You don’t decide to become a book collector. You don’t make a plan to become a book collector. That’s not the way it happens. What happens is that something interests you or takes your fancy.

For me, of course, it was something political. Even as a teenager I suspected that something was wrong with the Warren Commission report. Even to my young and naive mind I realized that something was seriously amiss. Now, I know the American people were much more innocent then. But come on! Were we really expected to believe that a man who had just assassinated the President of the United States was killed in custody by one Jack Ruby who just strode up to Oswald in the police station and shot him dead? No one stopped him? On national TV? What was this? The wild west? Gunslingers? My hero was dead and this is the lame story we’re supposed to believe?

Being only 15 years old at the time, I stifled my doubts and kept them to myself. But then, sometime in 1964, a man named Mark Lane wrote a book called Rush to Judgment. Rush to Judgment was a point-by-point indictment of the Warren Commission. To my young mind it was breathtaking. Then I read Slyvia Meagher’s book. Bam! I was hooked. Now I was looking for books on the Kennedy assassination and devouring every one of them. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d become a book collector.

That’s how it happens. Further, that’s the way it should happen. Why? Because book collecting at its best is something that happens to you, not something that you initiate on the world. Much like learning, it arises out of one or two things: need or love. When a child is born he learns to speak and communicate in a very complex language before he even goes to kindergarten. How? Because he needs to in order to communicate with others in his household. Now you can take that same child and put him in public school for 12 years and give him a French language class every day for 5 days a week for 12 years. Chances are, his ability to speak French at the end of all this will be rudimentary at best and non-existent at worst. Why? Because he has no need to learn French. He functions quite well in his world without French. Now, if he met the girl of his dreams and the only thing she spoke or understood was French, then he would learn that language so fast it would make his teacher’s head spin. Because he felt the need to learn it. If you feel the need to read all of the classics before you die, then this need will prompt you to go out and assemble a collection of the classics.

The other motivator is love. When people ask me what they should collect I always answer, collect what you love. You can’t go wrong that way. First, you enjoy what you’re collecting while those who are collecting only as a long-term investment may lose interest along the way. The great thing about collecting what you love is that often you can put together an original or scarce collection that makes yours unique. In book collecting, you can put together a unique collection on a modest amount of money. I once started collecting a fairly obscure newsman and poet from the late 1800′s named Eugene Field. Why? Because I really liked his book The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac. Later, I found he was the poet who wrote the poem “Wynken, Blynken and Nod”. I started searching for Eugene Field books (in first editions, of course) at flea markets, book sales and yard sales. It wasn’t long before I had a better Eugene Field collection than anyone I could find out about. It was a lot of fun assembling. It took a very modest amount of money. And as they say, the hunt was half the fun.

The first thing you need to know about book collecting is that more often than not, the whole exceeds the sum of its parts. I wish someone would have told me this when I first started book collecting. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that this dawned on me. I was reading a book auction catalog that had a prices realized list (That’s right. When you become a book collector your wife won’t catch you reading Playboy on the side, she’ll find you reading book auction catalogs and wonder what the hell’s wrong with you). The catalog showed that a complete run of Arkham House books had sold for something like $15,000. I was very familiar with and a great admirer of Arkham House. It was started by August Derleth to keep the works of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft in print. Then, throughout the 40s and 50s, it expanded to publishing many writers in the horror field including the much coveted Dark Carnival by Ray Bradbury. Each book had a limited printing somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000. So somebody had put together the entire collection. I took out my Arkham House “out of print” list and priced them out. On the used book market they totaled at most $7,700. But they sold in this catalog for nearly twice that. The whole exceeds the sum of its parts. This lesson was not lost upon me.

