IOBA Standard Volume 8(1) - Printable Edition

Hunting Slobodkin

Carol Reid

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Picco the Sad Italian Pony, by Louis Slobodkin (1964)

I am perhaps the owner of the largest collection of Louis Slobodkin books in the whole wide world—which of course makes me very happy. Mr. Slobodkin drew the pictures and wrote the stories for a great many children’s books in his time and the happenstance by which I got involved with this man and his art has the narrative elements of a great story as well.

The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes (1944)

Once upon a time I was walking down the road to work when I suddenly and silently declared: “Louis Slobodkin is my favorite children’s book illustrator!” The previous year, I had been asked to read a book aloud to the New York State Museum’s after school club and had chosen an old childhood favorite, The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. I hadn’t read that book since being a child myself, but I had recently picked up an old paperback copy. The pictures were especially appealing and nostalgic. I recalled what a touching tale it was and registered for the first time, with some curiosity, the illustrator’s name—Louis Slobodkin.

A little while later, I was browsing a used book sale and stumbled upon Mr. Spindles and the Spiders by Andrew Packard. It turned out to be a former library book from the grade school my cousin had gone to and where my mother had once taught third grade, but even more surprisingly, it was illustrated by this selfsame Slobodkin. It dawned on me at some point that he was also the illustrator of Eleanor Estes’ wonderful trilogy, The Moffats, The Middle Moffat, and Rufus M. I took note of his subtle technique, which was at once evocative, poignant, deceptively simple, and delightfully funny.

Robin Hood and His Merry Outlaws, by J. Walker McSpadden (1946)

Eager to see what else he had done, I consulted the catalog at my place of employment, the New York State Library in Albany, New York. The State Library specializes in government documents and local history, but, quirkily enough, also houses an arcane collection of children’s books down in its basement, dating from the 1930s through the mid-1960s. We held copies of Slobodkin’s The Friendly Animals (1944), The Adventures of Arab (1946), and Hustle and Bustle (1948), along with J. Walker McSpadden’s Robin Hood and His Merry Outlaws (1946) and Nina Brown Baker’s Garibaldi (1944).

We also had The Hundred Dresses, for which Estes won a Newbery Medal Honor in 1945, and James Thurber’s Many Moons, which garnered Slobodkin the prestigious Caldecott Award in 1944. Eventually, I looked him up on OCLC, an online database of library holdings worldwide, whereupon I was astonished to learn that he had illustrated close to ninety books, nearly all of them for children, and over half of which he wrote himself. However, with the exception of those last two and the Moffat books, all of them were now out of print. I would have to peruse the used bookstores to find them.

But before I had a chance to do any of that, or to even think about venturing into the world of online book buying, I simply decided, on that halcyon day, to proclaim my newfound love for Louis Slobodkin and so I did. And it was then that things started to get really interesting. While staffing the reference desk later on that afternoon, I began browsing the American Library Association’s “Best Sites for Kids” website. It prompted me to enter my favorite author or illustrator’s last name for more information, so I typed in: Slobodkin. “Louis Slobodkin was born on February 19, 1903,” it replied. I did a double take. February 19^th is my birthday!

This was also right around the time I had my eBay epiphany. So, after a few initial forays into other sorts of collectibles, I quickly settled on searching for Slobodkin. I have been conducting that same search for several years now and currently possess multiple copies of his entire oeuvre. But back in those days, every new/old book received

The Three-Seated Space Ship, by Louis Slobodkin (1962)

in the mail was a revelation. And then one day the postman delivered another soul-making bit of serendipity. A book had arrived that was still in its dust jacket and as I opened it to the back flap, I was nonplussed to see the words: “Louis Slobodkin was born and raised in Albany, New York…”

I now understood my mission and was prepared to accept it. However, the limitations (albeit fortuitous possibilities) of eBay soon became clear and, on a tip from a colleague, I began scouring ABEbooks as well. I could see that the latter comprised many more items, but with savvier sellers. I found I was following the classic pattern of any book collector: first grabbing the cheapest copies I could find; then graduating to cleaner copies, older copies, dustjacketed copies; and finally reaching for the affordable mint-condition, first edition, or original artwork-inscribed brass ring. My house began to fill up with Slobodkiniana.

Perhaps if I’d been willing to be patient, I could have found more bargains on eBay than ABE—so I had to contrive a reason why patience might not be a virtue. I decided to mount exhibits at both the New York State Library and the Albany Public Library, and the sooner the better (this was in the fall of 2003) since I could then trumpet the fact that he was not only a hometown boy, but a birthday one as well: it was the Louis Slobodkin Centennial! While researching his biography for my exhibit labels, I uncovered a fascinating fact about him. He was at the center of a celebrated censorship flap during the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Louis Slobodkin working on Lincoln statue in his studio

Having been the editor of a library “intellectual freedom” newsletter for nearly a decade, my heart was trained to flutter at the merest mention of censorship and there was truly no stopping me now in my desire to read and write as much as I could about this children’s book author and famous sculptor whose contentious statue of a young Abe Lincoln had been truculently turned to rubble at the World’s Fair. I followed up my library exhibits with a piece in The Horn Book called “Statue of Limitations” in September 2004. Then, a couple months later, I saw a big beautiful bronze bust by Slobodkin up for bid on eBay. Incredibly, I won it for a scant $225.

This score led to some discussion with the Albany Institute of History and Art (the second oldest museum in the country) about lending them the sculpture to put on display. That idea was put on hold, though, and I continued augmenting my book collection. Soon I met a graphic designer who would help me develop a website and I was given yet another excuse to keep searching for the best possible copies of every Slobodkin book under the sun. As this undertaking continued apace, the Institute announced, as part of “A Season of Art & Literature,” an upcoming exhibit of Albany children’s book illustrator (and Slobodkin contemporary) Dorothy P. Lathrop.

Slobodkin bronze of Dr. Ralph E. Snyder, former dean of New York Medical College, cast in 1964

In yet another piece of providence, while performing a perfunctory Internet search on her name, I learned of a book called By Word of Mouse, published in 2004. It was written by Kate Spohn, who as a teenager in the 1960s had been hired to tend the garden of Dorothy Lathrop and her sister Gertrude, a sculptor. The book was a tribute to the Lathrops (Dorothy was known for her animal illustrations) and was told from the point of view of a mouse. I conveyed this curious fact to the curator, adding a postscript about my own now-impressive book collection. I was then invited to create an accompanying Slobodkin exhibit at the Institute for the fall of 2006.

My adventures in online book buying have been very fruitful; without them, I would not have been able to turn an idle interest in Slobodkin into so many productive projects and raise his profile this high. I’m grateful to those who faithfully put these dearly departed books of his online for me to buy and I’d like to share a few thoughts about what I’ve learned along the way.

In spite of being a librarian myself, I grew to dislike ex-library books (except for their prices) at the same time that I was able to appreciate degrees of difference among them. I developed a fondness for libraries that seemed to trust their patrons enough not to stamp their name on every other page or smack dab in the middle of a lovely decoration or illustration (this is done, of course, to discourage theft, so booksellers need to be vigilant and ethical too) or to act like a spurned and violent lover when it came time to let a volume go (if we can’t have you, we’ll make sure no one else wants you!) by scrawling WITHDRAWN or DISCARD excessively throughout. I understand the need to weed, but I can also look beyond a book’s life in a library.

Rufus writes a letter, from The Middle Moffat, by Eleanor Estes (1942)

I was also partial to sellers who took pains to explain the “expected markings” on these as well as other (not so) “good” copies. While fresh Mylar over an old dust jacket was always nice, ripped-off pockets and razored-out endpapers were not. Since many of these library discards were passed on to my nieces and nephews, we often preferred ones with the “attachments” still attached. Sometimes they would play Library with them; my nephew also found that the pockets made great repositories for his bookmark collection. And, like the old catalog cards that have been memorialized by Nicholson Baker and are considered objets d’art in some circles, such homely accessories may gain a certain cachet as automated systems come to fully replace them.

Illustrated inscription from The Seaweed Hat, by Louis Slobodkin (1947)

In most cases a buyer appreciates an assiduous seller who is also a good speller, who describes things accurately and completely. On the other hand, there can be a frisson of pleasure in finding an item that’s been misspelled or where the seller has neglected to mention the very thing we—or more importantly other people—might be seeking. Oddly enough, since it’s the rare speaker who can pronounce the name Slobodkin with ease, virtually all the listings I encountered got it right. Perhaps when a word is unusual, we are more careful transcribing it. It could also be that Slobodkin is pretty much spelled the way it sounds. I used to collect Ludwig Bemelmans books; there I was often rewarded by searching under “Bemelman” as well as “Bemelmans.”

Illustrated inscription from Fo'Castle Waltz, by Louis Slobodkin (1945)

My most prized possessions are the books in which Slobodkin penned personal greetings accompanied by whimsical drawings. In a copy of The Seaweed Hat, he writes to someone who may have been his editor: “Dear Anne, I’m not apologizing for this book but if I had it to do over again … I’d … well done is done.” In another one, a presentation copy to the Little Rock Public Library in Arkansas, he draws a fish balancing a stack of tiny books on its head. He seemed to especially enjoy embellishing copies of his

Illustrated inscription from Too Many Mittens, by Florence Slobodkin (1958)

seafaring memoir Fo’Castle Waltz—for relatively modest sums, I was able to acquire three copies containing sketches of the S.S. Hermanita, an Argentine freighter on which Slobodkin shipped out as an “ample-bodied seaman” in the 1920s.

A few times I found copies on ABE with inscriptions and hand-drawn pictures, or nice intact dust covers—but they far exceeded my means. I wrote to the sellers, explaining that I was in the process of creating a fan site for Louis Slobodkin, and asked if they would allow me to post these images there. I said that in exchange I would credit them on the web page. Each one was gracious enough to promptly send me a scan. This would seem to be a win-win situation for all concerned and a way for booksellers to promote their stores and share their wares. I hope the anticipated attention brought to this artist who brought so much to the world of books will reap benefits down the road for both booksellers and book buyers alike.

Please visit the soon to be live Louis Slobodkin website at www.slobodkin.org.

Carol Reid can be contacted at creid@nycap.rr.com, especially if you have any unusual You Know Who stuff laying around.

From Clicks to Bricks: A Book Store . . . in HALE, Michigan

Laura Smith

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“Have you lost your mind?” they keep asking. “A BOOK store, in HALE, Michigan . . .” one naysayer remarks after overhearing my news. She doesn’t ask me if I’ve lost my mind, but I can tell that the thought is crossing hers. There was a book store in Hale before, she tells me. Evidently it was in the building that the new Curves now occupies, which was a tackle shop before that.

