, picked up and garnered in his travels the country o’er? A wanderer, a tramp, yet a respectable tradesman and a man, to be made much of as he retailed his news, or displayed the contents of his pack rich in ribbons, or laces, or caps for old ladies, or brooches and other trumpery. But what store of ballads, of broadsides, of booklets had he. Here was to be had for a penny all manner of tales and stories, humorous or sublime, primers, song books, patters, riddles, jest books, histories with cuts, pious stories refulgent with angels or redolent of brimstone, lives of heroes, A B C’s, folding horn books, local tragedies, the latest execution; what matter if occasionally the humour was broad, the jests somewhat indelicate, they illustrated the manners and the morals of the age when the humour of Rochester, of Wycherley, and of Dryden was still conventional, when men and women spoke openly of things which are now whispered only in the boudoir or the club, and no harm was meant or done.

The Chap books varied in size, those specially meant for children generally measuring from two and a half to three and a half, to three by five inches, the majority, however, were in a small octavo (of the size known as foolscap octavo), about five and a half by four and a quarter inches, and contained four or multiples of four pages up to twenty-four or thirty-two. The garlands or song books were usually of eight pages, the histories of twenty-four, the children’s books sometimes of four only. The paper was of the very poorest, of all shades, in white, green, or brown. The printing was various according to the types owned by the printer, when one fount was exhausted he finished off with the nearest size he had. Who were their authors we shall never know, though there can be no doubt that such work was often undertaken, in their salad days, by men who eventually made their way to the top of the literary ladder.

Once a common object of the fireside, printed and distributed by thousands every week, the old Chap books have disappeared as mysteriously as does the every-day newspaper of the present time. A seventeenth century edition of say “The Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham” is as great a rarity as a perfect Caxton, and even those of the early part of the present century are valuables which find their place among the treasures of the collector. Strangely enough the largest collection in the world is to be found in the Harvard University Library in America, though the collections of the British Museum and Bodleian Library are richer in the very earliest examples, dating back to 1598. For over 200 years they held their sway and served their purpose, bringing the people into contact with the work of poets, historians, dramatists, and weavers of story.

A study of this humble branch of literature is not without its results in throwing light upon the thought and intellectual pleasures of a bygone generation. Putting on one side the dream books and household cookery books, song books, primers, and others, we may broadly divide the balance into two classes, the pious and the roguish, the godly and the worldly. Here, biblical stories such as Joseph and his Brethren, lives of the Saints, or of men and women remarkable for their virtuous lives, or tales of warning as the “Damnation of Doctor Faustus.” And there, the lives or the legends of outlaws, pirates, highwaymen, and thieves who gained much money and applause by their roguery. Who can tell how many of their entranced readers may have endeavoured to model their lives upon that of Jack Shepherd, or Dick Turpin, or even Captain Whitney? Not that we in our day need pretend to any supersensitiveness in the matter, for few books are so widely read as those whose sole motif is some crime of mystery—a murder for preference—which needs a superhuman detector rejoicing in the euphonious cognomen of Breakllock Bones or Mick Mulligan, to deviously track through some intricate maze to an obvious end; only, we rejoice with the detective—our grandfathers preferred the criminal.

On a different level from the pious or the roguish stand the jest books. These occupied first place in the hearts of the masses, the humour varying from the rollicking indelicate “Tom Tram,” “The Friar and the Boy,” or “Jack Horner,” to the miserably dull fooling of the “Wise Men of Gotham.” Some were called after famous clowns or jesters, as Tarltons or Armstrongs. Then we get “Pasquil’s Jests mixed with Mother Bunche’s Merriments,” “The Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson the Merry Londoner,” from which we cull the following: “Master Hobson once called upon Recorder Fleetwood, of London, but was told ‘he was not at home.’ In turn Fleetwood called upon Hobson, who himself replied ‘hee was not at home’; then sayd Maister Fleete-wood, ‘what! Master Hobson, thinke you that I know not your voice,’ where-unto Master Hobson answered and sayd, ‘now Maister Fleete-wood, am I quit with you: for when I came to speake with you, I beleeved your man that said, you were not at home, and now you will not beleeve mine own selfe,’ and this was the merry conference betwixt these two merry gentlemen.”

It is very doubtful whether Andrew Boorde, Physician to Henry VIII, had anything to do with the books of jest—“Scoggin’s Jests,” “Gotham Tales,” and others, which were, after his happy decease, fathered upon him. Scoggin’s best joke is that of the flea powder: “I tell you all that you should have taken every flea by the neck, and then they would gape, and then you should have cast a little of the powder into every flea’s mouth, and so you should have killed them.”

