So, when you get these first editions, signed or expensive books, do you get them because you like the author? Or is it purely because of what they are?
Well, as I said in my first post in thread:
in no single occasion here did I seek out a book because it was rare or valuable; it just happened to be a book I wanted very badly to get, and that was the only way I could get it
It isn't only liking the author, but, as noted elsewhere, it can be an obsession with the subject matter, or because it is a book put out by a particular publisher for whom I have high regard (this was the case when I was collecting Arkham House books -- sadly, I had to let nearly all of those go some years ago, and am unlikely to ever be in a position again to afford such a habit
), or because it is simply a stunningly beautiful book (art books, things from certain small publishers, such as Centipede Press, etc.), or many other factors.
One of those, as K. Riehl noted, is:
I like owning things that evoke history. When I hold and read a copy of Astounding from 1930 and see, and smell, and feel the very different world view that people had at that time it helps rekindle that "sense of wonder" that I had as a kid.
I have several books of that nature which I have picked up over a lifetime, including a 1793 edition of Johnson's
Idler (in 2 volumes); an 1841 edition of John Lloyd Stephens'
Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land (which I picked up for a dollar -- for both volumes!); that edition of Garth's
Dispensary I mentioned earlier; my volumes of Bulwer-Lytton's
Works; that 4-in-3 volume set of
The Newgate Calendar, and so on. With me, there's not only the tactile sensations surrounding such a treasure (the feel and smell of the paper and binding -- quite different from a book of today; the typography; and so on) but also the imaginative stimulus of the history such an item has seen... the various ages it has existed through; the differences in how people of various generations have viewed it and what it meant to those times; the idea of being part of a continuing chain carrying this little bit of history onward from the past into the future, and so on. And, with me, there is also the fact that, in researching Lovecraft and his work, it is sometimes very important to look at a particular edition of a work for things which inspired or influenced him -- hence my getting a copy of a single-volume edition of Bulwer's
A Strange Story, Zanoni, and "The Haunted House" (a.k.a. "The Haunted and the Haunters; or, the House and the Brain"), etc..
So, as I said before, it can be any number of factors beyond the one of the writer him- or herself, but it is never
because it is expensive, a first edition, or collectible, unless there is something else that makes that important for my needs....
