Although best known for his novels, particularly his timeless classic Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry always saw himself as a poet.

This collection, put out in a very small first print run by the University of British Columbia Press, contains every Lowry poem in existence — 490 in total.

Paul Tiessen of Wilfrid Laurier University gave this review: ”In the past two or three decades, various scholars and critics have referred to Malcolm Lowry’s own high estimation of himself as a poet and his life-long commitment to writing poetry, but they have had no opportunity to actually examine the incredible scope – the range and variety – of Lowry’s achievement as a poet. Kathleen Scherf here provides a masterly scholarly presentation of the poems — in an edition which surveys all known drafts of Lowry’s nearly 500 poems, from Lowry’s work in the Leys in the mid-1920s, to his 1950s love poems in Canada and England … Scholars around the word will welcome publication of Scherf’s authoritative text of Lowry’s poems.”

Scholars find this carefully edited collection to be indispensable to the Lowry researcher, as well as the many Lowry fans and completionists of the world.

This copy is in fine/fine condition. These are high quality cloth bound hardcovers. I found it in a local used book store for a very reasonable price.

First printings like this one are now very scarce. In fact, there is only one (near fine) copy on AbeBooks at the moment, but considering its rarity, it is relatively inexpensive at slightly less than $150. Later printings can be found for $75 or so.

Johns Hopkins University Press put this book out two years later in the United States, and there is a single copy for sale on-line for $100. This is probably a later printing, as there is no mention of edition or print number.

Prices have risen over the last couple of years. If you come across a UBC Press first printing in decent condition for less than $100, I think you would do well to add it to your collection.

Down at the Dinghy first came out in Harper’s magazine in April, 1949. Copies of this magazine are hard to find, much harder than any of Salinger’s New Yorker stories, but there is one for sale on-line today in fair condition for $325. Harper’s magazines of that era were cheaply made and there are many condition issues to watch out for.

This Bantam Giant edition is an anthology of Harper’s best stories from 1949 to its release in March, 1953, including Down at the Dinghy. Check out some of the other trail blazing titles listed on the front cover.

Later in 1953, Little, Brown and Company put out the extremely popular collection Nine Stories, which, of course, also includes the story Down at the Dinghy.

Harper’s also put out a hardcover bound copy of all their magazines from 1949 through 1950, mainly for library distribution. It is unclear when these bound volumes were released, but it was definitely after Nine Stories came out. There are a couple of these for sale on-line today. One is $50 and the other is $150, but I have seen them in relatively good condition sell for as low as $10 plus shipping.

This is Salinger’s first story to veer away from his horrific combat experiences during World War II. In this story, Salinger explores the issue of post-war anti-semitism, at a time when the world was first beginning to understand the atrocities perpetrated against certain minorities during the war. Salinger himself witnessed one of the concentration camps at the close of the war.

This Bantam Giant copy is in surprisingly good condition. These large format paperbacks were also very cheaply made, and it is not uncommon to find them in rough condition — even falling apart. The pages are similar to construction paper, so tanning and chipping are common. If not properly stored, the glue can dry out, and thus pages, even the entire text block, can come loose.

This issue has none of those problems. In fact, as you can see from the photos, there is only one small corner crease on the front cover. I would rate the condition near fine.

You might think that, because this edition is only the second appearance of Down at the Dinghy in print, that the value should be quite high. In fact, these can be found for between $15 and $100, depending on condition. First printings of Nine Stories, on the other hand, go for as high as $3,500 unsigned — $30,000 signed.

In time, the rarity of this edition should be recognized and values should rise accordingly. For now, if you can find a nice copy for a decent price, pick it up, store it safely in an mylar archival sleeve, and wait patiently.

Having so far written about 300 posts about other people’s writing, now I am going to showcase my own fiction. Last year, Crack the Spine, an on-line literary journal, published 2 of my short stories.

Life Shrinkage, published in April, 2012, is a flash fiction piece which takes place in the near future. It portrays a character with an intellectual disability 20-odd years after his release from one of our draconian institutions, where he was held for decades. It is meant to show how far people with disabilities can come, living in the community and given caring and meaningful support — support with a focus on self determination and the building of unpaid networks of friends and family. It has been nominated for a Micro Award for Flash Fiction. The link to this story is here.

