I had a family Christmas event at my aunt’s house in Dallas over the weekend, so I hit a few bookstores on my way up I-35, buying a smattering of things.
Then I went to Recycled Books in Denton and dropped $1,100. (This is not an uncommon occurrence.) This post just covers the things I found in their locked rare books section; the rest will be covered in posts over the next few days. (I’m running out of year!))
Another book from my recent buying spree, an early Arkham House title:
Smith, Clark Ashton. Lost Worlds. Arkham House, 1944. First edition hardback, a Near Fine+ copy with slight crimping at head and heel, bump to top front corner, usual age darkening to pages, and a trace of foxing to gutters, in a Near Fine dust jacket with age darkening to light-colored portion of spine, short closed tear and associated 1/2″ wrinkle crease at head, a tiny bit of rubbing at heel, and age darkening around edges and crease folds. Smith’s second prose collection and the seventh Arkham House book published. Currey (1978), page 453. Locke, Spectrum of Fantasy One, page 200. Bleiler, Guide to Supernatural Fiction, 1485. Tymn, 4-202. Joshi, Sixty Years of Arkham House 7. Derleth, 30 Years of Arkham House, 7. Jaffery (1982), 7. Nielsen, 7. Bought for $172 off the Internet.
My efforts to collect all of Robert A. Heinlein in first edition continue apace. Here are two Heinlein first editions, as well as an important related critical work.
From Michael Swanwick comes the sad news that Rosemary Wolfe, Gene Wolfe’s wife of more than 50 years, has died.
I don’t have a lot to add to Michael’s write-up. I knew that she had been suffering for ill health for some time, and had been confined to 24-hour care for over a year.
My condolences to Gene and the rest of the Wolfe family on her passing.
Here’s a scanned picture of Gene and Rosemary on their wedding day from A Wolfe Family Album:
And here’s a picture of Gene and Rosemary (with Elizabeth Hand in-between) at the 2009 Readercon:
Another notable book from the golden age of the genre small press:
Moore, C.L. Judgment Night. Gnome Press, 1952. First edition hardback, a Near Fine+ copy with slight crimping at head and heel, mild foxing to inner gutters, and a few tiny spots of wear to bottom boards, in a Near Fine+ dust jacket with 1/4″ closed tear at heel, slight wrinkling at rear head, and a touch of edgewear. A truly superb, bright example of the dust jacket. Collection of five longer stories. Currey (1978), Page 377. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 199. Anatomy of Wonder 4, 3-130. Bought for $65 off eBay.
If you like Barry Hughart, you should really try reading Earnest Bramah’s Kai Lung series, which is exceptionally entertaining. Though most of the Kai Lung first editions were published slightly before my main collecting period, I do snatch up nice copies in dust jacket when I see them at an affordable price (though I doubt I’ll ever have a Bramah collection to rival Mike Berro’s).
Bramah, Earnest. The Moon of Much Gladness. Cassell & Company, 1932. First edition hardback (Berro A17), a Fine- copy with slight bends at head and heel in a VG+ dust jacket with a 1/8″ chip at rear head join, slight cracking at top edge of front cover, and dust soiling to rear, otherwise a fairly bright and attractive copy of a book seldom offered in dust jacket. Bought for $300 off the Internet from a major SF book dealer.
(Click to embiggen, but note that the what appear to be tiny spots of white rubbing to the black dj are in fact scanner artifacts.)
I knew that dealing books at Worldcon would eat up a lot of time, but I had no idea just how much time it would take me to not only get all the books back on the shelf, but to catch up on everything I set aside while getting ready for, then recovering from, Worldcon.
Which explains why I’m just now putting up the pictures I took there. Here are the handful of pictures I took at Worldcon that came out decent.
Clotheshorse that she is, the lovely and talented Gail Carriger kicks off our review with the first of three outfits I managed to photograph.
A second.
And a third.
And here’s the same outfit she insisted I snap with her own camera. “You’ve got to include the shoes!”
Stina Leicht, sitting next to me at the Rayguns Over Texas event at the San Antonio Library.
Scott Cupp and Josh Rountree at the same event. The other photos I took there came out crappy.
Bookseller and con chair Mike Walsh.
Lou Antonelli channels Flavor-Flav.
Howard Waldrop and Eileen Gunn, just before Howard went three rounds with a concrete step.
And here’s Howard just after that bout.
Andrew Porter, now free of the terrible burden of publishing a semi-prozine.
Pat Murphy, back again.
Ex-NASA employee Al Jackson.
Ex-Austinite Maureen McHugh.
Kim Stanley Robinson, back from whatever frozen locale he’s visiting this time. Possibly Iapetus.
Gardner Dozois at full rant.
Gardner Dozois at full rest. The two modes are deceptively similar.
In 2012, Pat Cadigan asked me to take down one of her pictures. So this year I made sure that this picture with Robert Silverberg was 100% flattering.
I think this is a very good picture of Dwight Brown.
Rich Simental, who spent much of the con in his room working on a completely different con.
Ben Yalow. Or possibly one of those hundreds of Ben Yalow impersonators you hear so much about.
Max Merriwell, in a very clever diusguise.
David Kyle, who I think has passed the late Forrest J. Ackerman for Most Worldcons Attended.
I’m sorry that I didn’t get pictures of Alastair Reynolds, David Brin, Jack McDevitt, Joe and Joy Haldeman, and Lois McMaster Bujold (among others I missed), who were all kind enough to come by the Lame Excuse Books booth.
Some more library additions, with no particular theme except books signed by the author.
If you collect everything an author wrote (or, in my case, everything they wrote which has been published as a separate items), you can end up with things that stray fairly far from what most people think of as “books.” Here are two recent acquisitions that may cause more than one collector to go “What the hell?”
Another crazy collector item for my Zelazny library:
(Zelazny, Roger) Kovacs, Christopher, compiler. The Ides of Octember: A Pictorial Bibliography of Roger Zelazny. NESFA Press/Camelot Books, 2011. First hardback edition, letter M of 21 lettered copies with a Zelazny signature sheet (taken from unused Ultramarine Press Zelazny books), a Fine copy in three-quarters bound leather, in a Fine patterned traycase with the pictorial cover from the trade paperback edition, sans dust jacket, as issued.
An elaborate aftermarket edition of this Zelazny incorporating unbound NESFA sheets obtained by the compiler.
I paid $191 for it, considerably less than the $500 list price it was offered at.