I wasn’t here when there was a book store in Hale, but I do know that the building that is now home to my book shop, Perfect Pines Books & Gifts, was first a quilt shop and then a consignment shop—just in the two years since we settled here. They tell me it was a real estate office before then. That sounds about right. Rumor has it that two out of every three new businesses fail. The odds, as they say, are not in my favor.

And yet . . . I AM opening a book store in Hale. I have plans, goals, and dreams. But I’m not a dreamer. I know that the population of Hale, Michigan is about 4,292 (according to halemichigan.net), that the economy is in rough shape, and that, according to the radio news this morning, Michigan is into its sixth consecutive year of job losses. Some would call that sobering news; others might say it’s a reality check. Have I lost my mind?

No. I can’t think of a better time to open a book shop. I believe in what I am doing. I believe all of the clichés. I believe that books take you places, that reading opens doors, that books introduce you to new friends, that those who don’t study history are condemned to repeat it, that education is the answer, that writing is an art, and that books are beautiful. I believe that reading makes a difference, that it matters, and that it is essential. Those beliefs may not substitute well for working capital, but they’ve been enough to start with.

I’d like to tell you that I’ve been planning this for decades—you’d be more optimistic about my odds—but truth be known, I’ve been selling books online for all of about a year and a half now. At one time, for a long time, I thought I would be teaching Reading or English or Literature—in fact, from the sixth grade on, that’s also what everyone else thought I would do, and what I went to school for. And yet, here I am—buying and selling books instead of lecturing about them. How did that happen? The only honest answer would be by accident. We could call it fate, and it would sound better, but either way, here’s the story.

We moved back to my husband’s home town when he retired from the Army. The home that my father-in-law left to us is beautiful, and it is a gift that will give our children roots—a place to call home. We finally have a front and back yard—six acres of yard—but our new house is considerably smaller than the town home we had been renting in Virginia. We had almost three thousand square feet of “stuff” and now, just over one thousand square feet of home. We had to think about what we could do without and what simply was not going to fit.

There were several boxes of books that my children had enjoyed when they were younger, but no longer read, and just as many boxes of my own books that I figured I could live without. I didn’t want to throw them away, so I donated some and decided to sell some online. I made my selections, completed a self-taught crash course in Internet commerce, and ventured into the world of online auctions.

What fun! Many books sold quickly, and I found that I really enjoyed the process—everything from choosing which books to list, to photographing and describing them, to corresponding with book lovers, to shipping books off to their new owners. Before I knew it, I found myself BUYING books to sell online, and the fact that I had initially thought to DECREASE the number of books that we had in the house suddenly became very, very ironic.

It wasn’t long before I realized that I was becoming an online bookseller. A “quick stop” at a roadside estate sale sealed the deal. I had already stacked several books in a pile, at $1 each, and was glad to have found such interesting books at a great price, when the gentleman having the sale walked up to me and said, “You can have them all for $20.” All? Of course I took him up on his offer, and began to load several boxes and trunks of books into my husband’s Geo (it gets great gas mileage, he would want me to add here:). Walking back toward the boxes, I realized that the homeowner was coming out of the house with still more books, and was loading them into a wheelbarrow to transport them to the little green car. About six hundred books later, give or take a few dozen, I squeezed into the driver’s seat with just enough room to see, steer and change gears.

The rest, as they say, is history. It wasn’t long before my husband was building bookshelves, lugging boxes of books around for me at every book sale I could get to (and could persuade him to tag along for), and sacrificing garage space for all of my acquisitions. Bookselling had become part of our family life. My son, now eight, would ask, “Can I have this book, or is it already online?” He soon learned to check through the new arrivals before I listed them for sale. My daughter, who will be celebrating her eighteenth birthday soon, usually just wanted to know if I had found any new Dean Koontz or Poe books. Still, I knew that there was a bit of a book scout developing in her.

Some time ago, I handed her an older book that I thought she’d enjoy, and watched as she checked over the outside of the book and then promptly flipped to the copyright page. When she told me it was a first edition, I just smiled, and she rolled her eyes. Ugh! Teenagers aren’t supposed to know, or care about this “stuff” she told me. I’m pleased to say that although she loves to read, she also loves books. She appreciates them as physical objects, as history, as art, and I’m very proud of her when I see how gingerly she handles the older, more delicate volumes that sometimes come our way.

All was going well with my online book business until winter came, and along with it moisture and condensation. The books, which had been carefully cleaned and packaged in poly bags to protect them from dust and damage in the garage, were instead damaged by the fluctuations in temperature. A routine trip out to the garage to collect the books that had sold online that day turned into hours of frantic work. We lost dozens of books to water damage. I learned, the hard way, what condensation can do to a book. The garage wasn’t going to work. The books, which I had initially started selling to make space in our house, were quickly moved back in so that they would be protected from the cold, wet Michigan winter.

I can’t even begin to explain what it’s like to live with a few thousand books on bookshelves that are six feet long and six feet high in a home that has just over a thousand square feet of living space. We put them wherever they would fit. We were walking sideways down our hallway, which was now lined with bookshelves. Every available shelf, cabinet and storage area in our home was packed with books. I’d go out scouting, come back, catalog each book, put it in a poly bag, label it, and find a home for it on one of the numbered shelves. It worked . . . for awhile.

As my inventory increased, I began offering my books for sale on many popular venues such as Amazon.com, Alibris.com, Tomfolio.com, IOBAbooks.com, and others. I found discussion lists for booksellers, subscribed to Fine Books & Collections and other trade resources, and immersed myself in the book world. I was busy, but I didn’t feel like I was working. The process of becoming a bookseller seemed to have a momentum all its own, and I felt like I was doing something that I was meant to do.

It wasn’t long before I was considering setting up my own website. My own efforts to do so proved frustrating, and I was grateful to learn about Chrislands.com, and to have them design a website for me. Within a week www.PerfectPinesBooks.com was up and running. I had also signed up for The Art of Books, an online inventory management system, which helped me to keep my inventory up to date across several venues. This was especially important when I was working as a substitute teacher at the school and couldn’t do the updates myself (simultaneous sales of the same book can be bad news when you are establishing yourself as an online bookseller). I ordered a postal scale, signed up for online shipping with Endicia.com, and was now doing most of the packaging and shipping from home.

My new business seemed to be a perfect fit, but it wasn’t fitting well into our cozy home. My family began to feel that they had been overrun. We had to clear the table of books, boxes, invoices and the stuff of bookselling before we could sit down to dinner. My business calls were often interrupted by my beloved barking dogs, and visitors to our home would stare, quizzically, at the huge bookshelves and stacks of books that we had learned to live with. I knew that something had to give—and soon. I considered all of the options and costs, and finally settled on buying a small building in another location.

Without a lot of money to put down, and with few properties in my price range, the search was discouraging. But things have a way of working out. I found a small home in town, right off the highway, on just over an acre, and it was zoned commercial. It was a fixer-upper, and I didn’t have much to invest, but the owner and realtor worked with me, and I was able to buy my first house. My one bedroom house with an attached garage soon became an office, inventory storage and shipping area, and warehouse.

I loved going to work. As I continued to learn about the used book market and online selling, new opportunities came along. I was awarded a scholarship to the Antiquarian Book Seminar in Colorado Springs, and at some point during that incredible week I knew that I wanted to have, had to have, an open book shop. A few months later I attended the Great Lakes Booksellers Association Trade Show, met many authors, illustrators, publisher’s reps, librarians and others in the field, and I was even more certain. But how was I going to make it happen?

My little house was perfect for online selling, but I wouldn’t be able to afford the renovations needed to open the doors for customers. It simply wouldn’t have met the building codes. The commercial properties that I looked at were too expensive and those that I could afford were too far from my home and would require expensive renovations. As significant as all of these factors were, they weren’t nearly as prohibitive as the fact that I didn’t have the 20-30% to put down on a commercial property. Add the fact that I was a “start-up,” and the picture looked pretty bleak.

I considered renting, and made several calls. Rents were high, and I knew that I had to keep my monthly expenses down or I wouldn’t make it. Right about the time that I started to get discouraged, I stopped by the consignment shop that I had purchased books from in the past. I was surprised to find the consignment shop gone, and a “for rent” sign in the window. Figuring I had nothing to lose by asking, I wrote down the number and drove back to my office. I took a deep breath and dialed. Minutes after that, I handed the “for rent” sign and a check for my first month’s rent to my new landlord. Turns out the property is owned by someone that I already knew from subbing at the schools. She and her husband were very supportive of my plans for their building, and very generous in helping me to make my dream a reality. They have given me the freedom to make their building my own, and I am grateful for that.

A few hours later I was driving back to the building with my set of keys. There were a few drawbacks, but I felt that they were outweighed by the advantages—and the SPACE. The biggest drawback is location. The building is on a side road, which means that we aren’t visible from the main road, even though we could throw a rock and hit M-65—one of the major highways going through this area. Railroad Street is a strange bit of road that curves behind the bank and post office, so advertising is going to be critical for us. Foot traffic in winter in Michigan isn’t the most common sight, and I know that we are going to have to get the word out. I have ordered direct mail postcards, and will begin with a smaller, targeted direct mail campaign and follow that with a radio spot. Our biggest season is several months away—when the tourists will head this way to enjoy the many lakes around our area. I plan another ad campaign in early June to let the “snow birds,” as we tend to call the folks who head south for the winter, know that we are here.

It would seem that I have ignored the location, location, location rule, but not entirely. Remember that little one bedroom house I bought for my office? With hard work, integrity, exceptional customer service, and perhaps a bit of luck, I hope to eventually build a new shop, with a parking lot, on that acre and a quarter. That property just happens to be right off of M-65. I think of it as the future home of Perfect Pines Books & Gifts. It’s very likely that our son will be in college by the time that happens, but it’s good to plan ahead. Until then, that cute little house will be home to my online inventory. For the meantime, I have decided to keep the books separated. I will be working on cataloging my online offerings as time permits here in the store. Everything that I need for imaging, packaging and shipping will be here, so all I will need to do is stop by the “little house” on my way to the store to pick up books to be shipped that day.

But back to the advantages. I have half of the downstairs, and all of the upstairs. In this area, this is a HUGE retail space. The other half of the building is shared by a barber shop and a salon. Strange as it may sound, our two “halves” are connected by a large bathroom. (We have to be sure to lock BOTH doors when we are . . . hmmm . . . powdering our noses.) The layout of the building has made for some interesting visits while I have been getting ready to open. The stylist next door is very enthusiastic about the store, and she has brought several of her customers over to meet me, and to get a preview. I have to chuckle when I remember meeting several of her clients while they were in various stages of a perm or color, and I was covered in paint, wood stain, sawdust, packing peanuts, or a variety of other pre-opening “outfits.”