Life Shrinkage is now out in print! To buy a copy of ‘Crack the Spine’s Summer 2012 Anthology’ click here.

The New Guy was published in August, 2012. It shares the same protagonist as in Life Shrinkage, but takes place back in 1989, just a few short weeks after his release from institutional care. I hope that it shows, behind a veil of humor, the damage that the institutions did (and in some cases, are still doing) to our most vulnerable citizens. The New Guy can be read here.

If you like my website, I hope you will read these two stories. If you enjoy the stories, perhaps you will consider clicking on Crack the Spine’s ‘comments’ link under the cover art for each issue and leaving a comment.

Thanks!

Murakami takes his readers into a Japanese world of dream-like imaginings in this modern classic.

This epic novel is much broader in scope than any of Murakami’s previous work, and it does away with a lot of the pop culture references of his earlier work as well. This is the book that made Japanese reviewers take Murakami more seriously. It won the Yomiuri Literary Award; a prestigious Japanese Prize.

The English language translation came out to mixed reviews.  The Library Journal review ends with, “Though interesting in parts, taken as a whole, this latest from Murakami labors diligently toward some larger message but fails in the attempt.”

On the other hand, a New York Times reviewer talks about how this book owes a debt to both Hemingway and Kafka. From Kirkus Reviews: “On a canvas stretched from Manchuria to Malta, and with sound effects from strange bird-calls to sleigh bells in cyberspace, this is a fully mature, engrossing tale of individual and national destinies entwined. It will be hard to surpass.”

This Knopf first printing is the first English language edition. It was put out in England by the Harvill Press one year later.

I would rate the condition fine/fine. I love the design of this book. The dust jacket is beautifully embossed, and the circular pattern on the jacket is matched on the title page and on the copyright page.

As you can see, this copy came with a bookplate, simply signed, Haruki. Signed copies on BookFinder today start at $650 for a copy with condition issues up to $950 for a fine copy. Because this one is signed on a bookplate, I would place the value somewhere between the low end and the middle of the price range.

Most of Murakami’s books have cool design features. His most valuable signed novel right now, at up to $9000, is the edition of 1Q84 which  came out as three beautifully bound books in a clear perspex case. 1Q84, by the way, is currently on the shortlist for the IMPAC Award.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was translated into English by Jay Rubin. Two chapters were originally published in the New Yorker magazine under different titles.

A note of interest: there are significant differences between the Japanese and the American versions of this book, and there are minor differences between the American and the British editions.

Allen Ginsberg started writing Howl in 1954 and it was published in 1955 as number 4 in City Lights Pocket Poets series. It is now known as one of the greatest works of American literature. Ginsberg, strongly influenced by William Carlos Williams and Jack Kerouac, was one of the founders of the Beat Generation.

Early versions of Howl were criticized by friends as stilted and academic. In the middle of re-writing his poem, Ginsberg altered his style, creating his own unique form which is a long line based on breath length and organized by a fixed base.

In 1957, Howl was the subject of a much publicized obscenity trial wherein the publisher and the bookstore owner were arrested after the first shipment of the book was seized by U.S. Customs. Supported by the Civil Liberties Union, the pair won their case.  Judge Clayton Horn decided that the poem was of “redeeming social importance.” Ultimately the trial made Howl famous and sales increased by a huge margin.

This copy is a 50th printing in fine condition. It is signed and doodled upon by Ginsberg while on a 1994 reading tour. The flower doodle is a common sight in Ginsberg’s signed works.

Ginsberg, openly gay, met  his partner Peter Orlovsky in 1954. They were together until Ginsberg’s death in 1997.

In 2010, Howl came out as an American film which explores both the 1955 Six Gallery reading and the subsequent obscenity trial. The film stars James Franco as Ginsberg.

This opening line is the best known part of Howl:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

Time magazine called For Esme — With Love and Squalor “the warmest and best of the Nine Stories”. It was an instant huge success; according to Wikipedia, Salinger received more fan mail for it than for any other story.