Joe Miller was a respectable comedian who never made a joke, or what may have been worse, could never be made to see the humour of one. It was a fitting punishment, that on his death, the chestnuts of centuries should be gathered together and published as “Joe Miller’s Jests.” Countless editions have been issued, and Joe Miller is quoted as an authority to this day.

Dream books, books of witchcraft, and of fortune-telling were largely in vogue, and were not without influence in encouraging a belief in the occult, since they were to some extent responsible for the barbarous treatment meted out to some harmless old women. One of the least harmful we have met with is entitled “A Groatsworth of Wit for a penny, or, the Interpretation of Dreams.” It contains the following cautious preface: “The works and learning of the famous and renowned Mr. Lilly are too well known to the great men of this world, but more especially to the Female Sex; that it would be needless for me to say much about him here; that the following little treatise is a small abstract of his most laborious works, and he always used to say, that altho’ the whole of his prognostications, &c., were not to be depended upon in every instance, yet the cautions and instructions they may give in divers matters may not be unworthy the notice of such as have much leisure time on their hands, and might, for want of such amusements, perhaps spend it in a much worse manner.” After this apology, the grain of salt is needless. We cannot refrain from a few quotations. “If you dream you see men with bills, swords, and writings in their hands, then beware of being arrested the next day.” “If you dream you run swiftly and like to out-run a hare, then you shall receive a letter or letters the next day.” “If a woman dream of eggs that are whole, she and her neighbours will have a bad bout at scolding the next day.” “If a maid love a man, and dream she is going to church with another man, and that she run from him, then she will assuredly have the man she desireth, but if she dream she goeth into church with another man, then she will have the man she loveth.” Our next excerpt should be useful, despite the postscript: “A night-spell to catch thieves. This following will drive away any evil spirit that useth to haunt any house or place, and having it about one, no thieves can do you any harm; and being used as directed, it is a certain way, that if a thief come to rob a garden, orchard, or house, he cannot go till the sun riseth; having in every four corners of the house this sentence written upon virgin parchment: ‘Omnes Spiritus laudet Dominim Mosem habe, Prophetas exerget Deus diffii enter Inimicus.’ If any think there is any harm in it let him not make any use of it, for my part I do not know of any at all.” An explanation of the visible signs of the head, eyes, and nose, is sound enough to satisfy our modern wizards, while we may gather that an artist in molery would find an occupation at once profitable and exciting as he sought for the elusory spot. Reading through the renowned Mr. Lilly’s signification of moles, it seems to be a sign of good luck to have one anywhere. True there are some irritating conditions, for what use is it to have a mole on the back of the neck signifying great wealth, if the same mole signify its owner will be beheaded? A mole on the forehead denoted riches, but if on the eyebrow “let such person refrain from marriage, for if he marry, he shall have seven wives in his life-time.” The famous Mr. Lilly, however, may be forgiven very much if he was the inventor of “A never-failing receipt to cure love: take two ounces of the spirit of Reason, three ounces of the powder of Experience, five drachms of juice of Discretion, six ounces of the powder of good Advice, and two spoonfuls of the cooling water of Consideration, make it into pills, drink a little Content after them. One dose clears the head.”

We must not omit to notice the Chap books specially intended for the children. These were of three classes, in the first of which we place the battledores, A B C’s, primers, and others intended for educational purposes. The battledores consisted of a sheet of cardboard, usually bi-coloured, which folded once or twice, printed on both sides with the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, and some spelling lessons, with a few wood-cuts, occasionally superior in execution. The A B C’s and primers were issued in the usual Chap book form of twenty-four pages, and contained the alphabet in a series of illustrated rhymes, commencing with the never-to-be-forgotten “A was an archer who shot at a frog,” though by the time our author had reached the end he was in a quandary with his Z.

Z comes at last, best place of any,
It suits a Zealot or a Zany

“Riddle Books,” “Poetic Trifles,” “Cries of London,” “A Visit to the Tower,” &c., we also include in this educational class. The second series may be termed the pious. That these were read by our ancestors is an undoubted fact, though we have been told it was only under compulsion. We except, of course, that wonderful abridgement of the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” always a favourite with children up to a certain age. But the majority of them generally told a mendacious story of some unhealthy, sickly child, who died apparently none too soon, the while exhorting his parents, and brothers, and sisters to follow his example, and avoid those torments which were pictured by some very solid smoke curling from a hole, down which a gentleman adorned with a tail is busy pitchforking some individuals in a state of undress. The wisdom of placing before children the discouraging example of the godly dying young may well be doubted, and it is no excuse to say that the narrative was nearly always fictitious.

