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?