Collectible Condition!

I just wanted to post this to show collectors, especially of children's books, that is not always necessary to compromise on condition.

THE FLYING EXPLORER is an aviation title by Theiss and is one of my pride and joys: it is a 1935 First Edition and still the condition is Fine in a Fine dustjacket.

Wilfred McCormick

One author who is an exception to the rule that football stories are slow sellers is Wilfred McCormick. McCormick wrote both baseball and football juveniles.

The Bronc Burnett stories was his main series. This series was published from 1948 through 1967 by various publishers and reprinted by Grosset & Dunlap. Even the Grosset reprints are bought by collectors, though of course the books issued by the original publishers: Putnam, McKay and Bobbs-Merrill have the most value.

Scouting: juvenile sports books

Early juvenile sports stories, especially those written from the 40's through to the 70's are always worth scouting. I've found over the years that the genre desirability is roughly in the following order of interest: Baseball, Baseball and Baseball then Golf, Martial Arts, Surfing, Ice Hockey, Basketball and Football. (I admit to an American bias here, I have handled and sold very few Soccer books.)

Genre collectors are still interested in condition as well as content, but overall scarcity of the item rules the day. A few years ago I had a rather thin, unimpressive juvenile bio of a baseball player which I listed online at a modest price which sold within 6 hours. The book was only in very good condition, the author was unremarkable, but it turned out that it was the only bio ever written about that particular player. A fact that the second, third and fourth people who called about the book were very quick to point out.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

I mentioned in a previous post that Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes was one of my all time favorite childhood reads. I not only read all his Tarzan books, but his Mars and Venus series too.

For any other fans there is a great website dedicated to All Things Burroughs published by his grandson at: www.tarzan.com.

a puzzlement....

I spent a good part of today going through a box of old children's magazines; Childrens Digest, Story Parade and of course Jack and Jill. (I love days like this when I get to browse/handle/read the material instead of processing/invoicing/packing it.)

In reviewing the Jack and Jill magazines I found in the July 1958 issue a Fae folk story called Billy Hook and the Three Souvenirs by Ted Hughes. I was able with a quick bit of online research to confirm that this was the same Hughes that was both the former Poet Laureate of England and former husband of Sylvia Plath. But I also came up with a bit of contradictory information: In one reference, page 164, of The Cambridge Companion to Sylvia Plath it states that Plath was co-author on this story while in a biography of Plath, Rough Magic by Paul Alexander it states (page 224) that this story was written by Ted Hughes alone.

These were the only two online references to this story that I found, hopefully I will find time to research this further.

7/7/07 update

I found a very interesting Horn Book article, quoted in part below, which actually cites Sylvia Plath's Journal and states that Ted Hughes wrote Billy Hook and the Three Souvenirs without any collaboration.

July 1958. Ted publishes his first story for children. Sylvia writes in her journal: “Vicarious joy at Ted’s writing which opens promise for me too: New Yorker’s 3rd poem acceptance & a short story for Jack & Jill. 1958: The year I stop teaching & start writing.” Sylvia regarded the acceptance as a kind of talisman, confirmation of their “promise” as writers. When the story is published, Sylvia writes in her journal: “In the A & P I rushed to the magazine rack & there was Ted’s story ‘Billy Hook and the Three Souvenirs’ in the July issue of Jack & Jill. The story was sumptuously presented: two fine lively color pictures & two half-tone drawings: gay & magic.”

condition report

Weather Conditions: 38 degrees and forecasting 1-2 inches of snow
(the tulips are very confused.....)

Bookseller Condition: as confused as the tulips....

even as x-libris

Another title that I'm always looking for at library sales is:

MR. WICKER'S WINDOW by Carley Dawson. Illustrated by Lynd Ward. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1952.

This was a very well written time-slip fantasy as were the sequels THE SIGN of THE SEVEN SEAS and DRAGON RUN. All three were well written, very collectible, and well worth picking up even as a library discard.