The folk lore tales were an interesting collection. Many of them were of distinctly British origin, as “Jack and the Giants,” “Bevis of Southampton,” “Guy of Warwick,” “Sir Richard Whittington,” while another series were taken from the classic legends of “Hector of Troy,” “Hero and Leader,” “Hercules of Greece,” &c. Continental legends were well represented, largely owing to the use that had been made of them by Shakespeare and many another poet or dramatist. Thus we find “Dorastus and Fawnia,” “Fortunatus,” “Parismus of Bohemia,” “Titus Andronicus,” “Valentine and Orson,” while late in the eighteenth century we get translations of Perrault’s “Tales of Mother Goose,” “Hop o’ my Thumb,” “Puss in Boots,” “Blue Beard,” “Cinderella,” and others, which will for ever retain their hold upon the affections of children both young and old.

Mr. Welch, following Mr. Ashton, tells us the principal factory from which the Chap books emanated was that of William and Cluer Dicey, of 4, Aldermary Church Yard, London. The house originated in Northampton, migrating to London some time after 1720. We have before us now a pamphlet of 120 pages entitled, “A Catalogue of Maps, Prints, Copy-Books, Drawing-Books, Histories, Old Ballads, Patters, Collections, &c., printed and sold by Cluer Dicey and Richard Marshall at the Printing-Office, in Aldermary Church-Yard, London. Printed in the year MDCCLXIV.” This is most interesting reading. It contains a list of over 1,000 engravings catalogued according to their sizes, as Copper Royals, Foolscap sheet prints, Pott sheets, Half Demoy sheets, or Wood Royals. The subjects of the engravings comprise portraits, views, maps, emblematic pictures such as the Seasons, the Months, the Elements, numerous Scriptural pictures, including of course Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife, Susannah and the two Elders (with merry verses), and Mary Magdalen despising the vanities of the world!

Then there is “A Catalogue of Histories. Printed in a neater Manner, and with better Cuts, more truly adapted to each Story, than elsewhere.” Next follow lists of old Ballads, Patters, Song Collections, Small Histories, Carols, &c. Of the Ballads we are told “there are near three thousand different sorts of slips; of which the new Sorts coming out almost daily render it impossible to make a Complete Catalogue.” The Histories are 150 in number, and of these we give a complete list as follows: —

The wholesale prices at which the productions of Dicey’s press were sold are also given, thus, old ballads, collections of songs, and eight-page patters were “48 to the Quire, and 20 Quires to the Ream, per Ream 4 shillings,” “Penny History Books, 104 at 2s. 6d,” while “Small Histories or Books of Amusement for Children, on various subjects, adorned with a Variety of Cuts, 100 at 6s., ditto stitch’d on embossed paper, 13 for 9d.” But the “Dutch Fortune Teller, discovering xxxiv. several questions, which Old and Young, Married Men and Women, Batchelors and Maids, delight to be resolved of” was evidently a superior article, for its price was thirteen shillings and sixpence per dozen, and “Robin Hood’s Garlands,” with twenty-nine neat cuts, were sold at sixteen shillings per hundred; the retail price of this was sixpence.

Cluer and Dicey, however, had many rivals in the trade. Among competitors in London we may mention J. Dutton, T. Bland, I. Wyat, J. Read, W. Patem, F. Thorne, A. Hind, T. Evans, and R. Betteworth, while there were few towns in Britain where the local printer did not cater for so large a business. In York we find Kendrew; Durham, Isaac Lane; Newcastle, J. White and M. Angus & Son; Whitehaven, J. Briscoe; Stockton, R. Cristopher; Nottingham, J. Burbage; Worcester, S. Garnidge and J. Butler; Tewkesbury, S. Hayward; Kidderminster, Taylor; Coventry, Turner and Morgan; Evesham, Rowney; and many another in north, south, east, and west, who each had their own issues, comprising, beyond the general run, some special to their own district. Their cuts, as a rule, were the same as those used at head-quarters, from which one may infer that they too were the production of some factory. Occasionally, however, we find the pictures are in reverse direction, the right hand of the London cut is the left hand of the country one, showing that the local artist was very often but a slavish copier. The printer had no anachronic qualms; one block, representing a feast, served for every feast in every period of time mentioned in the stories; one combat scene did duty for Hector and Ajax, or for Guy of Warwick and Amarant. Queen Anne figured perhaps not so inappropriately as the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, Henry VII. was dragged into Jack and the Giants without rhyme or reason. The King and the Cobler has a cut of the goose that laid the golden eggs. In a Nottingham edition of “Jack and the Giants,” the frontispiece was originally drawn to represent David and Goliath. A cut of the Apostle Paul shaking off the Viper after his Shipwreck illustrated the valiant London ‘prentice, and one of the illustrations to a child’s primer bears the legend “Pine Apple Rum.”