Speaking of pre-opening, there was a lot to do, and as always, I was a bit impatient. I painted, sanded and stained shelving, made lists, contacted suppliers, opened accounts, signed up for a NxLevel business course offered by the MSU extension, networked with other booksellers, and learned as much as I could about an open shop. At the same time, my husband was building shelves, display windows, and a front counter. Even the kids pitched in. Our son loaned his train table to the store, and later designed the track layout. Our daughter helped to move, stock and price books, and offered suggestions on the layout of the store.

Fortunately, I had just attended the annual Great Lakes Booksellers Association Trade Show, and I had met several distributors, vendors, and publisher’s reps there. One of my first contacts was with Baker & Taylor. I liked their “First Call” program, and felt that it was very small-store friendly, so I decided to order my new books from them. Antioch was an early contact as well, and I was pleased to stock their wide variety of bookmarks, journals and book accessories. I was already familiar with Dover Publications, and I really like their selection of coloring and activity books, so it wasn’t long before I set up an account with them. Finding giftware was a bit more of a challenge, but I was able to locate a few different suppliers. Our Name is Mud, a company that offers interesting ceramic giftware, was a nice find. Things were coming together.

We decided to keep the downstairs area in the store as open as possible. It was important to me that anyone who wanted to would be able to stop in and shop. I wanted to ensure that customers who used wheelchairs, walkers, or strollers wouldn’t struggle to get around in the store. I also wanted a store that was kid-friendly. Both of our kids have, or have had, special needs, and I am very aware of how difficult it can be to shop with our little ones sometimes. We tossed around a few ideas, and decided on a child-sized table and chairs, a large play table and train set, and a rocking chair for moms with little ones. A small table for the grown-ups was added, and located close enough so that they could keep their children in view. Next came a small area for complimentary coffee, tea and hot chocolate. This was put in after several people in my business class suggested it. (I was nervous about having liquids anywhere near books, but I am learning to live with it, and it is nice to be able to offer guests something to drink, and sometimes cookies or other goodies.)

So here I am. My shop has been here for one week today (since opening the day after Thanksgiving), and so have I. I’m here on Monday, take a day off on Tuesday, and then open again Wednesday through Saturday, 10 to 6. We’re closed on Sunday. So far, it’s just me. Laura Smith, owner, operator, cashier, stocker, merchandiser, accountant, bookkeeper, sales associate, customer service agent, custodian, buyer. This “job” is many things, but it is never boring. It has been an exciting week. I haven’t set any sales records, but I am even more convinced that I made the right decision. I had my first “official” sale—a copy of Fast Food Nation—and my first dollar is framed. I’ve already been offered books to buy, and I am starting cards for customers that prefer to trade books for store credit. Feedback about the store has been very encouraging, and everyone who has stopped in has signed up to enter our drawing for a signed book of their choice from our available titles. They’ve shared their addresses so that I can send them our newsletter. They’ve bought Christmas gifts for their loved ones. They’ve complimented the store, and they’ve made helpful suggestions. So far, my favorite comment has been, “We’ve really needed this.” Me too.

I still don’t necessarily feel “ready,” or “done,” but I am beginning to believe that I might never feel that way. There is always more to do—more that could be done. Right now that list includes hiring my first employee, finishing the upstairs which will house the majority of our used books, and getting our sign put up on the roof. We have some beautiful art pieces in the store that are made by a local scroll saw artist, and he has generously offered to make a sign for us. Frank, my husband, is upstairs now, building more shelves. Our home is just about emptied of my inventory, but it will be a little while before we have all of the books moved over from the little house. It’s a work in progress, but I’m okay with that. My customers don’t seem to mind, either. They seem to like the idea of watching the store grow and change.

I am so glad to have an open shop. I love selling books online, and will continue to do so, but there is something about handing a book to someone that can’t be described. I’ll try anyway. Have you ever lost something, been sent to find something obscure, or couldn’t find something that you really needed or wanted? You know that feeling that you get when you finally find it, when someone hands it to you, or points it out to you? “Here it is.”

There really isn’t a way to describe the feeling I get when I find a book for someone. They come in, they browse, and maybe hesitate before they say, “I have been looking for such and such, but you probably don’t have that, it’s an old book.” They have heard “we don’t have it” a few times already, and perhaps weren’t even going to bother asking. It’s out-of-print. I check my inventory, and I don’t have a copy. BUT, I have learned a few things from other booksellers about finding books, and I am blessed to have a network of booksellers, via the online world, who are always glad to help in the search. They do this, often, with only a “thank you” for compensation. Have they lost their minds? No. They get it. They want to be a part of “here it is.” Because of them, I can stand all by myself at my new front counter and say, “I don’t have it in the store, but I am pretty sure that I can find it for you.” It might be “we” that gets it for her, but in either case, suddenly there is hope that it can be found. My job is to help people find it. I get to say, or help another bookseller say, “Here it is.” I love that.

What is IT? Well, this week it has been a Dottie West biography, a book on baseball card values, travel guides on the Southwest, and a memoir written by the daughter of a Marine Corpsman, among others. Those I got to look for, but many customers were able to find what they were looking for on their own. The new Stephen King book, for instance, and chubby Christmas board books for a new grandson, a cookbook devoted entirely to cookies, blank books for journaling, large print books and audio books for customers struggling with vision loss, a bookmark with a horse on it for a granddaughter, historical romances, an out-of-print book about plants, and many more. It’s a joy to find a book for someone, and it’s a joy to help them make their own discoveries.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s more. My customers have a great deal to offer, and they are willing to share. They know their authors, their favorite books, their subject areas, and their history. There is a lifetime of knowledge in each customer that comes into my store, and I can learn so much from them. Everything that I learn makes me a better bookseller, much of what I learn makes me a better person.

This week I’ve welcomed a new mom and her three-week-old son to my store, and offered them the rocking chair to sit in while grandma shopped. I’ve talked with high school students that I have “subbed” for, and learned of their career goals and aspirations. “Do you have any medical books?” one young man asked me. “Why medical books?” I ask, and the learning and sharing begins. This process is repeated over and over again, every day. “What kind of biographies do you like to read?” “Military books in general, or is there a particular area that you are interested in?” “How old are your grandchildren?” “Are you a collector?” “Did you read his first novel?” “What did you think of that series?” “Will this be the first time you’ve traveled to the Southwest?” “Who is your favorite author?” “Are you a beginning gardener, or are you looking for books intended for more advanced gardeners?” “What type of cooking do you most enjoy?” “How old are the children that you want to teach origami to?”

Where were we? Oh yes. The questions. You’re opening a BOOK store . . . in HALE, Michigan? With the economy such as it is? When two out of three new businesses fail? When it seems like kids today would rather play video games than read? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Have I lost my mind? No. I may lose some money, that’s always a risk, but I am of sound mind. As for the risk, much to my dear husband’s dismay, I accept that risk, and I know that I may well become a statistic. I might join the ranks of “start-ups” that failed. I can live with that. Why? Because of the other questions.

No one is asking me the other questions, and that’s where the answer is. What if some day, because there is a book shop in HALE, Michigan, and has been for some time, no one thinks Hale is an unlikely place for a book shop? What if I have the opportunity to hand someone a book that inspires, comforts, encourages or entertains them? What if I get the chance to help children become enthusiastic readers? What if reading helps them to have more choices in life? What if I am able to help promote books by new authors that will have a positive impact and make a difference in many lives? What if I am able to help spark an interest in a young, undiscovered author or illustrator? What if I get to make a difference?

And then there is the other column—the one where the “cons” go, and just one question. What if I fail? I guess I just have to believe that if I fail, I’ll be in good company. In the meantime, there IS a book shop in HALE, Michigan. “Here it is.”

Laura Smith operates Perfect Pines Books & Gifts out of Hale, MI and can be contacted at http://www.perfectpinesbooks.com.

An Interview with Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books

Shawn Purcell

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-Tell us a little about yourself.

First edition, first issue of Dickens’ Christmas Carol (in stock)

Bookselling is my second career. As a ’74 graduate of the US Coast Guard Academy, I spent the first 23 years of my professional life as a “Coastie.” In the mid-80s, I discovered collecting first editions, Charles Dickens specifically. Knowing that someday I would be pursuing something other than Search & Rescue as a career, I looked at antiquarian bookselling as a possible pursuit. I established the business in 1989, home-based, and found I enjoyed the challenges. I opened my shop in Alameda two weeks after my retirement from the service. That will be ten years ago next July. Where has the time gone?!?

-What led to your interest in out-of-print and antiquarian bookselling?

While collecting, I gave some consideration to the academic side of English literature, but discovered two things while taking a course on Dickens at Stanford: first, sometimes “a cigar is just a cigar,” and second, for me at least, it’s impossible to enjoy a work being studied when the reading of five 900 page works, rich in their tapestry, is compressed into three months . . . after all, it took usually took Dickens over 19 months to write one of his novels.

-How did you learn the trade?

You know there’s no degree program to becoming an Antiquarian bookseller, so I employed a combination of approaches:

-Initially I apprenticed with Barry Cassidy in Sacramento. This was for four months or so back in 1989 before I actually started my own business. Mainly this was to see if I enjoyed the profession, and to get a taste for the mechanics of it.

-Read voraciously in the area. A. Edward Newton. David Randall. David Magee. Rosenbach. AB Bookman. Firsts magazine, etc.

-When able, I took courses/seminars on various aspects of books and bookselling. I took the Colorado seminar in 1996; since then I’ve taken around a dozen Rare Book School courses.

-Established a reference library. I think I’m pushing 2500 volumes now. Many think that’s a lot, but it pales in comparison to others I know. For example, have you seen Heritage’s reference room? Wonderful.

-Finally, there is no substitute for actually looking at and handling books. Go to bookfairs, go to other shops, go to library exhibits, etc.

-What aspects of maintaining a physical bookstore are the most problematic?

Well, a few things come to mind here, especially since, at present, I’m a one-man operation.

-Dust control.

-Book control. They’re all over the place . . . floors, in boxes, etc. Not to mention, keeping them from “walking off” in somebody’s pocket or whatnot.

-Customer control. I’m not a neighborhood bookshop, so often people that come in are just curious, which is fine, but it can result in unproductive time away from my work, not to mention the occasional damaged book. Had a young girl once throw a first edition Nancy Drew, in dj, across the shop . . . only God knows why she did it, I sure don’t. The mother gave me a sheepish look like, “What can I do?”

