C.N. & A.M. Williamson

I get queried a couple times a week by people wanting to know the values
of books they have, usually it turns out they're e-bay people wanting me
to do their research for them, & their emails get deleted along with
spams. But now and then a friend or a customer imposes, & even if they're
doing it for the same reason, they're chums, or perhaps it's just some
perversity of kindness overwhelms me, & if I know an aswer, I spout it
off. This latest query as to values, after I replied, I rather liked what
I'd written, & thought it might do double-duty if I also posted it here.

Hi Jessica. Once more I throw myself at your store of knowledge. I see
that you list books by these authors. Although there seems
to be a large supply of most of their books on-line, I couldn t find
anything about this specific one: The Night of the Wedding
by C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson. Published by
George H. Doran in 1923. Original copyright 1921 by Street and Smith.
No jacket. Book in good minus condition.

Thanks again and it s always a pleasure visiting your site.

The Williamsons were a prolific husband & wife team who wrote mainly
shop-girl romances, plus love story historicals. Of interest to me, they
also wrote "automobile romances." I stock automobile romances because I
personally find that now-extinct genre to be charming; but the books aren't
valuable. I also stock their historical love stories IF the bindings are
fresh & bright, though they're damnably hard to resell even at that. Some
of their books were super bestsellers, others had only a couple printings
and are now rare. But since no one really collects the Williamsons, the
books tend to get priced for the value of dustwrappers, or for the value of
ornate bindings in Fine (as-new) condition -- the value is in the beauty &
condition of the binding or jacket since no one reads shopgirl romances
today. (I think they should be collected for what they reveal about the
social status & expectations of women, & there are a few academics, chiefly
feminists, analyzing & publishing LitCrit about this aspect of popular
literature of those days. But even the academics expect to find the books
for a buck apiece in the throw-away bins outside of bookstores, & are not
looking to invest in or collect the finest specimen of first edition
shopgirl romances.) Even such better-respected authors as F. Marion
Crawford and Robert W. Chambers don't get much value placed on their
shopgirl romances, the dregs of all genres, the Harlequins of their day.

They wrote one rare Airplane romance ("Lady from the Air") that is valuable
in fine condition because many people do still collect romances of the
early days of flight, though alas too few share my interest in fiction
about the early days of driving cars. The book you have I have never seen
(at least, not that my memory cared to remember seeing). It is one of their
least common books; it probably had only one US printing (plus in the UK a
Hodder & Stoughton edition). The street & smith copyright could have been
an earlier paperback edition, but more likely it was for magazine
appearance as a serial. It came out after their popularity had waned, when
already there wasn't much call for their books. If it looked practically as
new I'd be tempted to put a slightly higher than average price on it
(thirty-five dollars instead of the usual five or ten) because even if it
took a few years to sell it, I'd have the only copy in Fine condition. But
a "less than Good" copy would go right into the Thriftstore box as unworthy
of shelving.

As a generality when you're out looking for books of value, where old
fiction is concerned, condition is everything. There really isn't much old
fiction by lesser-known or forgotten writers that has any value beyond the
beauty of the binding -- some few people collect especially art nouveau
bindings without regard for the author, fewer still collect Gibson
illustrations (though Gibson was more collected a generation ago, before
everyone who might've remembered those fashions became blind, bats, or
dead).

For any old first edition, in a Fine binding, one can just about justify
pricing it for $20 -- even if whoever put some energy into a search might
find it on their own cheaper, especially if all they wanted was a bunged up
copy. But having justification to price it even at a moderate level doesn't
mean anyone will ever buy it. Unless you already know there's a great deal
of demand for an author, OR that it is a topic that has devoted collectors
(hardhat diving, early flight, Victorian science fiction or Victorian
detective, Cromwellian setting...) it's not otherwise worth gathering in --
certainly not if it is worn. For it's going to be damned hard to resell at
any price high or low, but having a perfect copy improves the odds of
finding a customer for it at a price that justified having kept it in stock
so long.

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

Thanks, Paghat. That was fascinating - not so much (at least as far as I'm
concerned) for what it says about the Williamsons (of whom I have never
heard), but as an insight into the ins and outs of collecting genre/period
fiction.

I stock automobile romances because I personally find that
now-extinct genre to be charming; but the books aren't
valuable.

I wonder what it is that confers "collectibility" on one field (like
airplane romances, which you go on to mention) and yet not on another, even
though it may be quite closely related? Does it perhaps come down to a few
individuals - perhaps even just one person - who pioneered an interest? I am
reminded of an old friend (whom I haven't seen for many years) who - as an
adherent of the "traction engine movement" - used to take his handcrafted
oak-tanned leather goods to sell at all the steam traction rallies in
England. I wonder whether, as a result of his labours, the devotees of steam
traction are far more attuned, as a group, to the special qualities of such
leather goods than, say, philatelists or naturists?

Was there perhaps some dedicated bookman among the enthusiasts of early
flight who, as it were, "normalised" airplane romances in that discourse
community while, for the lack of such a person among the ranks of automobile
enthusiasts, this sibling genre goes comparatively unrecognised (or, at
least, under-appreciated)?