There is scarcely anything about the cuts that can be termed artistic. The work of cutting wood blocks was poorly paid, indeed printers cut their own, which may account for the execrable execution of many of them.

Turning to our illustrations—No. 1, which looks like a tribe of beggars posing before a cheap photographer, really illustrates Joseph relating his second dream to his brethren; while No. 2 is the funeral of Jacob! It will be noted that the horses are of an archaic species, each having six legs. No. 3 illustrated either the Witch of the Woodlands, Mother Shipton, or Mother Bunch. No. 4 represents the fable of Hercules and the Waggoner. For those who may not be acquainted with the story, we may say that the three small ponies have succeeded in fixing the wagon in a ditch, and the waggoner is on his knees appealing for assistance to Hercules, who promptly appears reclining on a somewhat lumpy cloud. The shape of the bridge has led to the supposition that this incident occurred in the neighbourhood of Kew. No. 5 represents the Emperor of Germany bestowing his daughter, Blanche, on Guy of Warwick. It looks the other way about in the picture, and we are not surprised to learn that the Knight left the fair (?) damsel at the earliest opportunity. This cut was also used in “Valentine and Orson” and “Fortunatus.” Nos. 6 and 7 illustrate the following stanzas in a metrical version of “Tom Thumb”:

“Among the deeds of courtship done,
His Highness did command
That he should dance a galliard brave
Upon the Queen’s left hand.”
* * * * * * *
“And good Sir Lancelot du Lake,
Sir Tristram and Sir Guy,
Yet none compar’d to brave Tom Thumb
In acts of chivalry.”

Nos. 8 and 9 represent two of the exploits of Jack the Giant Killer. In the former, the Giant, who was apparently not a very big one, is obligingly holding a wooden stave over his head, which Jack is attempting to sever in one cut, while in the latter, Jack is about to chop off the Giant’s nose. The pained expression of the Giant is admirably contrasted with the pleasure depicted on the face of his opponent, who for this occasion only has but one arm. No. 10 evidently depicts that bane of our childhood—the Cock-horse, evidently running, or shall we say striding, for the Banbury Cup; 11 and 12 are hunting scenes, in the latter a horned Giraffe has found his way into a banquet hall, closely pursued by two animals, which combine the length of the Weazel with the tail of the Talbot. No. 13 represents Moll Flanders, or Miss Davis, or indeed any other female; 14 speaks for itself; 15 represents, we believe, the City of Coventry; 16 is Jacob and Rebecca at the Well; 17 is undoubtedly that fortunate castaway, Robinson Crusoe, with two black eyes, to judge from his facial expression; 18 is Bamfyeld Moore Carew, the King of the Beggars; 19 is a tavern scene, we are not sure, however, whether the implements five of the company are holding are tobacco pipes or some musical instrument of torture; 20, 21, and 22 represent the courtship, marriage, and subsequent honeymoon trip of some rustic couple; 23 is the Beggar of Bednall Green; while 24 is an illustration of the visible signs of the head, as delineated in some fortune-telling booklet.

The extinction of the Chap book was as sudden as its reign had been long and prosperous. About 1830 cheap and respectable periodicals like “Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal” appeared, and like summer mists before the rising sun the Chap books vanished, and with them their worthy and unworthy vendors. They had played their part, and led up to that onward movement which has had such wonderful developments in these latter days. Now it is recognized that very much of the social life, habits, tastes, and ideas of the people of a past century can be gleaned from a study of the books they read—the Chap books, there is a consequent desire to possess them, and it is no exaggeration to say that the initial value of these little books has increased at least to twenty times the humble coin they were published at.

Thirty years ago an authority on Chap books wrote: “They have lifted the hearts of many a clumsily-limbed man and boy out of the drudgery of daily life into a sphere above experience. Their heroes and heroines have been types of manhood and womanhood to simple souls whose faith never burned dim. As I lay them by I think of Milton’s saying, that books are not dead things; and I thank them for all they have done for the cheer of thousands, yet without fame or memorial.”

Made in IOBA

Nancy Johnson contributes a monthly review of books pertaining to antiques and collecting (“The Bookshelf”) that has been published in Collectors News from 1995 to the present. She wrote a similar column from 1995 to 1998 that appeared in Mountain States Collector and Collectors Journal.

“Souvenirs of the Handover,” an article about limited editions that were issued and collectibles that were found in Hong Kong during Nancy’s stay there in the last week of June 1997 when colonial rule by Britain came to an end, appeared in various publications on the tenth anniversary of the Handover in 2007.