The second thing you need to know about book collecting is that you are only limited by your imagination. People who say they don’t know what to collect are really saying that they haven’t felt the need. Because anyone could look at everyone they know and figure out what they should collect. Let me show you what this means. Let’s take 4 people we both know. People who contribute to this magazine every month and are well known to our readers. If Ron Stouffer were a book collector, he might assemble a collection of the first editions (We’ll discuss why firsts later.) and first appearances of everything Noam Chomsky wrote. If he did so, he would be known as a Noam Chomsky completist. Or, Ron could assemble a collection of all books written about corporate personhood. It might become a unique collection. Rosie Skomitz might assemble a collection of every book ever written about single-payer health insurance. Or, she might assemble a collection of all books written about the evils of the insurance industry. Nice unique collection, Rosie. That Woman, Dorothy Reilly, could assemble a collection of books on all third party attempts in America. Or, (and our readers wouldn’t know this) she could collect all of the first editions of Dick Francis and Rex Stout. Poetry editor Jack Romig could try to collect the first books of all the poets he admires. Those first books, before the author becomes successful, are always the most elusive. The point is there’s something for everyone to collect, but only if you feel the need.

We may have readers that want to collect the first edition of every Stephen King book. Or someone who loves antiquarian books and wants to collect books on women’s fashions from the 1840–50s. How about a collection of all the Pulitzer Prize winners. A collection of books that changed the world. How about a collection of books that launched government action. We could start with Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, which resulted in a government crackdown on the meat packing industry. Or Catholic socialist Michael Harrington’s The Other America which, when read by Lydon Johnson, helped influence him to launch his war on poverty. How about one-hit wonders? People who wrote a blockbuster and that was it. Never heard from again. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird would be at the top of that list and would also be very expensive.

So it’s clear that there is an unlimited universe of collections waiting to be assembled out there. What to collect is not the problem. But how we collect it is. The criteria that we use in assembling our collection clearly determines the ultimate success or failure of that collection. There is one rule that you must take on faith right from the outset: Whatever it is that you collect, you must collect it in first editions whenever possible. I say whenever possible because there are many books that are just not available in first editions. You’re not going to find a Shakespeare first folio. Many books are beyond the means of the average collector. You shouldn’t try to make a collection of the highlights of 20th century literature unless you are extremely wealthy. You can’t afford all those Joyces and Hemingways. We will discuss in a future installment what to do if your need is in this direction. For now, let’s just agree: First Edition or Bust!

Why the First Edition?

The book collecting fraternity collects first editions because they feel it is the closest thing to the author’s original intention that is generally available to the public. It shows the work in its rawest state. That is, before the author receives public feedback and makes corrections; before there are any revisions to the author’s work; before the publisher decides to add different pictures or commentary; before they change the cover and dust jacket with a completely new color and design. In short, book collectors want to get as close to the author’s original writing as they possibly can.

At this point some knowledgeable book people out there may object by pointing out that there are ways to get closer to the author’s original intention than the first edition. And they would be absolutely right. Such things as advance readers; galleys—both corrected and uncorrected; proofs and manuscripts—both corrected and uncorrected, are closer to the author’s original intention than the first edition. That is why I qualified my original statement with the words “generally available to the public”. We will be discussing all of these in future installments of this course. But for now, think of it this way: First editions are the standard of book collecting. Advance readers, galleys, proofs and manuscripts are ways of rising above the standard. For example, let’s say that you are building a collection of the “Beat” writers of the1950s and 60s. Let’s say you are lucky enough to have a copy of the first edition of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road—which is considered the anthem of the “Beats”. One day you see an advance reader of this same book on sale at a reasonable price. After you stop turning cartwheels, of course you are going to pick it up because it raises the quality or standard of your collection.

In next month’s segment on book collecting we will be discussing how to determine which books are first editions and therefore worthy of adding to your collection. We will be busting some commonly held myths about first editions that are just untrue, such as, if it says in my book that it’s a first edition, then it’s a first edition. Not so, my friend. If the publisher claims it is a first edition, then it is. False again. If it’s being auctioned on EBAY as a first edition, then it is. Buyer beware.

There’s no surefire way to determine if a book is really a first edition other than to do your homework. We’ll show you how beginning next month in CS2!