-What are some of the most unusual things that ever happened in your shop?

Nothing too unusual. I mean days pass where the only person to wander in the shop is the postman and the only person to call is someone wanting a donation for (fill in the blank). However, I get over 500 emails a day, and the bulk of my business is conducted via the net in one manner or another, so I keep busy.

-Are all of your internet listings available right there, or are some or all of them stored offsite to maintain the described condition or to simplify inventory management?

The preponderance are in the shop . . . somewhere.

Me in the shop with an Inkie (since sold)

-You have achieved what many booksellers can only aspire to—an established shop in a good location, ABAA-level knowledge and success, and a solid record of giving back to the trade. Another hallmark of success seems to be specialization, which leads us to the topic of Charles Dickens. Why Dickensiana?

Because I know the subject from my days of collecting Dickens, plus I put my collection up for sale through the shop, so I had instant “critical mass.”

-Dickens lived at Tavistock House in London for awhile. Why did you pick this name for your business from among the many possibilities?

I wanted a connection to Dickens, but nothing too, shall we say, overt. And I liked the sound of Tavistock Books.

-How many Dickens titles do you currently hold?

Roughly 950, which is really less than 10% of my available stock.

-Where do you acquire most of it?

Here and there . . . other booksellers, estates, direct purchase from old customers who are downsizing, walk-ins, etc.

-What’s the furthest you’ve ever gone for it?

New York. Bought a Drood collection there back in the ‘90s.

-Do you sometimes pay the going market value just to capture more desirable stock?

If I pay “market,” then it’s for something rare that I believe undervalued, and once I’ve catalogued it, there will be a higher market value assigned. A good example is some Filmer material I recently bought from Bernard Quaritch; I thought the books under-valued. And I noticed once I uploaded my record of Filmer’s most famous work, another copy appeared, listed at about 10% less than mine, which meant my price had been accepted as the new “market.”

-What are some examples of Charles Dickens non-book materials that you have been able to offer?

Oh, paintings, prints, Toby mugs, engravings, letters, drawings, etc. I currently have in stock an 1873 oil painting of Dickens, a couple letters, two 19^th century lithographs and an 1868 drawing of Dickens by Bachelder done while the great man was visiting Niblo’s during his 1868 visit to the US. Pickwick, which was Dickens' first novel, when first published in 1836-37, generated tons of ancillary material and you see ads for it in the parts issues of his novels. Today I'd liken it to all the Bart Simpson stuff you see around. However, other than books owned by Dickens, of which I handled a few, I've never had a personal artifact, like his inkwell or some such, owned by the Inimitable (as he used to like to call himself). One of these days!

-What is the Holy Grail of works written by Charles Dickens?

Probably a first of Great Expectations, in the original cloth.

-Do you think there are still some undiscovered works out there somewhere?

No, probably not. I could be proven wrong, but Dickens has been a focus of so many collectors for so long, and with all his children having passed, to my mind, the likelihood of anything being undiscovered I view as quite low.

-What is the most definitive bibliography?

For Dickens . . . there isn’t just one. An Antiquarian bookseller who handles Dickens on a fairly regular basis should have at least four. See my earlier IOBA Standard article, “A Dickens Reference Shelf” for more info [August, 2002, Volume 3, No. 3].

-Tell us a little about the world of booksellers who specialize in Dickensiana and the collectors, scholars, and institutions they cater to.

Dickens remains a popular author with the book buying public, as well as book collectors, and many ABAA booksellers specialize in his works: Heritage, Vandoros, Sumner and Stillman, MacDonnell, to name a few.

-Are most of your serious Dickens clients in the U.S. or Great Britain?

Most of mine are in the US, though occasionally I send something back to England, especially now that the £ is so strong against the $.

-What is your favorite Dickens biography?

Edgar Johnson’s two volume Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph. Came out in 1952, is readily available (was a book club selection), and is the most scholarly treatment of Dickens to date.

-The best film version of A Christmas Carol?

Wouldn’t know. I don’t watch film versions of Dickens’ works. Just a personal aversion, for I found myself remembering the actor that played the character, rather than the image approved by Dickens and rendered in art by his illustrator.

-When I think of Dickens, I think of the power of the pen. Without his genius for writing, he may have been just another faceless victim of economic oppression rather than a champion of true reform. I wonder what he would make of the state of the world today, and I suspect he would have far less ability to do anything about it, as that level of authorial fame and influence is no longer achievable outside the realm of fluff and fantasy.

Well, I’m not sure I agree, at least totally, but that’s a debate for another day, and another forum.

-What other areas do you specialize in?

Children’s serial fiction, such Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys. And I’m actively building my stock of 17^th century books printed in English. I find I’m attracted to that period, so am trying to “get smart” on it.

The shop dog, Sierra, aka “The Lunk” (not easily moved)

-What are some of the more interesting non-book materials you have handled?

Well, the more interesting material to my mind is book-related art. I have had some original artwork for illustrations, as well as cover art. One of the most arresting was a large painting for a hard-boiled detective pulp . . . you know, beautiful woman crumpled on the floor, ripped bodice, with a guy brandishing a pistol standing over her. Lots of reds and other primary colors. It sold at the first book fair at which I exhibited it.

-Closing thoughts on our noble profession as it exists today, succinct or otherwise?

Well, the landscape is changing since I first entered the business in 1989, with changes wrought by the Internet. While it was true then, as it is now, that anyone could be an Antiquarian bookseller, no knowledge required, that same individual’s reach was constrained by geography. The net has extended that reach globally and a professional Antiquarian bookseller now has competition from anyone who has Internet access. Hence, one way to differentiate one’s business from the mass of amateurs that populate ABE and eBay is to join a professional organization such as IOBA. Long may it prosper and grow.

-Thanks Vic.

Vic Zoschak operates Tavistock Books in Alameda, CA and can be contacted at http://www.tavbooks.com.

Globalization vs. Americanization,
or, a Book Dealer’s Travels through Portugal

Joe Perlman

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As a general rule, whenever I go to a foreign country for vacation, I start reading about the area several months in advance. I try to read at least one good traveler’s history, some novels set in that country, and one or two travel memoirs. This October, our vacation plans changed at the last minute. My wife and I found ourselves traveling unexpectedly to Portugal and by the time we boarded the plane, I had read only one rather dry traveler’s concise history. We had made several visits to the Spanish portion of the Iberian Peninsula, the most recent only last year, but we were quite surprised to learn that two countries so close together could be so different from each other.

We flew TAP, the Portuguese airline, and the flight was a portent for most of the trip, which felt like a journey back in time. Seat-belt fastened, I reached over to the pocket on the back of the seat in front of me for the in-flight magazine. To my surprise, I found something I had not seen in decades—an actual printed airline menu, listing the first course, a choice of two main courses, and the dessert. The projection system was not working, so there was no movie. All of the coach class restrooms were out of order except for one. The flight was full and we were packed in like Portuguese sardines. I was reminded of my first transatlantic flight on a Boeing 707 back in 1971. The only difference was the absence of a smoking section. We even landed on an open tarmac and had to take a bus ride to the terminal, just like the old days at JFK.

We waited close to an hour for our luggage to appear, and then headed for immigration which we breezed through. Our passports were quickly stamped with little examination. We waited for another half-hour, this time in a taxi line, and though overcharged by the driver were happy to arrive at our hotel which was right in the heart of Baixa, the central shopping district of Lisbon. We checked our bags, went out to explore the city and quickly realized that as Americans we knew very little about Portugal, the Portuguese language, and Portuguese culture. My wife is fluent in Spanish, so we expected to have little problem with the language. To our surprise, the majority of words are very different (Portuguese sounds like a blend of Spanish and French) and the Portuguese are more likely to understand English than Spanish.

To our delight, this was the Europe we remembered from our trip in the early 1970s. Unlike in Spain, there were few signs of the global economy, even in the center city. No McDonald’s, no Starbucks, no Pizza Hut, just narrow cobblestone streets with sidewalk cafés and coffee bars. Not a paper take-out coffee cup in sight. If you wanted a coffee, you had to sit down at a café or stand at a bar while you drank it. No Dunkin’ Donuts, just real traditional Portuguese breakfast pastries, and those crusty Portuguese rolls. Even the internet cafés so ubiquitous in most of Western Europe were uncommon here.

After a leisurely breakfast at a café in Rossio Square, we spent a few hours wandering around the Alfama, the oldest section of the city. It contains steep winding streets going up to the castle, which is the highest point in Lisbon. There are beautiful old blue tile facades on the houses, and orange roofs. We learned that much of Lisbon was destroyed in the mid-eighteenth century, not so much by an earthquake, but by a tsunami that occurred in its aftermath. I had always thought that tsunamis only happened in the Pacific.

New bookstore in Lisbon’s Chiado district

When my wife was ready for a siesta, I tucked her in back at the hotel and went out to explore the bookstores. Over the years, I have learned to ask the concierge for advice, and he sent me to a district called Chiado which had several very large bookshops, all with English language sections. In every country I visit, I try to purchase a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses translated into the local language. I entered the largest of the shops that I passed and found a clerk who spoke some English. He told me that there were two Portuguese translations of Ulysses, one done in Portugal, the other in Brazil, both in his opinion equally good. He was out of both of them, but gave me their web-site if I wanted to order one.

I went to four other large stores, but none of them had a copy of Ulysses in Portuguese. Two shops had a translation of The Dubliners, and I saw a copy of a translation of Portrait of the Artist. The interesting thing about the bookstores is that all of the books are organized by publisher, not author. Imagine going into a bookstore in New York and all of the Knopf books were in one bookcase, all the Doubleday in another, all of the Little Brown in a third, etc. etc. That is the way most of the bookshops in Portugal were stocked. If you did not know the publisher, the clerk had to look it up on the computer in order to find the book. When the computer was down in one shop, the clerk actually went across the street to use another bookshop’s computer.

Used book kiosk in Lisbon’s Chiado district

The Chiado also had a newsstand which was converted into a mini flea market and used bookstore. The owner was a rather scruffy ex-patriot, and I spent a long time unsuccessfully sorting through the wire racks and milk crates filled with rather ratty looking books, trying to find something to buy. I inspected the antiques as well, but my overall impression was that the kiosk was filled with items that had been shipped abroad after being rejected by the Salvation Army. I did find some old “French” postcards which he must have found hidden in some of the books, as they would not only have been rejected by the Salvation Army, but immediately tossed into the fire.