Nancy is also the co-author (along with fellow antiques show manager Dordy Fontinel) of “Antiques—How to Shop Wisely.” This bulletin will appear on the Federal Trade Commission's Consumer Information web-site this spring. Nancy and Dordy also helped design the brochure, bookmarks and postcards that will be available to support the Consumer Information web-site. Nancy got involved in this effort through her role as president of the PSMA (Professional Show Managers Association), a nationwide organization of primarily antiques and collectibles shows managers.

Nancy Johnson operates Nancy Johnson, Bookseller out of Denver, CO and can be contacted at http://www.nancyjohnsonbookseller.com.

Illustrated Boards: John Carter of Mars

John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Racine, WI: Whitman Publishing, 1940.

Dust Jacket Art: Deep Streets

Deep Streets by Benedict Thielen. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1932.

Harry Hansen

Original glossy newspaper file photo, measures 8” by 10”, rubber stamp on reverse reads, “Photographic Illustrations by Nick Lazarnick, 230 Park Ave., N.Y.,” pencil inscription on reverse reads “Harry Hansen about 1956,” Composition Room markings indicate size and placement in an unknown newspaper.

As booksellers we are drawn to book backdrops, appearances of books in movies, etc. Before I had the calling I used to go to a book-lined bar in northern New Jersey called The Library, and even those hoary cloth bound dogs had an early appeal even in that swirling sea of spilt beer and hormonal urges. Over the last half year or so President Bush has been appearing in front of perhaps the most pathetic assemblage of books ever seen on TV. It is a single shelf right behind his head. Nondescript shabby spines, no dust jackets, and worst of all two volumes in a set are divided by ten or so other examples of reject dreck. I thought for sure some handler would recognize how awful these look and order up a row of shiny colorful designer-type stock with raised spine bands and gilt lettering, but they must figure a book is a book so mission accomplished. If taken to task they could always summon up the ghost of Pat Nixon’s respectable cloth coat.

Against this backdrop I was delighted to come across this photo. The subject immediately struck me as a book man at home in his element, dapper and wise, with all that slightly out-of-focus gold just out of reach amid those deep half tone shadows (shiny inky black in the original). I hoped information on the reverse would prove this to be the case. Rather than the usual International News Photos or Associated Press taped paper caption, however, there was only the slim lead of a name. Harry Hansen. Good Google returned a great page right at the top though, courtesy of The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections & University Archives. The first two paragraphs below are excerpted from “Harry Hansen’s Literary Career” by William Roba (Books at Iowa 35, 11/1981). This is a lengthy account which is well worth reading.

“In 1954 Ben Hecht described Iowa-born Harry Hansen as a quiet book lover who ‘lived among books like a pilgrim in a rain of manna.’ This is an appropriate description, for Hansen's literary criticism appeared primarily in newspapers. His career during a unique period of American book publishing, from 1915 until 1945, was recorded in thousands of daily columns. Hansen's writings combined an admiration for European writers with an abiding appreciation of Middle West regional writing.

“Since he was literary editor of the Chicago Daily News, the name of Harry Hansen (1884-1977) appears in many books describing the Chicago writers of the early twentieth century. But there has been no analysis of his role in the ‘Chicago literary renaissance’ of the 1920s. Furthermore, no extended discussion of his career has been published since 1929. Hansen's career conveniently falls into three distinct periods. The first is his boyhood in Davenport, Iowa; the second covers his years in Chicago; and the third relates to his residence in suburban New York City.”

Periodical Covers: Nature Magazine

Nature Magazine (3/1934)

House Calls

I don’t mean to sound insensitive with the following account, but things like this happen in the world of house calls.

My son was along on this one, to speed the work, for company, and you never know…he might consider this for a career some day. If there was a slim flicker of hope there, this visit may have snuffed it out.

It was an old green and white house on a quiet outskirt city street, perched way up high with a long black iron railing along two flights of steps that were something of an engineering marvel. I’ve mowed some severe grades in my time but can’t imagine how they do this one. I’d say it looked like the house from Psycho except it was not alone, as there was a long row of these, and it was the dead of winter. Street parking only, and little if any side or back yard.

We knocked and knocked but no answer. A faded Pet Finder sticker on the door listed eight or so cats and dogs. Thank goodness for cell phones.

The senior citizen who finally came to the door would have been described as a crone in the past. Bright white hair including facial, two remaining teeth on the far bottom ends like gleaming white posts at the track, stooped, with piercing blue eyes. She grabbed my son’s hand during the introductions and did not let go, remarking on his looks about half way through.

“I may be old, but I’m still sharp. I used to do flea markets. I need at least $75 for these. There’s a lot of them.” Fair enough, though she had said something on the phone about just wanting to get rid of them. These were newer. There were many “very old” ones in the attic (the only reason I came) that would have to wait until next time.

