A Book in the mail........bliss

This week was a great week for me as I was successful in not one but two eBay auctions that afforded me the opportunity to secure a first edition of #58 and a not so first edition of #61. (I’ll explain the “not so first edition” when the book arrives!) As for the numbers, well, I’m not being lazy, but this is interactive people, so go find out which books I found! Geez.

So, I made a Paypal payment, (pennies...really honey) and now I wait for the United States Postal Service media mail package to arrive. What do you think, 5 days, 7 days? Tick tock, tick tock...........

As I wait impatiently for these books to arrive, It got me thinking about the book buyers and collectors of the last century. Specifically up through the 1970s and his or her angst at waiting for a book. It is hard for us to imagine today having to wait weeks for a catalog, then having to write a letter to see if the books were still available, then sending a check, then waiting for the book to come, sight unseen I might add. Months and months perhaps.

There is a chapter in William Targ’s book in which he put together selected writings of Lawrence Clark Powell, entitiled “Bookman’s Progress”. The story I’m speaking of is called “To Newbury to Buy an Old Book”, in which he describes checking the morning mail and finding book catalogs and how it quickened his pulse. Powell said, “In my scale of values letters were second class mail; booksellers’ catalogs first.” He was living in England at the time and therefore had a heads up on the US book collector as he got the catalogs weeks before anyone in the states. Can you imagine?

Oh well, one thing I’m sure you’ll agree with me about is that there is nothing like getting that book in the mail. You check the address, yeah that’s me. You check to see who it’s from because let’s be honest, we’re not always waiting for just one book! Then it starts to hit you, this is “that” book. At last it’s here. Your pulse races a bit as you inspect the packaging. I hate it when someone sends a book in an envelope unwrapped, urgh! You want to make sure it’s been protected on its journey to you. Then it’s time to open the package and see what you’ve got.

Do you think that feeling has changed any over the last 100 years? I doubt it. bliss.


A clue of my latest find (The Peney Woods cabin at night)........care to guess?

Zamorano 80/23 Robert Cowan's Bibliography

                                

As a new resident of California, a reader, a book collector, and a history buff, It was inevitable that the Zamorano 80 would draw me in like a moth to a flame. The question is, where do I start? Now the experienced collector of western literature is laughing or looking down his nose at me for my naivety. How dare me to assume I can find all of these great books. Well then, there in lies the rub. How fun would it be to collect something pedestrian. 

According to rare book dealer Dorothy Sloan,  “Acquiring all eighty first editions of The Zamorano 80 is a major achievement. Only one institution (the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut) holds all eighty of the first editions. The Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley and the Huntington Library at San Marino, California, lack only the Yellow Bird (Zamorano 80 #64). Daniel G. Volkmann Jr., Henry H. Clifford, Thomas W. Streeter, and Frederick W. Beinecke are the only confirmed private collectors who achieved the distinction of acquiring all eighty first editions of The Zamorano 80.” (http://www.dsloan.com/Auctions/A12/DSIntro.htm)

So, my goal is to find each of these books in, first edition OR fine press edition OR early edition OR........you get the gist of it. I want nice books and will get what I can afford and keep looking for the rest. 

So let me tell you about one of the first books I found. As a collector, I was fascinated by the fact that a bibliography was included in the 80 books. I mean at first glance you have to ask why. Why would you pick a book that list books when there are so many books to choose from? Did I say that right? Also, why include a book that was written by a member of the club that created the list? Sounds narcissistic. The Zamorano book club website stated that it was a tribute to Cowan as a scholar.    (http://www.zamoranoclubla.org/zam80/) 

Ok, that seems odd. However, I found a copy of Robert Cowan’s “A bibliography of the History of California and the Pacific West 1510-1906” . printed by Long’s College Book Co. in 1952. It is a reprint of the original 1914 edition that includes Cowans annotations. I found it on ebay and paid $35.00 for it. Wow, what a bargain!  

Is is weird that I went title by title and did eBay and ABE searches for each title listed? Probably but wow, what a resource. I am learning a lot just reading the annotations and the chronological order list in the back of the book really helps a neophyte like me get a sense of the order of things. 

I understand that there is a 1933 edition in two volumes........umm.......I wonder if Barry Cassidy has a copy?

California is the place they oughta be....

In the summer of 2001 I read a story in Biblio Magazine ( I Think it was Biblio) about the Zamorano 80. It was the first time I had ever heard of the Zamorano club and since I was living in North Carolina and had in fact spent the majority of my life on the east coast, I paid little attention to the article except for the fact that the books being described were fascinating, both in content and in some instances their rarity.

During that time if you had told me that I would one day be moving my family across the United States to live in California, I would have laughed at the very thought and yet, it in 2008 we made the move. 

 I have always loved history and as a new resident to the great state of California, the memories of that article on the Zamorano 80 came back to me. I decided to start looking for these books. Let's see what I find!