We left Lisbon two mornings later for a tour around the country. The first day we saw some beautiful medieval villages, each built around a hilltop with a fortress in the center and narrow winding streets leading down into the valley below. In the late afternoon, we stopped for the evening in a small town called Tomar. We checked into the hotel and went in search of an old synagogue which is now a museum. On the way, we passed a used bookshop. The synagogue/museum was not very interesting. The Jews were expelled from Portugal in 1497, and over the years the building was used for many purposes. It has recently been reclaimed and is now the repository of a myriad of donated artifacts, some new, some old, some Sephardic, some not. Occasionally, some visitors will come and hold a service there. I looked around rather quickly, then headed for the bookshop.

The bookshop was well-situated, only a block or two from the main square on one of the major shopping streets of the town. The owner spoke a little bit of English, and he offered to show me his selection of English language books. There were six in all, mostly British novels from the 1930s and ‘40s. I never heard of any of the authors, and had little interest in them, so he tried to sell me a Portuguese book. It was the one Portuguese book in the shop that you did not need to read the language to appreciate, as it was an art book with only three or four pages of actual text. The rest of the book consisted of hundreds of pages of beautifully executed equestrian themed pen and ink drawings. I might have bought it if it did not cost 65 Euro, which is almost $80, so I told him, truthfully, that I had an aversion to horses ever since an early adolescent trauma when a horse ran away with me in a public park at dusk. (Needless to say, I was found, but I have cared neither for riding nor for horses ever since.)

I complimented him on his shop, and he replied, “Thank you, but the shop is very small.” I said, “Yes, but the town is very small.” He answered, “The problem is that the people do not read.” “It is the same everywhere,” I responded. “New York is a big city, and the shops may be big, but most of the people there do not read, either.” I took some photos and told him that I was going to write an article about bookshops in Portugal and offered to e-mail him a copy. To my surprise, he did not have an e-mail address, so he gave me a beautifully printed card with his traditional mailing address and phone number. I sauntered leisurely back to the hotel. There was no rush, because none of the restaurants opened for dinner until at least 8 P.M., and that was for the tourist trade, since the locals rarely ate before 9 or 10.

The next morning we left Tomar for Coimbra, which is a small city with the oldest, most prestigious university in Portugal. Again, I am embarrassed to say that I had never heard of it. One of the highlights of our tour was a visit to the 300 year old University library. It looked like a church with bookcases—carved wood, gold leaf, a beautifully frescoed ceiling. The ladders were elaborately carved and designed to fit into the shelving when not in use. The building was not climate controlled, and we learned that they used an old-fashioned environmentally friendly method for protecting the books from insect damage—Chiroptera, or the order of mammals more commonly known as bats. Small holes were built into the archways for the animals to enter and keep the insect population under control. Fortunately for us, it was a bright sunny day and the rooms were infused with natural light which kept these natural exterminators in hiding. All the books did seem to be in good condition, so they must know something that our curators do not.

Like most university towns, the shopping area contained several well-stocked bookshops, so I was easily able to obtain the Brazilian Portuguese translation of Ulysses.

We continued on to Porto, the second largest city, and justifiably famous for the fortified wine that bears it name. We saw many interesting sights, as well as two bookshops which could not be more different from one another. The first was FNCA, a European bookshop chain, similar to the American chain Barnes & Noble. The one in Porto is a multi-leveled modern structure with large CD and electronics sections. One alcove contained several tables and two walls filled with English language books, mostly British editions. I was able to purchase a lovely bi-lingual edition of poetry by Luis de Camões, the greatest classical Portuguese poet, whom, again, I must confess I never heard of until he was lauded by several of the local tour guides. I also picked up some British paperbacks that used to be called “quid books.” They are small volumes each containing one story by a contemporary writer. It always amuses me to see how American books change when they are published “across the pond.” The British version of Paul Auster’s NPR collection I Thought My Father was God is re-titled True Stories from American Life.

Lello, the other bookshop that we visited, was, in contrast, close to 100 years old. The original architectural features were lovingly restored in the

The Lello Bookshop’s “Stairway to Heaven.” [See Google Images for more views of this stunning interior]

1990s, and the carved wood, gold leaf and stained-glass skylights make the shop appear to be a small cathedral dedicated to the printed word. A grand staircase led up to the balcony that contained more books and a tiny coffee bar with three antique wooden tables and an ancient espresso machine. The staircase looked just like the carved staircases that decorate the altars in the major cathedrals in Portugal. Our tour guide kept referring to them as “Stairways to Heaven.” Now that Europe is becoming smoke-free, one could sit there for hours inhaling the smell of dark roasted coffee beans and old leather books, a book and coffee lover’s heaven, if ever there was one.

There were very few English language books in the shop, except for travel guides, but I did not leave the store empty-handed. I bought an illustrated history of the Lello bookshop which they conveniently stock in four or five languages.

We spent several days visiting more villages and towns. In each one I saw at least one small bookshop, so somebody there must be reading, or at least occasionally buying a book. The one area where I did not find many bookshops was the Algarve, a large section of beach resort towns along the Southern coast. Our hotel, frequented mostly by elderly Britons escaping from the cold, did have a lending library in the basement next to the game room. The only item I found of interest was a first British edition of Sue Grafton’s E is for Evidence which looked at first glance to be in fine condition. The dust jacket was well protected in a mylar covering that could easily be removed. I picked up the book, but on closer inspection saw that the back end papers were stamped from a British library. I thought about stealing the book, and tried to figure out how to describe it. Since it has been in at least two library collections, is it ex-ex-library, or ex-library ex-library, or ex-library-library? I decided that the smartest thing was to put it back on the shelf.

We arrived back in Lisbon via a long suspension bridge, two days before our departure. The bridge’s name is the April 25th Bridge, which happens to be my birthday. Our guide told us that the bridge used to be named for the dictator Salazar, and was renamed for the date that he was overthrown (April 25, 1974, the equivalent to their 4th of July).

As much as I was enjoying the feeling of truly being in a foreign country, I must confess I was beginning to miss some of the things I was used to, like lots of ice in my soda, really big ice cream cones, early dinners, and even my BlackBerry connection. Our hotel offered internet access (for a fee), so I decided it would be prudent to check my e-mail and change my status on the book web-sites to “returned from vacation” as it takes a day or two for the listing to propagate across the web. The connection was really slow and while I did manage to go into ABE to reset my vacation status, when I tried to read my e-mail, the system kept stalling and then giving me time out messages.

It was a shame that I was not able to access my e-mail, because if I had, I would have known that our return flight had been cancelled and we had been put on a flight that left three hours earlier. Needless to say, we arrived at the airport according to the original schedule, and could not find our flight on the departure board. So, that evening, instead of arriving home and getting settled, and checking the first book orders that came in now that the listings were back on line, we were ensconced in another hotel back in Lisbon, having a leisurely late dinner and waiting for our new TAP flight to New York at 1 P.M. the next day.

We arrived at the airport early, figuring that if this flight was canceled we would have time to switch to a different airline, but the new flight was right on schedule, so I had plenty of time to sample the wines and ports in the duty-free shop and to peruse the books in the airport kiosks. I noticed something very interesting. The new Portuguese books were all published in very nice hard cover editions with dust jackets for the Euro equivalent of about 25 U.S. dollars. The new foreign books, translated into Portuguese, were all published as trade paperbacks for the same price. Why buy a paperback, when you can get a hardcover for the same price? What a great way to preserve one’s cultural identity!

On the plane ride home I thought about re-pricing my inventory. Maybe I should raise the price of my foreign translation paperbacks, encouraging my customers to buy American hard-covers. But then I remembered who my favorite writers really are. I’d rather sell a cheap paperback English translation of Mahfouz, or Mishima, or Pamuk, the recent Nobel winner, than an expensive first edition of a popular American writer like Mario Puzo or Dan Brown.

The Portuguese are already bombarded by American culture and need to protect their own. In contrast, we Americans need to be exposed to other cultures which we know so little about. I ought to start encouraging customers to buy and read Portuguese writers they never heard of like Camões and Saramago, I thought to myself, as I sat back and started flipping the channels on the small screen in front of me, trying to choose from the selection of truly mediocre American movies being offered by the Portuguese airline. The average Portuguese citizen knows about our natural disasters, our major universities, the date of our Independence, and our pop songs. We Americans know next to nothing about the Portuguese.

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

Ephemeral Assays: Photo Finish

Shawn Purcell

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I’ve always had mixed feelings about thoroughbred flat track and steeplechase racing. Many of the horses probably like it on some level, but they get hurt and killed too (though others retire to the greenest of all pastures). It seems to be mainly about idle amusement and gambling addictions, with the burden on the beasts. Historic and gorgeous Saratoga Springs is nearby though—the track there being voted one of the top ten sports venues in the world—and I’ve begun to enjoy going up with my wife and father-in-law, who are longtime fans. I’ve even developed a pretty good long odds system that does not require tons of research and fretting. Hit a $400 triple on a $2 bet last time.

Anyway, two things led to the abandonment of yet another personal moral boycott. Traveling around Ireland some years back, we spent time in a slow-serving pub whose walls were plastered with interesting framed clippings on various derby races. It somehow seemed richer than my admittedly limited knowledge of American racing traditions, from the myth of Seabiscuit to the preoccupation with winning the elusive Triple Crown. Not long after, I ran into an unusual yard sale in the boondocks far from home, and the eccentric proprietress hinted at further riches inside the house. During a private appointment some months later, she produced a thick black binder of British horse racing photos, I expressed minor interest, along with major interest in another item actually of little interest, and the price barriers were hurdled. This prize languished at home for some months before I finally made a project of it.

These turned out to be hundreds of glossy captioned newspaper file photos, mostly from the late 1960s and ‘70s, averaging about 8” by 10” in size. Most are stamped Syndication International of London (“This photograph must not be used for advertising”), which distributed them to Photo Trends of New York (“For onetime editorial use only. Pix must be returned used or unused”). There were no clues about who amassed rather than returned these, but he or she was clearly in a related industry, such as sportswriting. They are all great photos, as this representative sampling demonstrates, because they made the editorial cut to begin with. The distraction of color is stripped from evocative black and white images, and many of these are all the more intense because of the high monetary and mortal stakes involved. Be warned that some are pretty graphic.