As we entered the dimly lit living room, it was immediately apparent that this was sort of a Colliers Brothers situation, for those familiar with that early example of packrat achievement. Piles and paths only, though a huge Christmas tree must have displaced the usual lay of the land. No pets greeted us, but stuffed animals were in great abundance. We just watched the director’s final cut of Blade Runner together a couple of nights earlier and it kind of looked like Sebastian’s apartment from that movie, but with no room for somersaults. There was a glorious stained glass window on the right hand side of the house, but it was almost completely blocked by an enormous cabinet of some sort. As our eyes began to focus I could see nice antiques like partially buried Victorian marble top stands everywhere. As I began to recalibrate she interrupted with a bulletin.

“I have to tell you that I have a mentally retarded grandson asleep upstairs right now. He doesn’t like strangers in the house, and he can get full of rage. He’s pretty fast too.” She went on to say he was in his forties, etc., but as the short and pitch black center staircase leading to his present location ended right at our feet, boy and I were already planning our escape through the front door. (He told me later that he would have bounded down the steep snowy front lawn where bare feet or slippers may have hesitated to follow. All that advice about exit strategies must have took.)

Unfortunately, these boxes of books were arrayed left and right, so I had to venture away from the one escape route. I quickly determined that it was all unsalable dreck, with an unhealthy proportion of Dungeons and Dragons titles in the mix. Back by the front door, I broke the news that it was not what we needed. I did extend my standard $25 charity book sale offer, but she thought I was trying to lowball her and refused, to our great relief.

“What am I supposed to do with these? I thought you wanted books.”

“Well, like I said on the phone and just now, I don’t take any old books. You could try to call other booksellers in the Yellow Pages, but I don’t think they will come over or want them if they do come over. I don’t think an auction hall would take these either. You could have a yard sale when it gets warmer, or just put them out on the sidewalk for free.”

“Can you at least move them out onto the porch for me? I have to make room. I have a vintage clothes dealer from Hudson coming next.”

This was no small favor, as the large boxes and laundry baskets full of books were hard (and noisy!) to get at, but at least we helped her a bit.

As we descended toward the street down pitched and timeworn steps that were dangerous even without carrying heavy boxes or being chased, I pictured the plight of the distant clothes dealer whose potential treasures were closeted deep within the bowels of this dark and seemingly dangerous house. Did she have the nerve to proceed?

Book Fallouts

A small flier complete with Norman Rockwell illustration, 12 1920s issues for only a buck, stuck in some book for some reason by somebody who would probably be more than a little surprised we are looking at it today, especially on something called the internet.

Pray Tell, Private Hell submitted by Rock Toews

While on a mid-week visit to Antietam last April I noticed another guy touring the nearly deserted battlefield. He looked about my age and was dressed in the uniform of a musician from the Union Army. He noticed by the lettering on my van that I was a bookseller. He came over, introduced himself, and we started talking. His name was Steve Bartel, a graphic art designer, writer and drummer from Los Angeles. He was a reenactor who portrayed a "sheepskin fiddler" (drummer), and also had self-published a book of poems titled Pray Tell, Private Hell: Extracts from the Confessions of a Civil War Soldier. He pulled a copy from his knapsack and inscribed it to me in a very convincing 19th century hand. After five or ten minutes of pleasant conversation (I'm from California myself) I thanked him for the book, handed him my card, and we parted.

I'm not usually one for self-published books of poetry, but I think I read Private Hell's 100 poems through in one sitting. I found their sound and feel amazingly authentic. They're short, very observant, full of the dark humor of soldiering, and refreshingly free of literary pretensions. The book is a perfect lesson in using literature to illuminate history in ways non-fiction rarely can. It seems that Steve was channeling his great great uncle, Pvt. Alonzo C. Hayden, who was killed and buried on the field at Gettysburg.

Many of the poems are based on historical incidents, such as Lincoln's little speech at Gettysburg (too short to be captured by unprepared photographers), Father Corby blessing the 69th New York Volunteers at Gettysburg, the death of Stonewall Jackson by friendly fire, etc.

Here are a few examples:

Fancy This, or, The Roadbed Is Not On The Level

Emmitsburg Road, or, Private Haymaker's Muse*

The Last Shot

Heavenly Perdition

At the end of December, while cataloguing a book, I came across an obscure and amusing anecdote about Lincoln which reminded me of just the sort of thing this Mr. Steven Bartel makes into verses. I pulled out his book, read it again, and still thought it damned fine, so decided to get in touch with him. A Google search soon revealed that he had died suddenly just days earlier, leaving a wife and two young kids.

