Biggest, Littlest, Oddball Books in Your Collection

[Extollager]

I'm counting my books for The Book report next week --

I'm Going to Count My Books & Give THE BOOK REPORT on June 1

-- and thought some people here might be amused by a thread devoted to unusual books in our collections. I'm not thinking of books that are unusual because of their contents, but unusual because of their appearance.

I have five elephant folios, the volumes of a 1950s Times Atlas, and a tiny book, a Church of England Prayer Book from about 1900 that's not much wider and taller than a commemorative postage stamp. I also own a Ballantine paperback of The Hobbit whose cover art includes a lion, to which Tolkien objected, and so it was removed early on in the book's printing history.

This image, taken from Amazon, shows one of the atlas volumes with folding money on it to give a sense of scale:

Here's someone's image of the Hobbit edition with the very cartoony lion:

 

[J Riff]

I can never resist small books, so I have a few old dictionaries and whatnot. A friend once found the entire 'Little Library' series. For really small ones, you can use a bookshelf from a dollhouse. No, I just made that up, but it could work. What about 'Tom Thumb' - thumbnail-sized edition..

 

[Extollager]

I can never resist small books, so I have a few old dictionaries and whatnot. A friend once found the entire 'Little Library' series. For really small ones, you can use a bookshelf from a dollhouse. No, I just made that up, but it could work. What about 'Tom Thumb' - thumbnail-sized edition..

I think the linked story by M. R. James

http://www.thin-ghost.org/items/show/142

was written for the queen's doll house or something like that.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Just off the top of my head, our biggest book at home is also an atlas (I think it's from The Times.) The smallest one isn't extremely small; it's the size of one of those tiny books of inspirational quotes you're supposed to give as gifts (and it's about cats, if memory serves.) The oddest one may be a little promotional pamphlet from some publisher from decades ago, which imagines a wild party with the firm's various authors attending, involving all kinds of puns based on their names.

 

[K. Riehl]

My smallest is the the Fanzine called, Fancient. It's 4"by 5" and 32 pages. This is edition that almost got them thrown in jail for sending nude pictures through the mail.

 

[kythe]

I have a copy of the children's book "The Black Stallion" which is printed upside down. If you hold the cover upright, the words of the pages are upside down. When you are reading the book, it looks like you are reading upside down from other people's perspective. I've kept it all these years because I think it's funny.

 

[Extollager]

I have a copy of the first version of Tom Shippey's superb Road to Middle-earth printed defectively, Kythe. One reads it "back to front."

 

[Extollager]

K. Riehl, nice to see an interest in old fanzines here.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

My smallest book is a Korean-English/English-Korean dictionary, which measures approximately an inch tall and nearly that much deep.

I think my biggest book is an Art History textbook.

 

[J Riff]

Gutenburg bibles are huge, watch for them when digging in ancient ruins or at olde world garage sales. Usually Atlases were the biggest volumes laying around the bookstore, can't think of any truly huge books except one-offs here and there, probably art books reproducing famous paintings.
Tiny teeny books are way cool and can be gawked at by typing 'worlds smallest books' into yootoob. The world's smallest cat is on the same page, but don't be fooled.

 

[hitmouse]

The Hungry Caterpillar. Some fool made holes in all the pages.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Egad! Thats the edition of The Hobbit I first read in... erm... about 1968.

 

[Extollager]

With the lion?

 

[Alex The G and T]

Hmm.. I don't specifically remember anything pro or con about the lion; but it sure looks the same. Went along with my Ballantine box set for LOTR.

(All long since lent out to the wrong sort of people and never recovered)

I didn't realize until researching, just now, that there was an issue about the lion. I can see why Tolkien was distressed. Who's the bloody lion supposed to be? Aslan? Ptcha!

This is the edition currently on the shelf. I see that it has a forward by Peter S Beagle, dated 14 July 1973; which is extra fun for me because I was classmates, in Grade-School, with his daughters about 1963-1969.

 

[Extollager]

Ballantine got rid of the Hobbit cover lion after the first few printings. The paperback I knew and loved first had this art:


It's like the Soviet Encyclopedia, with inconvenient comrades airbrushed out! (No, of course, it isn't.)
TOTALITARIAN IMAGES: THE FALSIFICATION OF OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHS IN TOTALITARIAN REGIMES

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

I have a couple of waterproof books. I wish this technology was common, for I've certainly thrown away enough moldy or otherwise liquid damaged books.