Part 3: The start of the modern period 1890-1920

Introduction

In part 3 of this series we look at the period between 1890 and 1920, which encompasses the end of the Victorian era and the beginnings of the modern novel. We will be focussing on some key works of fiction which represent the main literary movements and embody the common themes of the time. As such, these titles tend to command premium prices.

This was also a period which saw the decline of the “three-decker” or three volume novel as the standard publishing format and the rise of the single volume that dominates today.

Morality, Sexuality and Censorship

The Victorian era is closely associated with the suppression of sexuality and adherence, at least outwardly, to a strict moral code and many leading authors from this period sought to challenge this restrictive outlook through their fiction. For example, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbevilles attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a woman who loses her virginity before marriage. Originally serialised in The Graphic, it was first published in book form in 1991 as a three volume work in an edition of only 1,000 copies.

The outcry against Hardy’s next novel Jude the Obscure, with its frank treatment of sex and apparent attacks on the institution of marriage, was even more vocal with many booksellers selling copies in brown paper bags. The Bishop of Wakefield, William Walsham How, even went so far as publicly burning a copy. Hardy later wrote that this was “probably in his despair at not being able to burn me”. This negative reaction is thought to have been a factor in Hardy’s subsequent abandonment of fiction in favour of poetry.

Oscar Wilde’s only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published as a book in the same year as Hardy’s Tess, having previously been published in a shorter form in the July 1890 edition of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. Some of the critical reaction to the Lippincott version was extremely unfavourable with The Scots Observer describing it as suitable for “none but outlawed noblemen and perverted telegraph boys” – a reference to the Cleveland Street Scandal of 1889 where the police raided a homosexual brothel in Fitzrovia said to have been frequented by the aristocracy and staffed by rent boys who also worked as messengers for the post office. With homosexuality being illegal in England at this time (a situation which remained until 1967) Wilde removed many of the more overtly homoerotic passages prior to the novel’s publication in book form by Ward Lock in April 1891, particularly those relating to the artist Basil Hallward’s admiration for the subject of his portrait. However, they were still apparent to contemporary reviewers and the book was used in evidence against Wilde at his trial for gross indecency in 1895 which resulted in him receiving the maximum sentence of two year’s hard labour.

The attitude of the authorities towards the portrayal of sexual relationships generally in fiction were slow to change during the early part of the twentieth century with D H Lawrence being another author to experience this. His 1915 novel The Rainbow follows the fortunes of three generations of the Brangwen family focussing on the sexual dynamics of the main characters. Although it might be judged tame by contemporary audiences, the novel’s candid treatment of sex caused a furore upon publication and it was the subject of an obscenity trail in late 1915, which lead to it being banned and copies being seized by the police and burned. Although editions were published in the States it would not be available in Britain for another 11 years.

James Joyce also experienced difficulties in getting his semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man published, with several English printers refusing to handle it “on moral grounds”. It was first published by the New York firm B W Huebsch on 29 December 1916 with the first English edition, produced from 750 sets of the American sheets, being published the following year by Harriet Weaver of The Egoist Press priced at 6 shillings. The Egoist edition was issued in a dustwrapper, but this is so rare today that it can add a substantial premium to the price. A jacketed copy “rubbed and marked, with crude sellotape repairs and loss at spine ends” sold for an incredible £31,050 in December 2003 at Dominic Winter Book Auctions.

It was not until 1959, when the defence of artistic merit was introduced in the Obscene Publications Act and subsequently tested in the trial against Penguin Books for publishing an unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover that publishers and authors began to enjoy greater freedom from censorship.

Class

The Victorian era also saw a marked expansion in the economy and the growth of the cities which led to the rise of a middle class of professionals, administrators and clerks and the suburbs in which they lived. The outlook and attitudes of this burgeoning social group were satirised in George and Weedon Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody, which was published by the Bristol publishers Arrowsmith in 1892, having originally been serialised in Punch. This comic classic takes the form of a diary in which snobbish and small-minded commercial clerk Charles Pooter documents the banalities of his daily struggles with the various tradespeople who service his house, his efforts to find gainful employment for his son Lupin and Lupin’s relationship with the unsuitable Daisy Mutlar. The humour derived from Pooter’s gauche behaviour is heightened by Weedon Grossmith’s illustrations, which did not feature in the Punch columns.

