The New Literary Appreciation

In 1936 F. Scott Fitzgerald's royalties amounted to $81.18. Late last month, a signed first edition of The Great Gatsby was auctioned at Sotheby Parke Bernet in New York City for $4,250. Critic Malcolm Cowley's copy of Gatsby was knocked down at $1,000, and his copy of Tender Is the Night, inscribed by the author, went for $3,200. Dozens of other major and minor writers of the 1920s were similarly appreciated. William Faulkner's The Marble Faun--well preserved and signed --brought $6,250; William Carlos Williams' scarce first book Poems went for $16,000. When the hammer sounded for Ezra Pound's privately printed A Lume Spento, the winning bid was $18,000--the most ever paid for a modern American first edition.

Hemingway memorabilia also set new marks. A series of 30 letters and cards to his parents during the years 1920 to 1928 brought $65,000. The Bible he carried as an ambulance driver in World War I fetched $4,500. One dealer even paid $2,750 for two pages of nine-year-old Ernest's scrawl describing how a clam in his school aquarium caught a goldfish by the tail.

Rare-book dealers and collectors had mixed feelings about the record costs. "The Snopeses are in the market," grumbled one bibliopole, as agents for wealthy clients pushed prices to new highs. But as the bidding raised the value of items already in his stock, the same dealer was heard whispering to himself, "Go, go."

Paper Chase. Two days later, more than 100 of his colleagues gathered at New York's Plaza Hotel for the 13th Annual International Antiquarian Book Fair. There celebrities like Zero Mostel and Jackie Onassis, substantial as morocco-bound sets, and youths, shabby as prison paperbacks, browsed through more than $2 million worth of books, manuscripts and incunabula. Among the items for sale was a two-volume set of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, inscribed by the author. The price for this piece of the true Hakenkreuz: $4,600.

No visitor to the hide-and clothbound world of rare-book dealers can fail to sense the excitement of the current paper chase. Behind the talk of versos and rectos is the awareness that big money is moving into the market. Disenchanted with stocks, wealthy investors have sought to beat inflation with old books. Connecticut Businessman Jonathan Goodwin, whose books were sold at the record-breaking auction, at least tripled his investment.

Buying "high spots," as the most desirable books are called, is no guarantee of profits. Authors' reputations can rise and fall like cyclical securities. In first-edition fiction, it is usually the collective judgment of critics that establishes basic market value. But tastes change. John Galsworthy seemed a safe bet in 1930 when a first edition of his The Man of Property (1906) sold for about $250. Today that property, in good condition, would be worth a little more than half that amount. During the '50s, literary quarterlies were fragrant with allusions to Henry James' "sensibility." In the '60s, popular interest in James receded --and prices leveled off. Anyone who paid dearly for a signed copy of Richard Nixon's My Six Crises in 1972 would now find the book about as valuable as a campaign promise.

Thackeray Breaks. Such transactions take place on the fringes of book collecting. The true bibliophile is obsessed by a kind of dialectical immaterialism. He may talk knowledgeably about points, bindings and hinges, but his real motive is to create out of books the illusion of a safe and familiar world of his own. Pressured executives relax with first editions of Dashiell Hammett. Detectives have been known to take Thackeray breaks. The case of Gary Lepper, a California collector and former investigative lawyer, is typical: "I was engaged," he recalls, "in tracking down a particularly endearing thug who stole five cars, robbed four people --shooting one and stabbing another --and murdered two others in two days. And people ask me why I collect books." Reading the thousands of entries in dealers' catalogues can be not only soothing but usually less expensive than the public block. "Auctions are to be avoided under pain of death," says Maurice Sendak, the author and children's book illustrator who collects James, Melville and Mickey Mousiana.

Jack Matthews, novelist, collector and author of Collecting Rare Books for Pleasure and Profit (Putnam; $12.95), has made some of his best buys in retail bookshops. Shortly after John Berryman's death in 1972, he bought half a dozen pristine copies of the poet's Love & Fame off a remainder table for $1.95 each. Two dealers' catalogues recently listed these books at $10 and $12.50.

Habitual book buyers may be unwitting collectors, especially if their new first editions are shelved and forgotten. Few realize that treasures may be gathering value as well as dust on their bookshelves. First novels rarely appear in first printings of more than 5,000. About three-quarters of these may go to libraries, whose stamps render them invalid as collector's items. After complimentary and review copies are accounted for, perhaps only 10% of the first printing may actually get sold in retail bookstores. Hence a clean copy of a first edition of a first novel whose author goes on to fame and fortune will increase in value. In 1961 the first printing of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 numbered 7,500 copies. Since the novel caught on slowly, most of these copies were remaindered. A "fine" copy of a volume (fine refers to the pages and dust jacket, not to prose) will now cost about $150.

Maltese Falcon. Saul Bellow is another author whose early novels are highly prized. First editions of The Victim, The Dangling Man and Seize the Day bring anywhere from $50 to $150. Women poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton are appreciating rapidly. There is also a growing list of sentimental favorites of the past 15 or 20 years. Included are William Eastlake's Go in Beauty and The Bronc People, Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, John Gardner's scarce first novel The Resurrection, and Larry McMurtry's Horseman, Pass By.

Besides first-edition fiction, old scientific books and elaborate art volumes are highly valued specialties. Isaac Newton's The Method of Fluxions and Infinite Series (1736) is worth more than $500. Henri Matisse's limited Jazz (1947) is priced at $20,000. Juveniles present a special problem: most of them have been handled by children. But science fiction and mysteries offer opportunities for the canny speculator. A much sought sci-fi item is H.P. Lovecraft's The Outsider and Others, which costs about $200. A clean, jacketed copy of Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land may go for $100. In the mystery genre, a perfect Maltese Falcon was recently offered for $700. Among the more elusive titles are Rex Stout's Fer-de-Lance and Ellery Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery. Fine copies run from $200 to $300.

Book collecting, like life, causes conflicts of love and money. The two realms need not be mutually exclusive, yet to cloister a book like a virgin in a medieval tower does not hold universal appeal. Critic Edmund Wilson was particularly hard on collectors and dealers. "There is no special virtue in first editions," he wrote. "All this trade is as deeply boring to people who are interested in literature as it seems to be fascinating to those others who, incapable of literary culture, try to buy the distinction of letters by paying unusual prices for bibliographical rarities." But in strange ways, love supports money. If it were not for the users of books--passionately stripping off jackets and bending spines--those prim, unsullied copies would not be worth much more than the unread paper they are printed on.

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