File photo hounds love the captions on the reverse too, but some of the scans are not clear enough, others were faded to begin with, and there is only so much room, so in most cases excerpts appear with the images when you click to enlarge. I kind of got sucked into the whole milieu though, as British horse racing captions are like little well-written history lessons sprinkled with humor and social commentary. Lester Piggott on Dahlia beats out the Queen’s horse Highclere in the richest ever race in Britain, “But she didn’t seem to mind as she gave Lester right royal congratulations.” Jockey Willie Carson advises visiting American upstart Steve Cauthen to “Follow me, but not too close.” Blakeney’s owner “earned himself a special place in horserace history by becoming the first man to breed, train and own a Derby winner since 1908.” “No doubt about it,

“It’s the picture that sums up the glory of Royal Ascot . . . as the Ascot Stakes field sweeps past the new million-pound stand, with the Royal Standard flying over the most fashionable crowd of the racing season.” 6/17/1964

Australian jockey George Moore is the punters’ pet. He took over the title on Wednesday (7-6-67) when he rode Derby favorite Royal Palace to victory at Epsom. George’s win has got the bookies really worried. Some of them have laid 1000-1 against him winning the five Classic races. George has won three already.” “National Hunt Jockey John Buckingham sprang to fame back in 1967 when he won the coveted Grand National steeplechase classic at Aintree. Admittedly he was lucky then, for that was the year of the fantastic incident when almost the entire field crashed at one fence—the leaders falling and bringing down the rest in a scene of unbelievable chaos.

“The also ran! Brigadier Gerard has met defeat for the first time in his illustrious sixteen-race career. All the eyes (or nearly all) are for Roberto, the winner.” 8/17/1972

Buckingham, near the back on the unfancied, unheard of horse Foinavon suddenly appeared, picked his way carefully through the wreckage, and came home alone to win. In spite of his luck, it didn’t make the remaining fences any less massive, and he required all his skill, with sensitive fingers playing on reins as if they were butterfly wings, knees exerting only gentle persuasive pressure, and a subtle shift of weight, to bring Foinavon home for a remarkable victory. But when Buckingham took part in a Donkey Derby at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, he found that skill was of no use whatsoever. In company with three other top jockeys, Buckingham was taking part to raise money to repair the village church. Faced with a particularly obstinate mount, Buckingham tried everything he knew to coax the donkey over a small obstacle. He cuddled it, whispered into its ear—no doubt promising the proverbial carrot. But it all got him nowhere, and the race was won by a 16-year-old girl who galloped home with lengths to spare.”

Roberto and Brigadier Gerard. Benson & Hedges Gold Cup, 8/17/1972

“Lester Piggott, the hard-man and King of flat racing, met Steve Cauthen, the Kentucky Kid on Saturday (14-4-79) and managed a rare smile.” 4/17/1979

In many cases I felt the need or desire for more information. When the location of champion Red Rum’s half-size bronze statue “was to have taken pride of place in Lord Street, at the heart of Southport’s shopping district,” but was relegated by the town council to a covered arcade off the main street instead, the owner and trainer did not attend the unveiling. “Red Rum has done more for Southport than anybody. It is disgraceful that his statue should be [illegible].” I wondered what those last two or three captioned words were, if Red Rum’s people actually boycotted or were just busy elsewhere, if the council changed its plans because the statue did not come out very well, and where it stands today. A nice linked Wikipedia entry with a photo of the still-arcaded Southport statue provides the following. “Red Rum was bred at Rossenarra Stud in Kells, County Kilkenny, Ireland by Martyn Molony and started off in life running in cheap races as a sprinter. After being passed from training yard to training yard, he found his footing when Liverpool car dealer Ginger McCain bought him for his client Noel Le Mare and famously trained the horse on the sands at Southport, Merseyside. McCain, who also won the Grand National in 2004 with Amberleigh House, took Red Rum for a therapeutic swim in the sea off Southport before every Grand National—Red Rum suffered most of his life from a debilitating, incurable bone disease in his foot.” Red Rum is said to be the most famous racehorse the world has ever seen. He lived to the age of thirty, and is buried near the final post at Aintree where he won three Grand Nationals and placed second in two others.

“After a nine minute delay they are away from the first Derby to be run from stalls.” Epsom Derby, 6/8/1967

“Becher’s Brook . . . being inspected by Prince Charles before the race.” Grand National, 3/31/1980

Googling some faded spellings of personal names, it seems the controversy is still alive all these years later, according to a 2004 Guardian piece which is conflated into one paragraph here. “He was the only horse to win the Grand National three times; he was once crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year (despite being equine) and he appeared at the switch-on of Blackpool illuminations. But people who worked with him say the bronze half life-sized statue of Red Rum looks more like a donkey. Now the statue is at the centre of an extraordinary spat after plans were announced to move it temporarily to an exhibition of Red Rum memorabilia at Newmarket. Ginger McCain, Red Rum's trainer, and his wife Beryl say the National Horseracing Museum in Suffolk should not borrow the statue for its forthcoming exhibition. Mrs McCain said: ‘We will not have that statue in the exhibition. It is absolutely dreadful. Nobody in the horseracing industry likes it. It doesn't even look like him—it looks more like a donkey.’ The statue, housed in a shopping arcade in Southport, Merseyside, was described by Mr McCain when it was unveiled in 1979 as ‘a bit plump and heavy.’ He added that the horse looked ‘thick-set and short.’ But it is incredibly popular, drawing hundreds of fans every year who pay homage to the great horse and occasionally leave packets of his favourite sweets, Polo mints. Annette Yarrow, the sculptor of the bronze, said yesterday: ‘He certainly does not look like a donkey and there are many other people who were very happy with it. One of the problems at the time was about the cost, but I did it at cost price.’ Fans called for a life-size model which was later installed at Aintree racecourse. It is the only statue which has been approved by the McCains. Hilary Bracegirdle, director of the National Horseracing Museum, said the row put her in an awkward position: ‘I think the difficulty is if you love horses then you know them to be as individual as your own son's face. Clearly, Mr McCain is very passionate about Red Rum and feels it hasn't done him justice. It is a terribly difficult position for me to be in and I had absolutely no idea they didn't approve of the statue.’” Looks like Hilary Bracegirdle didn’t do all of her homework, wot?

“High fences . . . and 4 ½ miles in the mud saw off 26 of the original 30 starters.” The Grand National, 3/31/1980

Newspaper file photos are fairly uncommon. Only so many were distributed, and most of those have been discarded over the years. The medium is very sturdy if cared for correctly, but quite fragile if not. In terms of value, very specific topics with easily searchable terms do well. The champion “Shergar” will sell, for example, where “horse racing photo” will get left in the dust. Look for captioned file photos in good condition, complete with legible names and dates. Earlier file photo captions were on strips of paper taped to the reverse, while newer examples are usually printed right on the reverse. EBay is still your best bet for marketing photographica that is somewhere between very good and stellar, and if you have many examples to offer in the same subject area run them consecutively and build up a following. Most of these horsey pics went to England, and they averaged around $25 each, with many in excess of $100, up to around $300. That will buy a lot of $2 bets and cold beers next August.

“Rider Dennis Gray comes off Alpenstock, left, at the Chair and tries to mount Pardo [?], number 5, to save some bruises.” Grand National, 4/4/1979)

“Our dramatic sequence of pictures shows the moment the Grand National ended for Beau Bob and jockey Jeremy Glover . . . with a spectacular nosedive at the notorious Becher’s Brook fence . . . where so many horses have perished.” Grand National, 4/1975

From the Wikipedia, “The fence took its name from Captain Becher, who fell there from his mount Conrad in the first Aintree Grand National in 1839, and who sheltered in the small brook running along the landing side of the fence while the remainder of the field thundered over.” This fence was finally made more humane after another disaster in 1989

“Alverton lies dead on the ground with Jonjo O’Neill bending over in distress.” Grand National, 4/4/1979

“Fallen woman . . . the only female jockey in the National, Jenny Hembrow, shows the agony she feels after falling at the final fence.” Grand National, 4/4/1979

Wideawake collapses after victory (caption illegible)

How this sequence appeared in a local newspaper that came with the photos

“The Derby, Britain’s premier flat-race classic, was won by the British-bred horse Grundy on Wednesday (4-6-75). Grundy, popular second-favourite at 5-1, thrashed the favourite, 6-4 French challenger Green Dancer, into sixth place.” Epsom Derby, 6/5/1975

“A born winner—five week old floppy foal runs around the green, green grass of home. She has yet to be named but as the daughter of the mighty racehorse Grundy, she won’t be unknown for much longer.” Newmarket, 5/1977

“Sculptress Lady Annette Yarrow admiring her half-size statue of world famous Red Rum.” Southport, 8/4/1979

White Lancer, son of Brigadier Gerard, and head groom Fred Ray, just moments after he was saddled for the first time ever. Near Newmarket, 9/26/1975

Shawn Purcell operates Balopticon Books & Ephemera and can be contacted at http://www.balopticon.com.

Books About Bookselling: Of Bookmen & Printers

Shawn Purcell

[click picture for larger image]

Of Bookmen & Printers: A Gathering of Memories, by Ward Ritchie. Los Angeles, CA: Dawson’s Book Shop, 1989.

Books about booksellers can be overly aware of how legendary they are, or steeped in formality and tradition, but this California-style treatment is just plain laid back and likeable. The author quit law school and went off to study printing with a French master in the late 1920s, became a denizen of book row in downtown Los Angeles when there was still a there there, set up the Ward Ritchie Press, and became intimately involved with important booksellers, Californiana collectors, and printers along the way. Rare books were at their feet like nuggets of gold, the sun shone on endless scented orange fields, and the printer’s ink and red wine flowed.

Of Bookmen & Printers is actually a compilation of mostly previously published material, somewhat revised here. Its chapters therefore can stand on their own, having grown out of talks that were later published, limited edition printings, and journal articles. It begins with, “For Ward a Foreword,” by Lawrence Clark Powell. “A Bookman’s Los Angeles in the 1930s” sets the stage. Other chapters are titled, “Jake Zeitlin, When He Was Joyous Young,” “Paul Landacre, Artist and Wood Engraver,” “Merle Armitage, His Many Loves and Varied Lives,” “Robinson Jeffers, Recollections of the Poet,” “Jane Grabhorn, The Roguish Printer of the Jumbo Press,” “Paris Adventure with François-Louis Schmied,” “John Cage, The Maniac of Music,” “St. John Hornby and the Ashendene Press,” “A Requiem for Lawrence Clark Powell,” and “Virginia City and the Genesis of a Cookbook,”—this last one a bit out of place—followed by an index. It is modest in nature; stronger on impressions than bookish details; and more about fine printing, private presses, and often eccentric authors than bookselling; but it all works together well and is highly recommended. Only 500 copies were printed, designed by the author and issued without a dust jacket. I just scored a nice signed copy from a California bookseller, and there are a good dozen still out there at reasonable prices. Some excerpts follow.