Moving into the Edwardian era, E M Forster’s novels also focus on the hypocrisy of the middle class. A Room with a View, published in 1908, highlights the narrow-minded views of English tourists abroad with the novel’s central character Lucy Honeychurch being presented with a choice between the repressed Cecil Vyse and the free-thinking George Emerson. In Howard’s End, which appeared two years later, Forster examines the relationships between three different groups within the middle class, represented by the capitalist Wilcoxes, who have made their fortune in the colonies, the intellectual Schlegels, who bear a resemblance to the Bloomsbury Group, and the struggling lower middle class Basts.

The idea of social class is also central to an appreciation of D H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, published in 1913. Gertrude Coppard, the daughter of a “good old burgher family” marries miner Walter Morel after meeting him at a Christmas dance. However, she soon grows to appreciate the difficulties of living in a rented house off his meagre wages and they begin to drift apart. Later her son William leaves their Nottinghamshire home for a job in London and begins to rise up the middle class.

Imperialism

By the end of Victoria’s reign, the British Empire extended over approximately a fifth of the world’s surface and around a quarter of the population, theoretically at least, owed allegiance to the Queen. Joseph Conrad’s works from this period explore and question the ideology of imperialism. For example, Lord Jim, published in book form in October 1900, concerns an adventure at the height of the empire. Jim, who is first mate on the ship Patna, is complicit in abandoning the ship and its passengers, who are Moslem pilgrims bound for the Hajj in Mecca. Whilst Jim eventually atones for this lapse he remains an ambigous figure and Conrad’s use of a protagonist with a dubious history has been interpreted by some as an expression of his doubts about the empire’s mission. Today Lord Jim is one of the most prized of Conrad’s novels.

Criticism of imperialism is more overt in Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness”, in which Marlow (who also serves as the narrator in Lord Jim) takes an assignment as a ferry-boat captain to navigate up the Congo River and relieve the ivory trader Kurtz. Upon arriving at the Inner Station, Marlow discovers that Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives using brutal methods to obtain his ivory. Originally serialised in Blackwood’s Magazine between February and April 1899,”Heart of Darkness” was published in 1902 in a volume of three stories entitled Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories. Given the importance of the story to modern literature it is perhaps surprising that it was not chosen as the title for the collection. Conrad’s anti-heroic characters have influenced a number of authors and the themes of many of his novels makes him a forerunner of modernism.

The Dawn of Modernism

Modernism was a movement that increasingly took hold in the aftermath of World War I – an event that shook many people’s belief in the nature of Western civilisation and culture. In literature it manifested itself as a revolt against traditional literary forms and, thematically, an increased focus on individualism, mistrust of the institutions of government and the absence of absolute truths.

One of the founding fathers of English modernism was Ford Madox Ford whose finest work is generally considered to be The Good Soldier. This story of adultery and deceit focuses on two couples, Edward and Leonora Ashburnham, and their two American friends, John and Florence Dowell. By presenting the story through John Dowell, Ford makes use of the technique of the unreliable narrator and the groundbreaking narrative style influenced many later authors, most notably Graham Greene. Ford (who was born Ford Hermann Hueffer) published The Good Soldier under the name Ford Madox Hueffer. With German connotations becoming unpopular after Word War I he eventually settled upon Ford Madox Ford in 1919.

James Joyce was also a leading figure in modernist literature and many of the innovative techniques that he would later develop in Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake are apparent in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in book form in 1916. The novel portrays the formative years of Joyce’s fictional alter ego Stephen Dedalus and his rebellion against the Irish Catholic conventions in which he has been raised, eventually leaving Ireland to follow his calling as an artist.