To wrap this all up then, after a couple of unanswered emails to the address I had with his book I sent a note to the mailing address. Last Friday I got a call from his dad. Yes, he has copies of the book. I told him my story of meeting Steve on Antietam field. He told me it was some kind of very aggressive cancer—he was gone in a matter of weeks. I'm not sure why this whole episode affected me so. Must be I'm getting old.

Rock Toews operates Back Creek Books out of Annapolis, MD and can be contacted at http://www.backcreekbooks.com.

Images of Book Culture

Book Culture (formerly Labyrinth Books) 536 West 112th Street, New York, NY http://www.bookculture.com

Auction Action

Softcover music books can be surprisingly valuable, so I attended what was billed as a 1950s music store stock auction one nice Sunday not long ago. It turned out to be more of an accordion auction. Over 140 of them, in fact, all laid out on long tables. The mother-of-pearl of all accordion auctions. Some old ones, flat black with yellowing keys, but mostly somewhat newer, shiny black, red, blue, and white, small and big, starters and fancy models, mostly Italian-made. My guess is that these were either in the collection of the music store owner, or more likely they were trade-ins and fixer-uppers.

At one point during the preview there was much cacophonous instrument testing and merry-making, punctuated by the occasional mini-concert. Learned music geeks and extroverted performers were having a high old time. Several had been taught by this man. There was some other stuff, like a large box with hundreds of new old drumsticks that would have been great for some avant-garde art project, some wind instruments, and some store display pieces, but accordions ruled the day and Myron Floren’s ghost was in the house.

Underneath the tables were hundreds of boxes of sheet music and music books, but alas, it was 99% accordion as well. Mostly beginning level, many duplicates (though I bet I could have sold all seven Beverly Hillbillies books with a great cover photo), and melded price stickers on most of it. I offered a fair start of $700 for everything, but seemingly serious accordion aficionados had been previewing for days, marking (and perhaps composing) the boxes they were interested in, so I was urged to stay and compete. I was kind of relieved I didn’t have to do all this work, but stayed for the beginning of the show anyway with no intention of bidding for hours under those conditions.

The mood changed fairly quickly when the auction began. Most of the accordions did not reach a minimum bid of $30, and I only saw a couple go for over $100. Few if any sold via the dreaded (for physical attendees) eBay Live! route, probably because accordions are one thing you shouldn’t buy without testing them in person first. And here is the other huge flaw in the game plan: how many accordions do accordion players actually need anyway? All that lugging, trucking, research, description, picture-taking, and all those eBay fees and wages, all for naught.

Same with the sheet music and books. The pickers were pikers, and very few boxes went for over $15. The rest was passed and eventually not lifted off the floor to begin with. This is a very well run auction house but there was lots of confusion and discomfort this time, and I left before it got any uglier. They had high hopes and nearly noble intentions but agreed later that it was an unmitigated disaster.

A striking young couple attended this auction, much in contrast to everyone else. They could have been fashion models. Slender, eastern European-looking, intent, like vampires really, in silent communication with each other. The woman in particular stood out because she was wearing all black with a long fur coat and had an interesting thin double ring neck tattoo. She continued previewing while the auction was in progress, and was scolded for being in the way, but seemed oblivious to her surroundings. Her focus was on the accordions, and she seemed to be moving at a different speed than everyone else, or vibrating on a different plane. She intercepted most of them as they made their way up the tables, performing quick tests on some and simply stroking others. When an instrument of interest was up she stood near the front and stared down those who dared to bid against her. She did not go very high on the lots I saw, and turned away almost as if in pain when she lost, but I left early and don’t know how many she got altogether. I mentioned this to an independent horror filmmaker the next day. “Well,” he said, “it’s a well-known fact that vampires like accordions.”

Postscript: I Googled vampires and accordions some days later and could not find any connection. When I pressed my filmmaker friend further he said he just made it up as a joke. And some weeks later there was a full page spread in the local paper on this woman! She is a cutting edge performance artist who feels she was conceived as an animal but snatched into a human body at the last moment. At a recent event she cavorted on stage with her accordion wearing a deer head (the whitetail is her east coast animal persona) and was suspended from the ceiling on wires. She admits to liking old stained things, and one of her teachers remarked that she is “otherwordly,” so I will cling to the possibility that the stage work is just a ruse for darker doings a la Anne Rice, and that vampires really do dig accordions.

Book Store Labels: F. Loeser & Co., Brooklyn, NY

Flitted out of an old book and now slipped into the bottom corner of my monitor.

The 2008 Diagram Prize

LONDON (AFP) - British industry magazine The Bookseller has announced this year's shortlist for the oddest book title of the year, with a typical mix of the quirky and eclectic.

