What is the most expensive book you have bought?

[Extollager]

THE TIMES ATLAS OF WORLD HISTORY, one of those big coffee table books. Cost me $80 back in the eighties. Kind of scary even back then but I was single and working full-time. Couldn't do that today. Nope, no way.

I got all five volumes of the Times Atlas, the Mid-Century edition, for either 25c or 50c each, as university library discards some years ago. These are very large books ("elephant folios," perhaps) in which each map is tipped in. Only the one with the North American maps seems to have been used very much. They are bound in bright red cloth with gold-stamped titles. I read a fair bit of travel writing and it's fun to take the appropriate volume(s) out when I do.

 

[Christopher Lee]

Yeah, I'm cheap. The most expensive would be a college text book last semester that was 250 USD but that was paid for with my loans.

Personally, out of my pocket, the most expensive book I've purchased would be the hardcover of Terry Brook's Sword of Shannara trilogy. All three in the one book. I think it was 40 USD.

 

[j d worthington]

Damn I seem to be suffering form amnesia this evening....too much drool no doubt.

Anyway, I was in a position to purchase an amazing article a few years back at WorldCon in Japan but didn't quite have the nerve to go through with it. It was a first edition HB of one of H.P. Lovecraft's works. It may have been A Shadow Out Of Time? I can't recall now. It was Lovecraft's own personal copy he kept is his library, which subsequently was passed on to Robert Bloch (author of Psycho amongst other works) who knew Lovecraft and this resided in his personal library before being passed on to other collectors. Quite an interesting history no? OH..and it also contained original signatures by both Lovecraft and Bloch on boiler plate, inside cover. The price was just a mere $2,000 US but I rather think it will have gone up by now. Sigh....

My memory may be playing me false, but as I recall, what you are talking about was a copy of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which was published in a very limited edition; the only hardbound book of HPL's to be released in his lifetime.* That one has an interesting history, including the fact that the publisher had his fingers crushed in the press during the process....

*This does not include his works in anthologies; I am referring to a book strictly by HPL....

 

[dask]

I got all five volumes of the Times Atlas, the Mid-Century edition, for either 25c or 50c each, as university library discards some years ago. These are very large books ("elephant folios," perhaps) in which each map is tipped in. Only the one with the North American maps seems to have been used very much. They are bound in bright red cloth with gold-stamped titles. I read a fair bit of travel writing and it's fun to take the appropriate volume(s) out when I do.

25 - 50 cents??? I'm not even going to respond to this. I'm going to pretend I never saw it.

If I can scrounge up $25 with a buck here and a buck there by summer I may go get ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 16TH CENTURY by C. S. Lewis if it's still there.

 

[firepanda]

Like dask, my copy of Times Atlas was expensive. Also, in NZ books are obscenely dear in the shops. 8-10 pound books cost about 18-20 pounds in New Zealand bookstores.

 

[K. Riehl]

I purchased an American first edition 2 volume set of Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and the Yucatan by John L. Stephens 1841, Harper and Brothers publisher.

It was a gift for my parents and I spent around $800. It is worth considerably more than what I paid for it.

My next most was $300 for an original manuscript of The Last Defender of Camelot by Roger Zelazny.

 

[GOLLUM]

My memory may be playing me false, but as I recall, what you are talking about was a copy of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which was published in a very limited edition; the only hardbound book of HPL's to be released in his lifetime.* That one has an interesting history, including the fact that the publisher had his fingers crushed in the press during the process....

*This does not include his works in anthologies; I am referring to a book strictly by HPL....

Ah thank you Yes that must have been the one I saw JD. I rather think my subconscious may have deliberately pushed the title to the background as a way of not reminding myself of all of the details at that time..still on balance I probably did the right thing as it was a lot of money and whilst I'm a fan of HPL and the Horror Genre I'm not sure if there is any book I would ever feel comfortable paying that much for.

I was not aware that the publisher 'had his fingers crushed in the press during the process'. a most interesting tidbit Sir...

 

[K. Riehl]

If you have an extra $7-$10 million laying around you can purchase this book on January 20Th.

http://www.christies.com/presscenter/pdf/2012/Audubon.pdf

 

[Extollager]

If I can scrounge up $25 with a buck here and a buck there by summer I may go get ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 16TH CENTURY by C. S. Lewis if it's still there.

Got a nice copy of this at a Tolkien conference about 11 years ago for about $10, with dustjacket. I don't know if I will ever read the entire book, but I come back again and again to the material on Spenser's Faerie Queene, one of my essential books.

 

[dask]

Got a nice copy of this at a Tolkien conference about 11 years ago for about $10, with dustjacket. I don't know if I will ever read the entire book, but I come back again and again to the material on Spenser's Faerie Queene, one of my essential books.

It would be interesting to compare what Lewis had to say about Faerie Queene with what John Erskine said in the chapter he devoted to it in his THE DELIGHT OF GREAT BOOKS.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Most expensive for me were always texts. For some reason they were often five times the price of anything else. My third year micro text, can't remember its name any more, was $800 kiwi new. I got a second hand one for $500 and felt really pleased. (The next year they brought out a new edition, and my book was worthless! Bastards!!!)

Also I purchased for my abnormal psych classes, the DSM III (this is going quite aways back obviously), and I seem to recall it costing north of $400 - second hand.

By contrast I don't think I've paid more then $40 or so bucks for any more readible works, and now that I can eread ebooks, that's dropped again.

Cheers, Greg.