Enduring Reputations

Whilst almost all of the authors and works covered here will be familiar to contemporary readers, some have not stood the test of time so well, with perhaps the best example being Marie Correlli. Although regularly derided by critics, up until World War I her works were bought in vast quantities and outsold the combined sales of Conan Doyle, Wells and Kipling. Her novels include Wormwood: A Drama of Paris, a lurid melodrama which warns of the perils of absinthe, and The Sorrows of Satan, the faustian story of penniless author Geoffrey Tempest and his temptation by Lucio, an incarnation of the devil. Whilst Corelli’s novels are still collectable today it is worth bearing in mind that, as reading tastes change and the importance of various authors is continually reassessed over time, the value of their books to the collector is unlikely to remain static.

 

THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD: 1890-1920 – SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

A guide to current values of first editions in Very Good condition (with dustjackets).

Corelli, Marie: WORMWOOD: A DRAMA OF PARIS

(Richard Bentley & Son, 1890)…….……………….……………........£750-£1,000

Hardy, Thomas: TESS OF THE D’URBEVILLES

(Osgood, McIlvaine & Co, 1891)………………………………........£5,000-£8,000

Wilde, Oscar: THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

(Ward Lock, 1891)………………………………………..…...............£750-£1,000

Grossmith, George & Weedon: THE DIARY OF A NOBODY

(Arrowsmith, 1892)……………………………………………….............£100-£150

Corelli, Marie: THE SORROWS OF SATAN

(Methuen, 1895)……………………………..……………………...........£200-£250

Hardy, Thomas: JUDE THE OBSCURE

(Osgood, McIlvaine & Co, 1896)………………………………...….........£200-300

Conrad, Joseph: LORD JIM: A TALE

(Blackwood, 1900).…………………..……………………...............£1,000-£1,500

Conrad, Joseph: YOUTH: A NARRATIVE AND TWO OTHER STORIES

(Blackwood, 1902).…………………..……………………..…...............£600-£800

Ditto (McClure, Phillips, US, 1903).….…..……………………………...£350-£400

Forster, E. M.: A ROOM WITH A VIEW

(Edward Arnold, 1908)…..…………..………………………….….........£300-£400

Forster, E. M.: HOWARD’S END

(Edward Arnold, 1910)…..…………..………………………….….........£200-£250

Lawrence, D. H.: SONS AND LOVERS

(Duckworth & Co, 1913)………….…………….…...............£400-£600 (£6,000+)

Hueffer, Ford Madox: THE GOOD SOLDIER

(John Lane, 1915).…………………..………………….…...............£1,500-£1,750

Lawrence, D. H.: THE RAINBOW

(Methuen, 1915).…………………….……………….…........£400-£600 (£6,000+)

Joyce, James: A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN

(B W Huebsch, US, 1916).……..….………………….…...............£1,500-£2,000

Ditto (The Egoist Press, [1917]).…………..…………….....£500-£800 (£20,000+)

Part 4: Modern first editions from 1920 to 1945

Part 2: Where to buy your books

Introduction

In part 2 of this series we look at the main sources of buying books to build up your collection and some of the advantages and disadvantages of each. Whilst the fundamentals of buying books remain more or less constant, the rise of the Internet over the last 10 to 15 years has introduced a number of changes which have increased the ease of purchasing and price comparison.

Where to look

Booksellers

Fifteen to 20 years ago the principal means of buying modern first editions was through a dealer operating out of a shop, many of whom would advertise their books by means of a catalogue sent out through the post. Whilst dealers are still an important channel for book buyers, these are tough times for second hand and independent bookshops generally. Although concentrations of rare book dealers still exist – such as Cecil Court just off Charing Cross Road in London - a combination of rising commercial rents, the economic downturn and competition from charity shops has seen the closure of a large number of shops or forced the proprietors to migrate their business onto the internet.

Bookshops on Cecil Court

The leading trade body for rare book dealers is the Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) and this currently has 245 members. Although a number of these still issue catalogues in hard copy, they are generally also accessible online, with the format of a typical entry (listing author, title, edition details, condition, features of interest and selling price) looking as follows:

THOMAS, Dylan

UNDER MILK WOOD

Dent,1954
First edition. Original brown cloth in turquoise printed dustwrapper. A near fine copy, with some spotting to the page edges, in a very near fine dustwrapper, which is crisp and complete, with just a little foxing to the verso.