It first came out in the April 8, 1950 New Yorker magazine, and within three months it was reproduced in this British World Review magazine.

Above the story in the World Review, the editor wrote, “This story appeared recently in America and has already become famous. It has been called a perfect example of the classic short story form. I thought readers of the World Review might like to form their own opinion.”

I have only ever seen three copies of this edition of the World Review magazine for sale, ever. Currently, there are none available on-line.

The true first edition is the above noted New Yorker magazine, which also happens to be much easier to find. Over the years you see the New Yorkers come up for sale fairly regularly.

Still, the World Review is worth maybe one fifth the value of the New Yorker.

I would give this magazine a good to good plus condition rating. The cover, which is prone to fading, is still quite bright, although the same cannot be said for the spine. Also, the glue used along the spines of these very cheaply made magazines actually eats through the paper over time. I do not think there are any copies out there without at least some glue damage along the spine.

The interior of this copy though, besides some tanning of the page edges, is very nice. And it still has its original subscription card tucked inside.

Look closely at the paper the story is printed on. Doesn’t it conjure up visions of dollar store colouring books?

All in all, this is an extremely rare version of Salinger’s classic story For Esme — With Love and Squalor, but as I said, even though these World Review magazines are very scarce, the odd time they do come up they are usually been very reasonably priced.

The condition issues I talked about are so ubiquitous that they shouldn’t make much difference to the value. In fact, red flags should go up if you were to find one for sale without any condition issues.

This is the back cover blurb for Even the Dogs: “On a still and frozen day between Christmas and New Year, a man’s body is found lying in his ruined flat. Found, and then taken away, examined, investigated and cremated. As the state begins its detailed, dispassionate inquest, the man embarks on his last journey through a world he has not ventured into, alive, for years. In his wake, a series of fractured narratives emerge from squats and alleyways across the city: the short and stark story of the man, and of his friends who look on from the shadows, keeping vigil as the hours pass, paying their own particular homage. As they watch, their stories unfurl layer by layer; stories of lives fallen through the cracks, hopes flaring and dying, love overwhelmed by a stronger need, and the havoc wrought by drugs, distress and the disregard of the wider world. Intense, exhilarating, and shot through with hope and fury, Even the Dogs is an intimate exploration of life at the edges of society; littered with love, loss, despair and a glimpse of redemption.”

Even the Dogs, McGregor’s third novel, won the 2012 International Dublin IMPAC Literary Award.

The reviewers have mixed feelings about this book. Publishers Weekly said, “…the central mystery—how did Robert die?—goes nowhere, and the spliced-in set pieces that describe the stages Robert’s body undergoes on its way to eventual cremation don’t do any favors for this misfire.”

Joanne Wilkinson in her Booklist review said, “…McGregor succeeds in paying homage to the dispossessed and the hopeless, who live and die on the margins of society.”

Although it is hard to read about these shattered lives, I thought McGregor did a great job of laying out the story in a fragmented but lyrical way that draws the reader in and slowly reveals the voices telling the story. It is a challenging read, but well worth the effort.

This is a signed, placed, and dated true first edition in fine condition. These are unusual in that they are a hybrid between a hardcover and a paperback. The pictorial linen covered boards are slightly stiffer than a paperback and there is no dust jacket. Some sellers are calling it a “bendy hard cover.”

Prices for these signed first editions range between $50 and $225. This copy would be at the top of the range, being not only signed but placed in Hay on Wye, England, and dated in the month of publication.

Jon McGregor is a writer on the rise. He has won the Betty Trask Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award and has twice been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Get your signed copy soon, because having won the IMPAC Award, prices for this novel are sure to rise.

This beautiful novel by Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk uses the story of a rich Turkish man’s selfish love of a shop girl as a metaphor for the struggles of a Westernizing society that clings to its traditional view of women as chattel. In the main character’s obsession, he collects a museum full of artifacts of his love.

A novel for collectors about the psychology of collecting!

According to Wikipedia, Pamuk is opening a real Museum of Innocence, featuring Turkish everyday items from the era of the novel — specifically, 1975 to 2005.