Visitors to the magazine's website, www.thebookseller.com, can make their choice from six mostly non-fiction titles unearthed by publishers, bookstore workers and librarians from around the world.

The winner will be announced on March 28.

The nominees for The Diagram Prize are:

• "I Was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen" by Jasper McCutcheon;
• "How to Write a How to Write Book" by Brian Paddock;
• "Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues" by Catharine A. MacKinnon;
• "Cheese Problems Solved" by P.L.H. McSweeney;
• "If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs" by Big Boom;
• "People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Doctor Feelgood" by Dee Gordon.

Horace Bent, The Bookseller's diarist, said on the magazine's website: "I confess: I have been anxious that as publishing becomes ever more corporate, the trade's quirky charms are being squeezed out.

"Lists are pruned, targets are set, authors are culled. But happily my fears have been proved unfounded: oddity lives on."

Last year's winner was "The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification", by Julian Montague.

The Diagram Prize has been running since 1978, when the winner was "Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice".

[Hold the presses for this update.]

Guy Dammann
Friday March 28, 2008
guardian.co.uk

In the fast-moving world of literary awards, few prize short lists are worth lingering over with as much care as the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. The winner of this year's prize, a self-help manual by an American writer called Big Boom, wears its prize proudly: If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs.

Boom's trusty treatise took something of a landslide victory, receiving a full third of the nearly 9,000 online votes cast since the short list for the Bookseller magazine-sponsored award was announced last month. In particular, it received attention for the cunning way in which its title conveys the nature of the advice to be offered so effectively that, according to the Bookseller's deputy editor Joel Rickett, "you don't even need to read the book itself"—a somewhat unique term of praise for a literary prize sponsor.

The runner-up slots were taken by Jasper McCutcheon's enticingly entitled work of soft erotica, I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen (20%), and the fast-paced gastronomic whodunit, Cheese Problems Solved (19%), edited by Professor PLH McSweeney of University College, Cork. In fourth place was How To Write A How To Write Book.

The prize's honorary custodian, Horace Bent, responsible for drawing up the short list, cast doubt on the voting public's wisdom in choosing If You Want Closure.

"I grant that If You Want Closure is a funny title," he cautioned, "but it lacks a quality of unwitting oddity. I suppose it is my fault for including it on the short list. Next year I'll keep things serious."

Bent lamented the dumbed-down vulgarity that has beset the prize since its jury (consisting of one Horace Bent) was disbanded in 2000, and replaced by an online voting system. He cited previous prize winners, Living With Crazy Buttocks (2002) and The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories (2003), as evidence, before conceding that 2001's plaudit for Butterworth's Corporate Manslaughter Service may have seen democracy for once having the measure of its noble task.

The Diagram Prize's turbulent but proud history will be documented this year in the publication by Aurum Press of the lavishly illustrated How To Avoid Huge Ships, And Other Implausibly Titled Books, celebrating 30 years of the prize. The book will be published in time for Christmas.

Bookplates: St. Andrew’s Society Library

From the inside front cover of Essays on Property and Labour as Connected with Natural Law and the Constitution of Society by Francis Lieber (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1842).

Solicitations

The Standard can always use interesting, well-written articles on subjects of interest to the bookselling trade. Please query first, however, to editor@ioba.org. You will be supplied with submission guidelines, but to summarize, the material should be original, it is subject to editing, you retain copyright, and of course there is no payment other than most everyone’s satisfaction. You do not need to be a member of IOBA, except for the IOBA Bookseller Profiles section, though we would surely like you to join. We are very interested in the book trade outside the U.S. as well.

Currently we are seeking short pieces for the following self-explanatory columns. House Calls; Garage/Estate/Library Sale Tales; Auction Action; Book Show Impressions; Book Store Lore; and Library File.

Booku

Off the Skelligs by Ingelow, the thick yet compact 1875 Roberts Brothers edition.

Forest green stamped boards, earth brown endpapers, bright gilt lettering and runic spine decoration,

good advice for early Irish monks and perfect for the beehive hut stone shelf modern library.

Comic Books

Guess the correct caption.

1. “Alibris warehouse shipping and inventory department head and his staff discuss recent improvements.”
2. “I said I want a copy of Love and Sex with Robots by David Levy.”
3. “Is this the Technocratic man of 1940?????? Los Angeles. Here is the conception of the machine age product by the youthful inventor of 21, Earl Kent, of Carthage, Miss. Kent claims that ‘John’ walks, talks, smokes cigarettes, spits fire and gets generally ‘het up’ when he doesn’t receive attention. In the picture he is seen making a purchase at the May Company in Los Angeles…the inventor, Earl Kent is pictured on the left while the pretty saleslady is Betty Davis. 2/16/33.”