£395

Many dealers will tend to specialise in particular fields such as children’s or illustrated books and their stock selection will reflect these interests. You can access a list of ABA members, together with a series of maps showing their location within the UK, through its website at www.aba.org.uk.

There are, of course, a large number of good second hand bookshops whose proprietors are not ABA members and many of these provide an excellent service. However, as ABA members are required to adhere to a Code of Good Practice to maintain professional and ethical standards you can have some reason to be confident in the accuracy of the stock descriptions. That said, if you are unable to call in person it’s well worth ringing up to discuss any concerns you may have before making a purchase and, in the case of higher value items, some dealers are happy to provide images enabling you to check that the condition matches your expectations.

Book fairs

Both the ABA and Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA) run a number of fairs throughout the UK where a number of leading dealers will display their stock. The ABE organises the London International Antiquarian Book Fair, which is the largest event of its type, attracting over 3,500 visitors, and has been running annually since 1958. The PBFA holds its flagship events, the International London Book Fairs, in May and June. It also manages over 100 provincial fairs a year and a full calendar of these is available at www.pbfa.org.

Charity shops, jumble and car boot sales

Whilst charity shops were once something of a happy hunting ground for the book collector, many charities – particularly Oxfam – have now woken up to the potential value of the donations that they receive and are either employing professionals to value their stock or, more controversially, selling on the more interesting items to the trade before they reach the shelves. Whilst this system is by no means foolproof, the likelihood of finding a rare or valuable item at a bargain price is now much reduced and you are probably better off looking in shops run by smaller local charities. Even then, be prepared to spend time sifting through a large quantity of Reader’s Digest condensed books, book club editions, Jackie Collins novels, dog-eared Chris Ryan paperbacks and the like before unearthing anything of interest. Having said that, nothing quite beats the thrill of finding a valuable title at a bargain price and it will certainly hone your skills in sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Much the same applies to jumble and car boot sales, which tend to be very much pot luck. However, given the popularity of many of these events its best to arrive early – preferably quarter of an hour or so before the advertised start time – in order to stand any chance. These sales have the advantage that, if you do find something of interest, the seller is more likely to be open to negotiation on price.

The Internet

One of the main changes in recent years has been the increased importance of the Internet as a means of buying and selling books. One of the most useful websites for book collectors is AbeBooks.com (with “Abe” standing for Advanced Book Exchange) which provides an online marketplace bringing together thousands of independent booksellers (including most of the leading dealers). A key feature of the site is a search function which enables you to search through listings of over 140 million books quickly and simply. This is a great means of both finding that elusive title and comparing the prices being asked. Alibris.co.uk, which has been running since 1998, provides a similar service listing over 100 million books.

The great advantages of these sites are that, with so many titles listed, you are very much more likely to find what you are looking for and the ease of comparing prices has been greatly simplified. One effect of this is that, with easier access to the market, the number of sellers has increased and the value of many relatively common titles has dropped.  

The disadvantage is that you cannot always be certain who you are dealing with. Whilst I’ve rarely had a bad experience when using these sites it’s best to ask questions (particularly regarding condition) before parting with your money and bear in mind the old adage that, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

eBay

Although not specifically dedicated to books, eBay is another important means of buying and selling which has increased in importance since it was launched in the UK in 1999. eBay is essentially an online auction site with the duration of the auction being fixed in advance by the seller and lasting between 1 to 10 days. Thus, unlike a traditional auction which ends when all but the highest bidder have dropped out, with eBay it is the bidder with the highest bid at the expiry of the time limit who wins. Searching for items that you are interested in bidding on is very straightforward and you simply need to type in the title and author of the book you are looking for and then select the category “Books, Comics & Magazines”. The site will then instantly return a list of results which you can refine by selecting “Antiquarian & Collectable” as an additional search criterion.

Again, eBay is a great source for price comparisons – particularly as, by filtering to see “completed listings” only you can see what purchasers have actually paid for certain titles, rather than simply the price that sellers hope to get. Obviously you will need to check the condition of the books that have sold as this will be a major influence in determining the selling price.