Pamuk holds many honours and doctorates and has won many awards, including the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Also in 2006, Time Magazine listed Pamuk as one of the ’100 people who shape our world’ for having had the courage to speak out against the mass killings of the Armenians and the Kurds in Turkey during the Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1923) — comments for which he subsequently faced more than 20 criminal charges. The charges were eventually dropped.

I have two signed copies of this 600 page novel. The first one arrived slightly damaged, packed for international shipping in just a plain paper envelope with no padding. I bought that copy on eBay from someone who does not normally sell books. To be honest, I should have, but didn’t, tell them how I wanted it packed. They were nice though. They told me to keep that copy (return internationally shipping from Canada is prohibitively expensive) and they sent me this copy.

So, this is a true first English language edition in fine/fine condition. It is prominently signed, as you can see, and I even have a photograph of Pamuk at the signing event. The other copy is in very good/near fine condition, with bumped extremities on both the book and (less so) on the dust jacket. The former is worth about $150 to $275 today on-line. The latter, $45 to $100.

If an author really stands the test of time, however, and Pamuk almost certainly will, then the condition of their signed books makes less difference in the long run. If you look at Hemingway or Salinger right now, for instance, it is the signature itself which holds most of the value. Even a receipt signed by J.D. Salinger fetches thousands of dollars in today’s market.

Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms when he was thirty years old and it was an immediate success. Dubbed his bleakest novel, it was also his first bestseller.

When this novel, set during the Italian campaign of World War 1, came out, censors removed swear words such as shit, fuck and cocksuckers, and replaced them with dashes. The colourful language was never incorporated into later editions, however, there are at least two copies of the first edition wherein Hemingway re-inserted the censored language by hand. One copy was given to James Joyce and the other to Maurice Coindreau.

This edition is unique. It includes Heminway’s own introduction which originally appeared in the 1948 illustrated edition, as well as a foreword by the author’s son, Patrick Hemingway, and a new introduction by the author’s grandson, Sean Hemingway.

Hemingway famously said that he re-wrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times, and this edition contains all thirty-nine endings, as well as earlier drafts of some of the most famous passages, giving readers a glimpse into Hemingway’s creative process.

This copy is in brand new condition. Even though it just came out in July of 2012, first printings are already selling on-line for over $100. It may still be possible to find these first printings new at your local independent book stores — it is well worth looking around for it.

A couple of other cool features of this edition are that the interior boards are decorated with images of Hemingway’s own handwritten edits of the original manuscript. Also, the back cover is the same as the true first edition from 1929.

All-in-all this is a very collectible edition of one of the greatest American works of fiction. Treat it carefully, though. One of the down sides to this edition is that the dust jackets are easily chipped and sun damaged. If you are adding this book to your collection it is best to protect the jacket in a mylar sleeve and put it away somewhere out of the light.

Although the original novellas that make up this book first came out in Britain in 1992 and 1994, this 2003 collection is the American debut of Edward St. Aubyn.

The collection came out in the U.K. in 1998 under the title The Patrick Melrose Trilogy.

Personally, I think that St. Aubyn is one of the best, most literate writers of our time.

This is  the true first edition of the collection under this title. Picador in England put out a mass market paperback of the trilogy under this same title in 2006. And of course the third novella in this collection is also titled Some Hope and was published in hardcover on its own in 1994.

I know, it is all a little confusing.

Recently, prices for this edition have risen a fair amount. Although there are none available on-line right now, I would expect an unsigned copy in fine condition to fetch $100+. There is one signed uncorrected proof listed today for about $225.

This copy is in very good condition; the only thing keeping it from being fine is some minor bubbling of the laminate at the bottom of the front cover. This is a very common problem with this edition. Because of this, I would price this copy at $60 — in other words, a little over half of the value of a fine copy.

Take note on the copyright page shown above that this American publication was printed in Canada, and uses a standard 1 to 10 number line. The 1 showing signifies that this is a first printing.

If you are interested, check out opencity.org for information on this unique, non-profit publisher.

St. Aubyn is worth collecting. Although prices are rising, his first editions right now are still relatively inexpensive, even signed. His books are destined, I believe, to become modern classics.