The Strange Case of the Signed Robert Galbraiths, Or, The Latest J.K. Rowling collector frenzy

The revelation (via a sworn-to-secrecy lawyer's wife's friend it turned out) that debut author Robert Galbraith was actually J. K. Rowling had fans, collectors and dealers alike scurrying to snap up the remaining first edition copies on the market. I've not seen a definitive report of how many copies were printed in that first run, though it appears from the ISBNs on the indicia page that there were both hardcover and trade paperback copies, the latter presumably for the travel bookshops, though it's not clear if that initial paperback run was actually printed, as I've not seen any for sale on the secondary market (of which more in a minute...).

I've seen it mentioned that there were 1500 first edition, first impression copies printed, but that could just be because it was initially reported that, before the news broke, only 1500 copies had been sold. The UK Bookdata figure for recorded sales pre-unmasking was only 500 (though that does not include all online sources, typically). Given that it was an author 'launch' title aiming for the 'summer reads' round-ups, with a nice quote from Val McDermid on the cover, my guess is that there were between 5,000 and 10,000 copies printed, but who knows, maybe it was under 2,000. Once the story hit though, several enormo-reprints were rushed through. All the later printings have the original, made-up biography of Galbraith replaced on the back flap with a mention that the name is a pseudonym for Rowling.

However many copies were in that first impression, a lot of them have ended up on eBay, where copies are already changing hands for upwards of a thousand pounds. Unwary buyers are also paying silly money for copies billing themselves as FIRST EDITION, but then mentioning that they are copies from 'early printings', so not, I assume, necessarily the all-important first impression at all! Imagine what the person who spent over £500 on this copy is currently feeling like...

The real stars of eBay at the moment though are the *signed* first editions of the book...

(Photo from eBay)

These copies are currently selling for between £2000 and £3000... 250 were signed pre-unmasking for Goldsboro Books, a shop in London's book collecting mecca Cecil Court that specialises in signed firsts of genre fiction. Thanks to this story in the Evening Standard, we know the signed Galbraiths are the real thing (though it's not made 100% clear if it was Jo herself wielding the pen), and that the Goldsboro boss is a nice man for giving his staff a copy each!

Meanwhile, the collectors' feeding frenzy continues online. I wonder where the price for a 'signed' Galbraith will top out? For two and half grand, you could buy yourself several signed Harry Potters... but then the people buying these probably already have a bunch of those.

Oh, and before anyone asks, no, I don't have one of these for sale. Sadly.

Saki Dust Jackets Redux

As final preparations are made for the 'formal' opening of The Little Shop (tm) on the 21st (do come along if you're in the area), here's a quick update entry on something from the previous incarnation of this blog. Any longtime readers will know that I get all of a flutter when it comes to rare Saki dust jackets. New readers can bring themselves up to speed with the entries here, here, here and here, but hold onto your hats, it's pretty exciting stuff. Pure bibliographical Viagra, as someone once almost said.

A while back I was contacted by a reader who ended up buying the copy of When William Came mentioned in that last entry, but also had, from another source, scans of a better copy of the dust jacket — which he kindly shared with me. See, I'm not the only one out there who's interested in this stuff.

So here, for the first time on t'internet, feast your eyes on the full DJ of Saki's great pre-WW1 satire...

Augustus Carp, Esq. — The funniest unknown book in the world?

According to the legendary Robert Robinson, it is indeed "The funniest unknown book in the world", and in the opinion of Robinson's Call My Bluff helpmate, the equally legendary fruit and nutcase Frank Muir, it's "One of those little masterpieces which seem to pop up from nowhere."

To no less an august personage than Anthony Burgess the book is simply "One of the great comic novels of the Twentieth Century."

I'll let the blurb from the back of the 1980s Penguin edition sum it up:

"In an age when every standard of decent conduct has been torn down, here is a man to place a higher example before the world. Churchwarden, Sunday-school superintendent and President of the St Potamus Purity League, Augustus Carp Esquire is the unflinching opponent of Sin in all its manifestations. Glorious in his mediocrity, assiduous in exposing the faults of everyone he meets, resolute in the pursuit of goodness and his own advancement, the dimensions of his piety are matched only by his girth."

I love this book, though it's been a while since I've read it. High time to dip into its unique charms once again. It's often compared with the much better known The Diary of A Nobody, and while it's true that it is in what Anthony Burgess called "the tradition of native deadpan comedy" it's a bit more, well, bonkers than the day-to-day life of Mr Pooter. The names are better too: as well as Augustus Carp, Esq., we meet the hirsute Ezekiel Stool, fishmonger Alexander Carkeek ("a Northern Caledonian of the most offensive type") and the Rev. Eugene Cake (author of improving fiction such as Gnashers of Teeth and Without Are Dogs).