A key factor to bear in mind when using eBay is the feedback system, which helps to maintain the integrity of the auctions and give users some confidence as to who they are dealing with. At the conclusion of each transaction, both buyer and seller are able to rate their experience as positive, negative or neutral and these gradings can be supplemented with written comments. In this way, users can build up a feedback points score, which is the total number of positive marks they have received. This score is displayed as numerical figure next to their user name. Another important statistic that eBay records is the percentage of a user’s feedback that is positive. This can be especially important where a heavy user can build up a reassuringly large feedback score that may mask a number of negative marks. If a user has a rating of less than 98% positive, I would advise caution in dealing with them.

Buying and selling at auction

Auction houses can also be good sources of books and whilst the less experienced may find this intimidating at first, it really needn’t be with most of them being more than happy to respond to queries from first time customers.

Whilst the larger and longer established auction houses (such as Bonhams, Christie’s and Sotheby’s) all have book departments these tend to concentrate on the upper end of the market and sell only the recognised high spots. Most people are more likely to be able to find something to suit their budget at one of the smaller auctioneers (such as Bloomsbury Auctions and Dominic Winter) which specialise in selling books.

Reading an auction catalogue

Auction houses will list the lots they have for sale in a similar format to a dealer’s catalogue, with the main differences being that the listing will be preceded by a lot number (which you should use when bidding) and the price will be quoted as a range which is a guide to the sum that the auctioneer expects the lot to achieve, as follows:

198. Burgess (Anthony) A Clockwork Orange, first edition, cut signature of author loosely inserted, brown mark affecting 2 ff., original black boards, dust-jacket, light crease running along top-edge, otherwise a very good example, 8vo, 1962.

£600 – £800

As with any purchase it’s highly recommended that you see the item for yourself before making a bid and there will generally be an opportunity to view the lots ahead of the sale. For example, Bloomsbury usually hold their auctions on Thursday afternoons with viewings scheduled from the preceding Tuesday. Even if you are only interested in one or two of the lots, you are free to browse the saleroom and these viewings can be a good opportunity to improve your knowledge of rare and collectable books generally.

Lots will sometimes consist of a quantity of books that are being sold together although the catalogue entry will only list details of a selection of the more interesting items. As bulk lots are usually stored in boxes rather than displayed on the open shelves it can be worthwhile sorting through these in the hope of finding something of interest that the valuer has overlooked. However, if you do find something worth bidding on bear in mind that, if successful, you will be liable to collect the lot or have it delivered to your home so you need to factor in the additional inconvenience or cost.

Bidding

Whilst bidding in person can be exciting, there are other options if you don’t have enough free time or are otherwise unable to attend. Usually you can make a proxy bid by instructing the auction house of the maximum amount that you are prepared to bid. They will then bid on your behalf up to this pre-agreed limit. Some auction houses, such as Bloomsbury, also offer online bidding facilities through www.the-saleroom.com or www.liveauctioneers.com enabling you to bid from the comfort of your home or office.

A key factor to consider when bidding is the need to factor in the auction house’s commission on top of the sale or “hammer” price. Bloomsbury currently charge a buyer’s premium of 22% which means if you win an auction by bidding £50, you will end up paying £61, whilst Dominic Winter charge 17.5%. As a seller, the auction house will also charge a commission of around 15%, meaning that their margin on lots that sell is upwards of 30%.

You should also bear in mind that whilst the guide price indicates the estimated value, this isn’t the same as the reserve price (which is the minimum price that the seller has indicated that they will accept). If no-one else is bidding on the item that you have your eye on it’s possible to pick up a bargain by putting a bid below the lower limit of the guide price.

Part 3: Modern first editions from 1890 to 1920

Part 1: Recognising and valuing first editions

Introduction

Welcome to part 1 of The Book and Magazine Collector Guide to Collecting Modern Books. In the manner of a Dickens novel this feature will be serialised over the next 20 issues of the magazine ultimately building to form a comprehensive guide to the essential elements of book collecting, including how to recognise and value first editions and the best places to buy your books, as well as providing an overview of the key authors of the modern era and the most collectable subject areas and genres.

In terms of scope, whilst its hard to pin a precise date on the start of the modernist period in literature, I will somewhat arbitrarily be focussing on British and American works that have been published from 1890 onwards, the year in which Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray first appeared.

