Back To the Books ~ My Book Collection Updated

It's been quite a while since I mentioned anything about my book collection. During the Christmas holidays I received books as gifts and had books on the way from various corners of the globe (well, not quite that far-flung, but it does sound so intriguing and exotic). So I decided to wait until all the books had arrived so that I could post about them all in one post. Hence the lengthy span of time with no book collection updates!

The Charles Addams Collection
Last year I was collecting Edward Gorey first editions. Having amassed quite a collection of firsts and ephemera, I was faced with attempting to acquire his extremely limited edition books (chapbooks, really) which, in consquence of limited printings, are scarce and expensive. I would like to have a copy of Doleful Domesticity, but I shall content myself with my signed first of L'Heure Bleu.

This year I am collecting first editions of Charles Addams's books. The inspiration for collecting Addams began at my friend Karen's antiquarian bookshop in Port Townsend. She was showing me a New York antiquarian bookseller's catalogue which listed a first edition of Addams's 1954 cartoon collection Homebodies for $2000! I couldn't believe the astronomical price, yet my curiousity was piqued. A few years earlier I had picked up a 1964 first of Addams's The Groaning Board for $50 which seemed very reasonable. I returned home, did some research (ebay and Google are marvellous research tools) and discovered that this New York bookseller must either be on crack or else have some extremely gullible and financially ultra-solvent clients. Most Charles Addams books go for between $75 and $125 dollars. I was able to add to my single Addams volume for substantially less than the going rate, and even came up with a rara avis.

Charles Addams drew cartoons for The New Yorker magazine from the early 1940s through the mid 1970s. He is most famous for his ghoulish, creepy, kooky and altogether ooky family, later to immortalized on television as, you guessed it, The Addams Family. Along with the Addams Family's unsettling antics, Charles Addams's cartoons reflected a morbid fascination with grotesque and abherrant. Once seen, Addams work is not forgotten and he portrayed the undercurrent of disquiet and distemper that lay below the surface of placid normality in years during and follwing World War II.

So far my Charles Addams collection consists of the following hardcovers:

Addams and Evil, 1947, first edition, third printing, Simon and Schuster.

Homebodies, 1954, first edition, Simon and Schuster.

Nightcrawlers, 1957, first edition, Simon and Schuster.

Dear Dead Days, 1959, first edition, G.P. Putnam.

The Groaning Board, 1964, first edition, Simon and Schuster.

The World of Charles Addams, 1991, first edition, fourth printing, Knopf.

I'd like to reflect a bit on Addams's Dear Dead Days. In my bibliographic researches, I discovered that Dear Dead Days was very hard to come by. In fact I saw one copy online at a prohibitive price. Never fear, if one waits patiently and checks eBay frequently, one is likely to be rewarded with the object of one's search turning up for auction. Such was the case with Dear Dead Days (which I shall now refer to as DDD). I assumed the book was simply another cartoon collection, so imagine my surprise and delight when DDD arrived and I discovered that this not a cartoon collection, but a thoroughly morbid and ironic send up of nostalgia featuring vintage photographs and illustrations of train and auto wrecks, oddities of the human gene pool, bizarre behaviour, murder, mayhem, despair and desolation all compiled by Addams himself. Frankly, I can't imagine how this book ever got published: it certainly wouldn't be today! I am still agog every time I peruse Dear Dead Days.

I also picked up several paperback editions of Addams's cartoon collections. These are quite charming but the cartoons don't reduce down to paperback format terribly well. Still, these paperback volumes are collectible in their own right.

Nightcrawlers, first paperback edition, 1964, Pocket Books.
Black Maria, first paperback edition, 1964, Pocket Books.
Addams and Evil, first paperback edition, 1965, Pocket Books.
Homebodies, first paperback edition, 1965, Pocket Books.

The Edward Gorey Collection.

I still pick up the occasional Gorey book or Gorey-related item. In this case:

Edward Gorey: A Bibliographic Checklist, compiled by P. Matthew Monahan, 1985.
This is a small paper bibliography, bound in stiff paper wraps, listing all of Edward Gorey's books from The Unstrung Harp to The Prune People. This seems to be one of those labour of love endeavors as I've never heard of Monahan.

Mosher Books Collection.

I haven't done too much with my Mosher Books collection in the last few months. There was a time when they were rolling in like the tide. Now that I'm looking for specific editions, the flood tide has abated, a bit. Here are the latest additions to my collection of books published by Thomas B. Mosher:

Virginibus Puerisque, by Robert Louis Stevenson, published by Thomas B. Mosher, 1904.
Stevenson's essays on life and love were a great favourite among the publishers of Belles Lettres in the early XXth Century. This is part of the Vest Pocket Series, done in vellum wraps.

Helen of Troy, translated by Andrew Lang, published by Thomas B. Mosher, 1910.
This third edition of the story of Helen and the Trojan War done in verse and translated by Andrew Lang, is part of the Old World Series, one of 925 copies, slipcased and printed on Van Gelder paper.

A Masque of Dead Florentines, by Maurice Hewlett, published by Thomas B. Mosher, 1911.
This first edition is part of the Venetian Series and features the decorated vellum wraps peculiar to that series. Hewlett's dramatic poem recreates the heady days of Renaissance Florence.

The Mosher Books Catalogues
Catalogues for 1910, 1911, 1912, 1916, 1917 and 1918.

The Ezra Pound Collection

The Cantos of Ezra Pound, 1948, first thus, New Directions.
A very rare first thus edition of the Cantos with an unclipped dust jacket.

The Spirit of Romance, by Ezra Pound, 1952, possible first thus, New Directions.
This edition was printed in the Republic of Ireland with non-existant copyright information. Judging from the date of the introduction and the list of other Pound books available, I conclude that this is a probable first thus edition.

And now you're up to date on my book collection and we can progress.