The book was published anonymously in May 1924, had at least one reprint around 1930, but was then neglected for decades, until in 1966 Burgess prevailed upon the original publishers, Heinemann, to reprint it, with his new Introduction.

Later came the Penguin edition, which kept Burgess's contribution as an Afterword, and added a new Intro by Robinson. This edition also reinstated the original illustrations by 'Robin', which for my money are essential. You can see Augustus himself, in the full flower of his Southern Metropolitan Xtian manhood, above. Here's Ezekiel Stool:

'Robin', it turns out, was actually a Miss Marjorie Blood. She contributed to Punch regularly, but about a year after illustrating Augustus Carp, she joined the Order of the Sacred Heart, and became Mother Catherine at Roehampton Convent. You couldn't make it up.

But who actually wrote the book?

Stuck to the front free endpaper of the rather rare first edition copy I currently have on eBay is an article from The Age, dated November 11th, 1950, by 'I.M.' which discusses the authorship of the book being attributed to the politician and writer Augustine Birrell. An interesting idea, but the real author was revealed by Anthony Burgess (in his Introduction to Heinemann's 1966 reprint) to be Sir Henry Howarth Bashford Kt, M.D., F.R.C.P., who was Chief Medical Officer to the Post Office, Medical Adviser to the Treasury and Honorary Physician to King George VI. He wrote other books, under his own name, though none have had the staying power of Mr. Carp. Sadly, he died, aged 81, in 1961, so he just missed out on the outpouring of much deserved praise the Burgess-led revival brought his way.

There's a rather good photo of him over at The National Portrait Gallery website. Don't ask me why, but he looks like he was a giggler.

Augustus Carp has seen various editions over the years (including ones from the Folio Society and Prion) and is still in print, but first editions appear to be very scarce. The aforementioned copy is the only one I can find anywhere for sale online at the moment. Presumably it once had a dust jacket, but I've never seen any evidence of what it would have looked like... another candidate for one of the rarest dust jackets in the world, perhaps?

A Little Shop, or How to Open a Secondhand Bookshop By Mistake

As the tenth incarnation of someone I admire once said, "I love a little shop." In these days of internet-shopping-from-your-sofa-while-tweeting-and-watching-TV, it's a refreshing change, I think, to occasionally go outside and have a poke about in an actual shop. Perhaps not even looking for anything in particular, but just giving yourself the chance to spot something you might fancy. Something you never knew you wanted.

Over the years, I have been very good at doing this, particularly with books, both new and old. Did I leave the house planning to buy a book from 1931 called Psychic Adventures in New York? I did not. (But could you put a book with that title back on the shelf?) Did I really need that new edition of a book I already had in half a dozen other editions? Nope. But, look... it's got a pretty cover, with matt laminate and debossing and stuff.

I love bookshops, and I really, really love secondhand bookshops (and indeed second hand and second-hand bookshops). At some point a few years ago, I'm not exactly sure when, I started buying the odd book not so much because I personally wanted it, but because it was a 'good buy'. The kind of thing I could, ha-ha, salt away for when I had my own secondhand bookshop. This was just a vague intention, a pipe dream, at first, and was basically an excuse to buy more books: 'They'll be stock one day...'

Shelves in my house began to fill up, many of them two deep with books. Then I married a wonderful lady, who also had lots and lots of books (some of which she had written herself). Before I knew it, the books needed A Very Expensive Cupboard which wasn't even in our house.

My intentions started to get less and less vague. The 'they'll be stock' joke became less of an excuse, and more like an active plan, especially when a friend offered the possibility of a space with the two holy grails of a little shop: reasonable overheads and a location with the chance of decent year-round footfall.

To cut a long story short, I find myself in Penrith, preparing for the official opening of an actual little shop. Given that we're in the glorious Lake District, where Withnail and I went on holiday by mistake, and I have opened a bookshop sort of by mistake, it had to be called Withnail Books. It's located in The Brunswick Yard, an antiques and architectural salvage centre where you can find everything from a set of copper pans to a pair of 18 foot high chapel doors (though actually the latter sold yesterday), as well as an amazing selection of Persian and Afghan carpets. It's the kind of place you can lose yourself in for a while. As one customer said to me today, "I only meant to pop in for 5 minutes as I was passing, and that was an hour ago."

Though I have been open, in stealth mode, for a week or so, the preparations are continuing for the 'official' opening on the 21st July. The first order of business was preparing the room. A couple of years ago, when I first saw the place, it was full of lovely old furniture for sale, and looked like this:

Once it was cleared out, we auditioned carpets. This one won:

Then insulation and stud walls went in, and shelves, utilising an old orchard ladder, went up (thanks to joiner extraordinaire Paul, who is *the* man to contact if you ever want a Geodesic Dome by the way: his website is here).