How to recognise a first edition

In terms of collecting modern books, we are almost exclusively concerned with first editions – the first printing in book form of an original work from a set of type. But how can you recognise these? Fortunately, most publishers will include the date of publication either at the foot of the title page or in a line on the title verso

For example, the title verso of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four states ”First published 1949”, whilst the line “Copyright 1952 by Daphne du Maurier” appears on the title verso of The Apple Tree. If this is all of the information given then it is usually safe to assume the book is a first edition. Later printings are usually designated by the line “Second impression” or “Reprinted” followed by the date. Sometimes these can be hard to spot so check carefully before buying as this will have quite a significant effect upon the value.

For later books, particularly those published from the 1990s onwards publishers often use a different designation. For example the copyright line of the first printing of Ian McEwan’s Atonement reads:

Published by Jonathan Cape 2001

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Here the significant factor is that the number “1” is still present in the lower series of numbers. For the second and subsequent printings, the publisher will simply delete this number, leaving “2” as the lowest number and so on.

Undated books represent something of a problem for the collector and some publishers, such as Hodder & Stoughton, were notorious for not dating their books, particularly in the early part of the twentieth century. Here some more additional research may be needed. For instance is a list of the author’s or publisher’s other works included? If so, this can be helpful in fixing the date. In general though, you should be wary of undated books, as these can often turn out to be reprints.

With some titles, there may be additional slight differences or “issue points” between first edition copies. Staying with the example of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the book is bound in a light green cloth but can appear in either a red or green dust jacket. No priority has been established as to which was issued first although the red variant is the scarcer of the two and so tends to command a higher price.

Factors affecting value

A number of different factors can combine to affect the value of a first edition to a collector. The first of these is the prevailing fashions or trends in the book collecting world. There are a number of authors whose reputations have become well established for a number of years through critical acclaim, their contribution to literature or through featuring in authoritative works such as Cyril Connolly’s One Hundred Books from the Modern Movement. However, attitudes can change over time so that authors who were once avidly collected can fall out of fashion and become disregarded. Conversely, some modern first editions can become very collectable very quickly with the best example in recent times being J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published in 1997. Within three years five figure sums were being paid for this title as the Harry Potter titles rose to the top of the bestseller lists.

This example also illustrates that, as with any traded commodity, scarcity will have a marked impact upon value. The first print run of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was limited to 500 copies with perhaps 300 of these going to libraries. The run for the second book in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was much higher at 10,000, and so is much less valuable.

Another factor that can significantly affect a book’s value is whether it has been signed by the author. This is especially true for where the author is reluctant to appear in public or doesn’t participate in book signing events – particularly notable examples being Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy and the late J D Salinger. “Association copies” which have a link to the author – perhaps through containing the author’s own annotations or a personalised inscription to one of the author’s friends - can also attract a premium.

The other major consideration in determining value will be the book’s condition, with a complete and well-preserved copy attracting a much higher value than one which shows obvious signs of wear. There are a number of generally accepted standard terms that are used to describe a book’s condition as follows;

Mint. Both the book and dust jacket are in “as new” perfect condition.

Fine. Both the book and dust jacket are in excellent condition, although on closer inspection some signs of previous ownership, such as a small inscription on a preliminary page, or minor wear, such as slight rubbing to the corners, are evident.

Very Good. The book may have some foxing or fading and the dust jacket should have excellent colouring but with slight rubbing to most edges and corners. No major faults should be apparent.

Good. The book is obviously second hand but should be complete and, whilst the dust jacket should be fairly clean and have good colouring it may suffer from marks, creases and other signs of wear such as very small tears.

Poor. The book is in bad condition and may be warped with a damaged spine. Whilst the text is complete some preliminary pages may be missing. The dust jacket may be tatty and grubby and marked creased or torn.

In terms of the condition that one should be willing to accept, this rather depends upon how you view the purpose of your collection. If you regard it as an investment that you hope may appreciate in value or are concerned about its appearance when displayed on the shelf then you should only look to obtain books in the “very good” category or better. Good or poor copies of even quite scarce titles are seldom likely to appreciate or have a high resale value. If, on the other hand, you gain most of your enjoyment from the reading and handling of original editions of books and are aiming to keep them indefinitely then you can build up your collection much more cheaply by opting for copies in lesser condition.