“In the 1930s Los Angeles was not exactly a small town, but it had an intimacy which the subsequent years have lost. There was such a concentration of business that one could run into a dozen acquaintances while walking not more than a few blocks. The big red Pacific Electric cars brought shoppers from miles around, and the yellow street cars crisscrossed the city, all leading to the area we called ‘downtown.’

“To me the heart was where the bookstores were. Along with a few bars and some mangy upstairs hotels of questionable morality, they lined both sides of West Sixth Street from Grand Avenue nearly to Figueroa. A few shops hung on the fringes, such as Dawson's, a block away at the corner of Wilshire and Grand, and Louis Epstein's bookstore over on Eighth Street. A half a million books or more were to be seen within this area of a few blocks, and booklovers flocked to the lure. There was variety in both books and establishments. For instance, in Ralph Howey's little English nook one could sink into a soft leather chair and chat about books while stroking a binding by Cobden-Sanderson or looking at the pages of an edition printed by Giambattista Bodoni. Each book was in its place, immaculate and carefully chosen. Or up the street a block, one could gingerly slip into David Kohn's Curio Book Shop, where a hundred thousand books were crammed helter-skelter in bins, piled on the floor, stacked in the basement, with only a bare semblance of order. It was a grimy job searching here for a treasure, since more than a decade of dust was mingled with the books; but for the hunter it was a delightful challenge. No one could possibly anticipate what might be discovered in the mélange. Kohn usually stood noncommittally in the doorway, hat pulled down to his ears, seemingly uninterested, while emitting an occasional eructation that echoed down the canyon of Sixth Street and created minor disturbances in the hotel cribs on the upstairs floors.

“Mingled with these shops were Bunster Creeley's Abbey Bookshop, Ben Epstein's Argonaut, Borden's, Roger's, Lofland's, Holmes's huge emporium of books, several incidental shops whose names I have long forgotten, and, of course, Jake Zeitlin's bookshop and gallery.

“The aficionados of books were regular visitors to most of these shops, but there gradually developed a division of affection which found the serious, older, and Californiana collectors gathering around ‘Club’ Dawson, while the younger writers, artists, and printers loitered at ‘Club’ Zeitlin.

“Zeitlin's first shop was on Hope Street across from the Bible Institute, but he soon moved to 705 ½ West Sixth Street in a little half-store, just big enough for a couple of hundred books and a minimal gallery where he hung the prints and drawings of local artists. It was here I first saw the books of the great printers of the 1920s—Eric Gill, Francis Meynell of the Nonesuch Press, Robert Gibbings of the Golden Cockerel Press, and Edwin and Robert Grabhorn of San Francisco. Jake gathered around him a stimulating group of artists and writers—Paul Landacre, Will Connell, Merle Armitage, Arthur Millier, Paul Jordan-Smith, Phil Townsend Hanna, W. W. Robinson, and many others including printers Bruce McCallister, Gregg Anderson, Grant Dahlstrom, and Saul Marks. One dropped by Zeitlin's to see the new books from England and to talk to Jake. There was stimulating action there.

“But the favorite haunt of the bookmen of Los Angeles was the spot on Grand Avenue at the corner of Wilshire. There they encountered Ernest Dawson, a master merchandiser of books. He regularly juggled them from table to table and from shelf to shelf. As a result, it always appeared that a new library of books had arrived, keeping his customers constantly interested and inveterate repeaters. There were other inducements. ‘Father’ Dawson, as he was known, never wished to have a book in stock too long. If it lingered on the shelves for over six months, he'd itch to get rid of it. Before long he'd slash the price, and if it didn't sell then, he'd cut the price again. This created an incentive to visit Dawson's regularly, since one could never tell when these reductions would take place. Inevitably, this also led to a game of waiting, watching, and returning as often as possible to check on those books which one might want but thought might again be a victim of Father Dawson's price-cutting pencil. This game of wits sometimes paid off, but often a less patient book-watcher spoiled the game by buying the book one was stalking.

“Books were comparatively cheap in the 1930s—great bargains by today's standards—but most of us didn't have much money to fritter on them. Dawson provided for the impoverished with a table of bargains at the street entrance. Here for from ten cents to fifty cents were the books from which I built much of my own library. While books provided a part of the excitement of a visit to Dawson's in those days, more came in observing the parade of bookmen who would drop by several times a week.

“I remember many of them in hero worship. I was young and in love with books, and these were men of stature in that world. I doubt if Los Angeles will ever again know quite such an assemblage of bookmen. And for them this kingdom of books was concentrated in such a few blocks that there was an almost constant meeting and mingling.”

“Some of the most interesting books I ever bought on the bargain counter at Dawson's were from the library of A. Gaylord Beaman, which they sold after his death. He was a man whose catholic tastes encompassed literature and incidental private press products. Gay was a member of the Zamorano Club and the Authors Club of Hollywood. His business was insurance, but his avocation was authors. No author ever came to Los Angeles without being met at the station by Gay Beaman. He'd greet them and dine them and then take them through the routine of Sixth Street's book row before rounding the corner to Dawson's. Many an author I met there, brought by Gay Beaman—Sherwood Anderson, Rockwell Kent, Christopher Morley, among them. The Authors Club in the late 1930s was the domain of Rupert Hughes. What a storyteller he was—quite risqué, but funny. He was always followed with a good anecdote by Irwin S. Cobb, also usually rather off-color. As I remember it, Beaman at those meetings was continually table-hopping—greeting, chatting, and seldom eating. He brought Somerset Maugham to one luncheon in 1941, and, as was customary, Maugham was asked to say a few words.

“He told of an interesting experience he had had recently. Cuba, it seems, hired an advertising agency to promote the sale of Havana cigars. It proposed a campaign based upon a series of short, short stories in which both a beautiful girl and a windfall of money came as a direct result of smoking a cigar. The agency wrote Maugham inquiring if he'd be willing to write five such sketches for them. He replied that since he wrote to make a living, he was not averse to the proposition and would be willing to write the five stories for $25,000.

“This extravagant request, for those days, rather shook the agency, and it wrote back to inquire if the sum suggested might not be a little too high. Maugham replied that since this was to be his first experience in writing commercial advertisements, it might be considered that he was selling his virginity, and he had been told by women of the profession that this was a priceless commodity and worth much more that the usual payment. He hardly expected a reply and never received one.”

“Some of the best parties I remember were given in the patio of his [Robert Woods] hillside house on Briarcliffe Road. He'd gather all of the Californiana crowd. Wagner and Hodge would relax and expound. J. Frank Dobie came from Texas a couple of times, saying they were the best parties he ever attended east or west. I can well understand his appreciation, with a dozen or two of our local collectors and historians on hand with whom to talk. He'd never been surrounded by such wealth anywhere.”

“Gregg Layne, along with Will Robinson, had the most intimate and detailed knowledge of anyone of Los Angeles history. It seems a pity that a whole lifetime's accumulation of information such as his should be lost with him. As far as I know he left no notes or jottings and very few written articles. Will Robinson has mentioned to me that one of his great regrets is not having made notes of the conversations he had with Gregg about local history. His knowledge was incredible. I remember a Zamorano meeting at which he talked about the streets of early Los Angeles, and pausing for every street number, he recalled that building's history, its inhabitants, and an interesting anecdote of early happenings there.

“Layne's knowledge of Californiana gave him an advantage over most of the local booksellers. He accumulated one outstanding library that he sold to Mrs. Edward L. Doheny, who in turn gave it to the University of Southern California. With nary a moment's hesitation he began another, which eventually was purchased by UCLA. For most of his life he sold draftsmen's materials, but upon retiring he was retained by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to write a history of the development of water in the Los Angeles area. He worked five years on it and, later, often remarked that it was the best unpublished $30,000 history ever locally written. The reluctance of the department to publish it is beclouded in politics and finances.

“Larry Powell grabbed him for the UCLA Library when he left city employment, and the final year of his life was most enjoyably spent ferreting out the invaluable books of the Robert Cowan Library. UCLA had bought Cowan's collection of Californiana and, following the then usual procedure, had not kept them intact and segregated within their Californiana or Special Collections. They had been distributed into the general collection of a million books. Gregg's last days were happy ones, ferreting out these treasures and reassembling a rare library.

“Zeitlin's Bookstore was the first to abandon the area of Sixth Street, moving in the 1930s to the old carriage house of the Earl house on Wilshire Boulevard, an extension of the Otis Art Institute. Others left as their ramshackle quarters were demolished and banks and high-rise building took over. Dawson was ousted from his corner at Wilshire and Grand, but he hung to the area on Figueroa near Sixth for several years when this building, too, surrendered to progress. Now there is not a remnant, not a trace left in the area of those bookstores which so well served the book collectors of Los Angeles during the 1930s and 1940s.

“Few from those days have survived. Others have come but are scattered like leaves in a wind about a city that has lost its central core.”

“Not too long after this bizarre affair [in which a bookstore customer claiming to be Rockwell Kent was wined and dined], I read that the real Rockwell Kent was planning a lecture tour that would bring him West. He had belonged to the same college fraternity as Larry Powell and I, and we cautiously wrote him and asked if he’d consider giving the annual Phi Gamma Delta lecture at Occidental College. He agreed.

“Jake, Larry, and I attended his lecture and afterward drove him up to my print shop studio for a dinner of spaghetti and quantities of red wine. He regaled us with tales of his undergraduate pranks and his adventures in Alaska and Newfoundland, among others. The wine had made us friends, and Jake suggested that the Primavera Press would like to print Larry’s recently completed thesis on Robinson Jeffers if Rockwell would illustrate it. Kent took another long swig of wine and agreed.

“I made some hurried sketches of what we’d need, including pictorial initials for each chapter opening. Of course Kent wanted to know what the letters would be. Fearful that if I delayed he might change his mind, I wrote down a dozen or so random letters that popped into my mind. Kent stuffed my notes in his pockets, and, surprisingly enough, in a couple of weeks a package of drawings arrived from him. Powell considerately rewrote all of the opening paragraphs of the chapters in his book to accommodate my haphazard choices of initial letters.”

“This was a beautiful press, much more decorative than most Washington presses. Willard Morgan discovered it in rusty pieces in the mining ghost town of Bodie. By local tradition, which Paul would hardly dispute, it had once been used by Mark Twain, but that is quite apocryphal. Morgan deposited it with Landacre, who lovingly scraped it, painted it, and reassembled it. It was a large press that was difficult for Paul to handle alone, but he would pull mightily from the front while Margaret pushed with all her strength from the back. Together they were able to hand-print editions of fifty or sixty copies from Paul’s blocks. It often took them several weeks to complete even a portion of that number. Sometimes the full edition was never completed, as they would print copies only when they had an order.”