Then lots more shelves and bookcases (a certain author of my acquaintance may recognise some of them), a kick-arse ex MOD desk... and then a lorryload of books arrived.

Eventually we ended up with a bookshop... It sells books ranging from a couple of quid to over a hundred, and might just have that title you never knew you were looking for (Psychic Adventures in New York is still available). It also has a lovely smell of books, and you don't get that with a Kindle.

So, next time you're spending a delightful weekend in the country near Penrith ("Penrith!"), do pop in and say hello. Both me and the chap who runs Brunswick Yard are called Adam, so there's only one name to remember...

If you're not in the area, feel free to check back here now and again if you're interested to read about life in a secondhand bookshop, and to find out about the books I'll be selling online. (As of today, I've just put up the first batch, plus a nice old Star Wars jigsaw for good measure.) I'm also on Facebook and Twitter, @WithnailBooks.

Lawrence of Arabia: A newly discovered photograph

It's not every day that a previously unpublished photo of T E Lawrence comes to light; in fact in the decade or more I've been collecting Lawrenciana, I can't remember any turning up (well, apart from one on eBay which turned out not to be him, a fact I know for sure because it was me who bought it and researched it to the extent that I could confirm it wasn't... but that's a story for another day).

Bonhams have this one going under the hammer next week...

From the catalogue:

*****

Photograph album belonging to an airman with No. 1 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps, serving in the Palestine Campaign during the latter part of the Great War, comprising 24 photographs, the majority taken while stationed with his squadron in November and December 1917 at Gaza and Akaba (Aqaba), including a snapshot of "Major Lawrence, C.B./ Akaba. Dec. '17"; "My D.H.2 67/ Sq. 'Drome 25/11/17. Just previous to 1st scrap"; and "Dead Sea/ '67 Squadron Martinsyde with Guy & Self in B.F. on Bomb Raid. 21/11/17"; other photographs of the album owner's former "Vickers Bullet" (i.e. Vickers F.B.19) at Bela ("My old 'bus"), a SE.5a and Bristol Monoplane (M.1C) of No. 111 Squadron at Belah, Bristol Scouts at Aboukir, etc.,mounted in a small photograph album, minor foxing etc., but overall in good condition, average size of photographs 550 x 1000mm., grey cloth, oblong 8vo, Palestine, Hejaz and Egypt, late 1917

Estimate:

£1,000 - 1,500
€1,200 - 1,700
US$ 1,500 - 2,300

Footnotes

• A PHOTOGRAPH OF LAWRENCE AT THE HEIGHT OF THE ARAB REVOLT, showing him standing full-length, dressed in Arab robes and wearing his famous gold Meccan dagger (acquired by him that July). This photograph – which we believe to be hitherto unknown and was presumably taken by the anonymous owner of the album – shows Lawrence at a turning point of his life, having established his reputation and that of the Arab Revolt with the capture of Akaba the previous June; while at the same time having escaped from Turkish torture and custody at Deraa only a few weeks earlier in late November (an episode of course subject to much dispute). He had been appointed Commander of the Bath for his secret reconnaissance expedition into northern Syria that summer. In early December he accompanied Allenby's troops on their triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but was in Akaba in both early and late December (on the third, twenty-fifth and twenty-eighth); his movements being summarised in a letter to his family from Cairo on 14 December 1917: 'Well here I am in Cairo again, for two nights, coming from Akaba via Jerusalem. I was in fortune, getting to Jerusalem just in time for the official entry of General Allenby... I wrote to you last from Azrak, about the time we blew up Jemal Pasha, and let him slip away from us. After that I stayed for ten days or so there, and then rode down to Akaba in 3 days: good going, tell Arnie: none of his old horses would do so much as my old camel. At Akaba I had a few days motoring, prospecting the hills and valleys for a way Eastward for our cars: and then came up to H.Q. to see the authorities and learn the news-to-be. Tomorrow I go off again to Akaba, for a run towards Jauf, if you know where that is".
  
  It is evident that the owner of the this album served with No. 67 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps: this was, properly speaking, No. 1 Squadron AFC (Australian Flying Corps) but between March 1916 and February 1918 was renamed by the British authorities as No. 67 Squadron RFC, to avoid confusion with No. 1 Squadron RFC. It is the ancestor of No. 1 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force and was under the command of Major Richard Williams, 'father' of the RAAF. Other photographs show aircraft from No. 111 Squadron RFC, with which (on the evidence that he flew a Vickers F.B.19) the album's owner may have also served. This squadron had been formed in Palestine in August 1917 and early in 1918 was to hand over some of its planes to the No. 1 Squadron.
• 
  

*****

Fascinating stuff. Though I did email them to point out that they probably didn't mean to say that average size of the photos was a metre high...