Explanation of common faults

Some faults that can affect a book’s value – for example torn or missing pages – are self explanatory and it always pays to check carefully before buying. Some other faults, or at least the terms used to describe them in seller’s catalogues, may require a little additional explanation.

Chips. Where a dust jacket has been damaged through wear, fragments or “chips” can break off and become lost.

Ex Lib. This denotes a copy that has previously seen service in a lending library. As such it can be expected to have a number of serious faults such as library and date stamps, creased spine and perhaps even a binding that isn’t original to the book. As such these are best avoided. Having said that, I find that some markings from defunct libraries (such as the Boots lending library) can add to the interest of a title from the perspective of social history. However, this isn’t a view I would expect to be widely shared by other collectors when it comes to valuing a title. 

Fading. Given that they are the element of the book that is most likely to be exposed to light, dust jackets can be prone to fading. With the modern four colour printing process using combinations of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, colours from the red and yellow ranges of the spectrum can be less stable and some book jackets featuring these colours are notoriously susceptible to this problem. So, for example, the jacket of le Carré’s The Looking Glass War is predominantly red and you are unlikely to find a copy where the spine hasn’t faded to white unless the previous owner has kept it in a darkened room or a box over the 45 years since it was published!

Foxing. Over time certain impurities in a book’s paper can react with air to form small brown stains. The term may be a contraction of the chemical “ferric oxide” which may be involved in producing the rust-like spots.

Inscriptions. Try to avoid copies where previous owners have written their names on one of the preliminary pages or, worse still, where the book has been given as a gift and a little message has been written to the recipient. Generally speaking the only name that will add to the value of a book is the author’s own.

Rubbing. Refers to where the spine, corners or edges of a book have suffered slight wear through use.

Dust jackets

The presence, or absence, of a dust jacket or dust wrapper will have a significant impact upon the value of a first edition and here it is worth knowing a little about the history of this feature. Whilst it is uncertain which title was the first to feature a dust jacket, Dickens’ Edwin Drood (published in 1870) is an early example. As the name implies the first dust jackets were produced to protect the book in transit from the printers or whilst on display in a bookshop and were meant to be discarded by the purchaser once they taken it home. As such they were generally plain in design with simple lettering and perhaps a small motif. Sometimes, as is the case with the Beatrix Potter books they were produced on transparent paper to enable browsers to see the attractive illustrations on the cover. For this reason examples from before World War 1 are extremely scarce – sometimes exceptionally so. For example, only two jacketed copies of Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (published in 1902) are known to exist.

However from 1914 onwards publishers began to realise the marketing value of an attractively designed jacket and increasingly used them to carry illustrations, blurbs and reviewers’ comments. Dust jackets from titles published between the wars are still uncommon as they were relatively fragile and not generally retained by purchasers. For books published from World War 2 onwards, however, it is worth seeking out a jacketed copy when adding to your collection.

The increasing importance of dust jackets to collectors over recent years has led to the rise of restored or even facsimile dust jackets. A restored jacket is an original one which has been repaired, perhaps by mending tears or replacing chips with similar coloured paper. This is only worth having done professionally (since amateur repairs will reduce rather than enhance a book’s value) for those titles where the book’s is sufficiently valuable to warrant the expense. When selling a book with a restored jacket you should always make this fact known to the prospective purchaser as attitudes to the practice vary considerably. 

More controversial still amongst collectors is the production of facsimile jackets using modern scanning and printing techniques. A number of concerns on the internet (including  www.facsimiledustjackets.com and www.ladybluestocking.com) offer facsimile jackets at very reasonable prices and, particularly in the case of books from the early part of the last century, this may represent your best chance of being able to gain an appreciation of how the book would have appeared when new. Reputable producers of facsimiles are careful to clearly label their jackets as such and use modern types of paper to guard against their being passed off as the genuine article by subsequent sellers. However, as with restored jackets, caveat emptor applies!

Next month: Where to buy and sell books.