“At that time I had an old ranch house on the eastern edge of Hollywood where William S. Hart had lived as a foreman when he was working cattle in the hills around what is now known as Silver Lake. Early movie producers, desperately needing a cowboy, had picked him up and made him an early star despite his lack of acting ability. The original Disney Studios were just up the street, and most of the artists lived and loved in the neighborhood. Our house was on a hillside of Griffith Park Boulevard and was possibly the oldest house in Hollywood. I had dug into the hillside beneath it to create a printing studio with typecases, presses, a whitewashed brick fireplace, a grand piano, and a large library. It was a hangout for the artists at Disney and others in the vicinity. Larry Powell aptly christened it ‘Ritchie’s Roadhouse.’”

“Among the many attractive books published by the Colt Press was a series of small cookbooks. For one of these, The Epicure in China, Jane [Grabhorn] had brazenly lifted the recipes from the food page of the San Francisco Examiner. Soon after the book’s publication, the Examiner called to ask if it might be allowed to reprint her fine recipes in the food section, for which it was willing to pay her. She was happy to accept the offer.”

The chapter on Charles Harry St. John Hornby of the Ashendene Press is particularly interesting. Ritchie paid him a visit in England between his printer’s apprenticeship and his return to California in 1931, and was warmly received in a house full of magnificent books and early manuscripts. “After tea we descended into the garden in back of the house and to the small building he’d built for the press. There was a trickling stream running through the property, and Hornby pointed out where Nell Gwyn, the mistress of Charles II, was said to bathe in the nude.” Hornby had received early encouragement from William Morris, and lavished the same on those who sent him samples of their work, including the author. The remaining passages are from a talk Hornby gave to an audience of accomplished printers at the Double Crown Club at this time, attended by the impressionable Ward Ritchie.

“I had a good deal of difficulty with the dampening at first as I found, as I had found before, that the paper cockled badly. Eventually I got over this by using interleaving sheets considerably larger that the paper itself. These I dampened with a sponge and left under 112 pounds pressure for twelve hours, afterwards interleaving the printing sheets and leaving them under pressure for a further twelve hours. This is the method I employ to this day. I also at this time in 1896 procured a really good ink from the firm of Janecke & Schneeman of Hanover. My presswork from 1896 onwards showed a marked improvement, but I always labored with the disadvantage of having to do my work at odd times, whenever I could snatch a spare hour or two. This naturally did not conduce the best work and I am afraid that my books savoured of amateurishness in many ways. But I did not profess to be anything more than an amateur. I was printing entirely for my own amusement, and such little books as I did I gave away to my friends and others whom I found were interested in the Press. I did not offer any to the public. I received some encouragement from American collectors, but very little in this country.”

“I consulted with the omniscient Robert Proctor at the British Museum and, after examining numerous fifteenth-century books, decided that I would like to have a type modeled upon the Subiaco type of Sweynham and Pannartz, with which three books had been printed in 1465 before these printers moved to Rome. Morris at one time made experiments with this type but never went so far as having it cut. Walker and Cockerell, who were then in partnership, made photographs for me from a vellum copy of Cicero’s De Oratore in the British Museum: My type was cut by E. P. Prince and cast on a great primer body by Miller & Richard. In these days of high prices it may be of interest to record that the total bill for photographing and cutting amounted to only 100 pounds. I was a very proud man when the first dozen letters reached me and I was able to set up a few specimen lines. I still think, as I thought then, that it is a very noble type. Its possession made me ambitious to produce something more important than I had hitherto done. I bought a larger press and had a new make of paper of larger size and decided to print La Commedia di Dante in three small octavo volumes. Of these the Inferno appeared in 1902. It was the last book done entirely by my own hand, and it gave me many a hard day’s work.”

“The setting-up and printing of 150 copies of this book was a very heavy tax on the spare time of a busy man, and I decided that I must either give up the idea of producing important books or take on a regular pressman. I decided on the latter course and engaged George Faulkner, who had had his training at the Oxford University Press and who is with me to this day. He required a good deal of licking into shape but eventually developed into a very good and careful pressman. I did not engage a regular compositor, continuing to do most of the setting-up myself with the help of my cousin and Faulkner, whom I taught and who luckily, in those days, was not trammeled by a trade union.”

“With the appearance of the Inferno of Dante I made another change in the policy of the Press. Hitherto, as I have said, I did not issue my books to the public. But I found that there was a growing interest in them amongst collectors, and I was continually getting letters from people anxious to acquire them. I could not give away copies to all and sundry, so I came to the conclusion that the only thing to do was to issue a prospectus in the ordinary way and accept subscriptions. There is really no other way of getting books into the hands of those interested in them. The expenses of the Press, with its more ambitious programme, were growing and might grow still further. I had to think about recovering at least some of them. I do not know how other Private Presses have fared, but I think it may interest you to know that after thirty-five years, throwing in my services for nothing, I am about ‘all square’ without profit or loss. I hope, therefore, that I have given good value for the money. The profit I have had, and it is a rich return, is the immense interest and pleasure I have gotten out of the Press. For the consolation of others who may be thinking of following in my footsteps I might add that I have probably run my Press rather extravagantly and that there may be something to be made out of a Private Press in these days by anyone who does really good work and who is indifferent to whether or not any profit will result. But I should not advise the venture as a quick road to fortune even thought it may lead to fame.”

Shawn Purcell operates Balopticon Books & Ephemera and can be contacted at http://www.balopticon.com.

The History of Abracadabra Bookshop and Booksearch:
A Moving Experience

Alan Culpin

Before getting into the book business, I taught Colorado & Western American History at a local college. I couldn't help noticing that every time there was a budget crunch, they laid off faculty members (never administrators!). This did not give one a sense of security, so I decided to be prepared. Using my private collection of about 600 books on the American West, I opened the surprisingly named Western Americana Bookshop in a corner of the Nepenthes Café, a period coffee shop in downtown Denver. It prospered, even though I was only able to spend a few hours a week there.

This was January, 1977, and within a few months, I was offered the stock from the famed Stage House II, Boulder's best bookshop. This was my first experience moving approximately 10,000 books. Dick Schwartz, the owner of Stage House II, kindly packed all the books for us, and we rented a U-Haul to move them to Denver, where we initially stored them. That was easy. Realizing we could not get 10,000 books into the 180 square foot corner of the coffee shop, we relocated to Court Place, in upper downtown Denver. The space was located above a bowling alley, and was a former city department, conveniently divided into sections with half-walls. These made for great sectional organization of the books into their various subjects, with plenty of room for further purchases. Within a year or so, we had grown to 25,000 books, and the bowling alley building had been purchased by the Hare Krishnas, as sharp an investment group as I have ever known. They closed the alley, and turned off the old boiler, which provided heat. I turned it back on, and they threatened me with a lawsuit. We decided it was time to move again!

It was 1981, in the late Spring—May in fact—when we moved into our own quarters at 3827 West 32nd Avenue, behind a fine old Victorian mansion. The former owners had run an antique shop there for about 30 years, slowly selling off bits of the house. With fear in our hearts, we negotiated an enormous mortgage and bought the whole place. Our second moving experience reflected our growing knowledge of the art of moving books. We rented a stake bed truck, exploited the labor of our 6'4" son-in-law, and other friends, and parking the truck in the alley, were able to pass the boxes of books out the window, into the sure hands of Blaine Eno, who neatly piled them up. While it took three days to pack the books, it took but one to move them to the new location, and another three days to put them on the shelf. Over the next few weeks, we gradually alphabetized them.

At this new location in Denver we grew to about 40,000 volumes aided by Ms. Kennedy, Bruce Albright and others. We had about 2,200 square feet of space, but space being a vacuum, we managed to fill every possible corner. It was a popular location despite being a little out of the way. I began to develop my thesis that location, location, location, does not apply to the book business. Now it is a well known fact that books breed in the dark, and we did not stop buying, so by 1994 we had outgrown our space, and decided to move again, this time to 32 South Broadway, where we quickly grew to over 80,000 volumes.

One of the things we had learned in our previous moves was to pack our books as alphabetically as possible. I secured hundreds of boxes, all free from the local supermarket, and we hired extra help to pack them, section by section by section. I would assign a person to a particular subject, and with a magic marker they recorded the letters of the alphabet corresponding to the authors within that subject right on the box. Thus one person would pack all the books on Colorado, marking each box "A-C, Colorado", etc. In the meantime, we built bookcases in our new location on Broadway, so that we could put the appropriate subject right into place as we unloaded. Again, U-Haul provided a now large truck, and with plenty of help, we moved the entire 40,000 volumes from shelf to shelf in three days. We were getting pretty proficient at the moving business.

During the period 1994-1999, we were bless

Table of Contents

Hunting Slobodkin

From Clicks to Bricks: A Book Store . . . in HALE, Michigan

An Interview with Vic Zoschak of Tavistock Books

-Tell us a little about yourself.

-What led to your interest in out-of-print and antiquarian bookselling?

-How did you learn the trade?

-What aspects of maintaining a physical bookstore are the most problematic?

-What are some of the most unusual things that ever happened in your shop?

-Are all of your internet listings available right there, or are some or all of them stored offsite to maintain the described condition or to simplify inventory management?

-Dickens lived at Tavistock House in London for awhile. Why did you pick this name for your business from among the many possibilities?

-How many Dickens titles do you currently hold?

-Where do you acquire most of it?

-What’s the furthest you’ve ever gone for it?

-Do you sometimes pay the going market value just to capture more desirable stock?

-What are some examples of Charles Dickens non-book materials that you have been able to offer?

-What is the Holy Grail of works written by Charles Dickens?

-Do you think there are still some undiscovered works out there somewhere?

-What is the most definitive bibliography?

-Tell us a little about the world of booksellers who specialize in Dickensiana and the collectors, scholars, and institutions they cater to.

-Are most of your serious Dickens clients in the U.S. or Great Britain?

-What is your favorite Dickens biography?

-The best film version of A Christmas Carol?

-What other areas do you specialize in?

-What are some of the more interesting non-book materials you have handled?

-Closing thoughts on our noble profession as it exists today, succinct or otherwise?

-Thanks Vic.

Globalization vs. Americanization, or, a Book Dealer’s Travels through Portugal

Ephemeral Assays: Photo Finish

Books About Bookselling: Of Bookmen & Printers

The History of Abracadabra Bookshop and Booksearch: A Moving Experience

Globalization vs. Americanization,
or, a Book Dealer’s Travels through Portugal

The History of Abracadabra Bookshop and Booksearch:
A Moving Experience