I would dearly love to own this photo (and publish a limited edition book all about it), but something tells me it's going to go for a lot more than the upper end of that estimate.

... and here's another newly discovered photo of Lawrence...

UPDATE: The photo at Bonhams sold for £4000, including the Buyer's 20% premium, but not including the 20% VAT on top of that, so that's basically a five grand picture. I wonder if it will ever be seen or heard of again...

Saki Sighting: Another rare dust jacket surfaces online

As any readers of this blog will know, few things tend to make me more giddy than an old Saki dust jacket that I've not seen before.

As a collector of all things H. H. Munro (and if you're not familiar with this writer best known for his Oscar Wilde/P. G. Wodehouse meets The Mighty Boosh short stories, just take 10 minutes to read 'Sredni Vashtar' or  'Tobermory'), I have previously become inordinately excited by the discovery of dust jackets — and rather wonderful pictorial dust jackets by noted artists at that — for Beasts and Super-Beasts and The Unbearable Bassington.

Now a copy of his second novel, the Germans-Invade-England satire (or rather call-to-arms, since it was published in 1913) When William Came, has turned up on ABE, complete with DJ. It's a fourth edition, which at first I dismissed as the first printing of the book in the smaller format, collected edition of Saki's work, all of which have quite scarce, but fairly boring text-only jackets, but now I've seen the photo with the listing, I realise it's a later printing, in blue cloth rather than the original red, of the larger format first edition. The design isn't as eye-catching as the ones previously featured here, but it's nonetheless another exceptionally rare survivor.

My heraldry isn't up to much, but I think that's a nicely apt mash-up of the United Kingdom and German coats of arms.

It's a shame about the extensive chipping and loss to the jacket, and at the £65 it's listed for, it's a little bit rich for me, though it's quite possibly the first and last example of it I'll ever see... decisions, decisions.

Having said that, probably the single most valuable book I own is a first edition of the same novel, signed by the author to the woman he was supposedly going to marry, but that's another story...

A Saki Letter, and an early Lady of Comics

A fly-by post today (apologies for the recent lack, but Things Are Afoot), just to link to an entry on Jot 101, a time-hoovering blog by the Big Cheese of the shop Any Amount of Books in Charing Cross Road. The blog posts interesting snippets from letters, diaries and general ephemera found lurking in books. This entry is about a letter by Hector Hugh Munro, sold back in 2005...

Saki letter to Annie E. Lane ( wife of his  publisher John Lane.) Not dated (July 31st.) About 1906. Sold on a Charing Cross Road catalogue 2005.

On the headed paper of the now vanished Cocoa Tree Club of St James Street in London S.W. Signed 'H.H. Munro.' Munro (ie the genius of the modern English short story 'Saki') thanks Mrs Lane for a book of her writings she had produced in 1905 about women's roles, high society, champagne etc., called 'The Champagne Standard' --'I have been enjoying its contents, which are new to me with the exception of one article which I had read somewhere. Being much out of England I have missed much of current literature...' He adds 'I hope to be able to break in upon your Devonshire fastness when I am down that way...' adding regards to her husband and sometime publisher John Lane (of The Bodley Head.) 2 sides of notepaper about 90 words.

It doesn't say what it sold for, but letters by Saki rarely show up, so I reckon several hundred pounds at least.

As for the book, copies of the rather interesting sounding (it apparently contains a chapter called 'A Plea for Female Architects') The Champagne Standard are readily available on ABE, with even a signed copy lurking in Canada for under $70. Alas, it's not the copy which led to this thank you letter from Saki. It's dedicated to Carolyn Wells, which I'm pretty certain after minimal googling is this Carolyn Wells, a prolific American author and poet who, like Annie E. Lane, was married to a publisher, in her case Hadwin Houghton, of Houghton-Mifflin.

Wells wrote over 170 books, including a bunch of mystery novels starring the 'transcendent detective' Fleming Stone. She also wrote for newspapers, and deserves her place in history alone for being what must be one of the very earliest female 'comic strip' writers. Back in the heyday of Little Nemo in Slumberland, she was writing several strips, including an equally bonkers, though now little remembered strip called Adventures of Lovely Lilly, which as far as I can tell, featured the cherubic Lilly facing down and then beating up a different large animal each week. Here, thanks to Allan Holtz, are two of her adventures, from the New York Herald in June 1907. The rather wonderful art is by G. F. (George Frederick) Kaber.