This strikes me as a fascinating aspect of the whole subject of
book-collecting, and one about which I know almost nothing. I suppose there
must be work done on the ways in which the tastes of the great
book-collectors of the past have moulded the taste of future generations,
but I have no idea even where to begin looking for it.

since no one really collects the Williamsons, the books tend
to get priced for the value of dustwrappers, or for the value of ornate
bindings in Fine (as-new) condition -- the value is in the beauty &
condition of the binding or jacket since no one reads shopgirl romances
today. (I think they should be collected for what they reveal about the
social status & expectations of women, & there are a few academics,
chiefly feminists, analyzing & publishing LitCrit about this aspect of
popular literature of those days. But even the academics expect to find
the books for a buck apiece in the throw-away bins outside of bookstores,
& are not looking to invest in or collect the finest specimen of first
edition
shopgirl romances.) Even such better-respected authors as F. Marion
Crawford and Robert W. Chambers don't get much value placed on their
shopgirl romances, the dregs of all genres, the Harlequins of their day.

This sounds to me like the ideal kind of area for a collector with a view to
the long-term to be taking an interest in. It's a fairly low-budget venture,
and steady work over, say, twenty years could result in a unique collection
that just might be exactly what a university library somewhere would be
willing to pay a decent sum for. The fact that feminist critics are taking
an interest is a healthy sign.

As a generality when you're out looking for books of value, where old
fiction is concerned, condition is everything. There really isn't much old
fiction by lesser-known or forgotten writers that has any value beyond the
beauty of the binding

Well, but it may not always be so. In the short time that I have been
collecting Victorian (women's) fiction I have seen a considerable change in
the market. Even quite recently, first editions of works by neglected
writers (in decent condition) were frequently priced at about $5 - $25, but
now such prices are becoming uncommon both in bookshops and in the auction
listings on eBay. Having picked up one or two copies of an author's works
for just a few dollars I not infrequently find that the only copies of her
other works I can track down are now priced in the $100-$500 range - which
would be good if I wanted to sell, but is rather frustrating given that I
want to build up the collection, not part with it!

There are exceptions, of course, but even they reflect the trend to some
degree. For example, there are getting on for 600 entries on ABE for works
by E.D.E.N Southworth, but there is only a handful of dealers who think they
can ask $100 or more (and I suspect some of them just put the decimal point
in the wrong place), and about a quarter of the entries (many of them poor
condition) are priced $10 or less. About half are in the $15-$30 bracket.
Those prices may be low, but twenty years or so ago these books would have
been in the throw-away bins where the academic scavengers are currently
getting their copies of works by the Williamsons et al.

Southworth was a hugely popular writer of romantic fiction in her day and
was incredibly prolific, so there are always going to be quite a few of her
works on the market, and she'll probably never fetch terribly high prices.
Also, collecting her work is problematic. Apart from the sheer volume
(enough to make any completist collector despair), many of her works were
published with no clear indication of date or edition. Putting together a
catalogue accurately identifying Southworth first editions would be
well-nigh impossible; even if it could be done, it would take years.

Even so, as Paghat observed about the Williamsons, there are academics
trawling through Southworth's fiction for insights into American feminism
and Southern US society in the second half of the 19th century. And she
knows how to spin a yarn. A shelf full of decent copies of her works would
cost little enough, give one some hours of entertaining reading and, when
one came to sell them, they might reasonably be considered, if not a highly
valuable asset, at least worth a few hundred dollars, if not more.

If I didn't find them an entertaining read, though, I wouldn't bother. I
tried one or two of Marie Corelli's works (not because Paghat champions
her - I didn't know that at the time! - they just happened to fall into my
lap), but (apart from the first edition of The Sorrows of Satan I picked up
for a song and bragged about in rcb a couple of years ago) I wouldn't really
want her books on my shelves because I don't much enjoy reading her. In
cases like this, where there's no guarantee that the resulting collection
will ever be worth all that much, the maxim "buy what you like" applies even
more strongly than usual; if one didn't actually like it there'd be very
little point.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com

I've got a number of the Williamsons' works and on their really good days, they
could turn out a fine and funny work on the joys and disasters of early
automobile touring. On their bad days (or when they were probably just
churning it out for a paycheck), they could be pretty Victorian soppy.

Maybe it's because I live in the same geographic region as Pag, but I haven't
seen their stuff in any thrift bins lately. Most of my copies come off E-bay
and generally do run under $20.


Regards,
Rosemary Jones,
co-author, Collector's Guide to Children's Books, v1-3
new in 2002: Boys & Girls Series Books
http://members.aol.com/lostlvs/

"paghat" wrote in message
news
They wrote one rare Airplane romance ("Lady from the Air") that is
valuable
in fine condition because many people do still collect romances of the
early days of flight, though alas too few share my interest in fiction
about the early days of driving cars.



Thanks, Paghat. Intriguing as always.

I like the comparision of early aviation collectibles and early automobile
collectibles. If I had to pick, I'd go with the car stuff as the road less
traveled, so to speak.

I wonder if Ken Burns' new film and book, *Horatio's Drive: America's First
Road Trip*, will do anything to stir interest in early automobiliana:

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/films/horatio.html


William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

In article CNX%a.8660$uh6.4092@lakeread05, "William M. Klimon"
wrote:

"paghat" wrote in message
news
They wrote one rare Airplane romance ("Lady from the Air") that is
valuable
in fine condition because many people do still collect romances of the
early days of flight, though alas too few share my interest in fiction
about the early days of driving cars.



Thanks, Paghat. Intriguing as always.

I like the comparision of early aviation collectibles and early automobile
collectibles. If I had to pick, I'd go with the car stuff as the road less
traveled, so to speak.

I wonder if Ken Burns' new film and book, *Horatio's Drive: America's First
Road Trip*, will do anything to stir interest in early automobiliana:

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/films/horatio.html

William M. Klimon
http://www.gateofbliss.com

I hadn't know about the Ken Burns thing, & I bet it will have some slight
effect on interest (it wouldn't take a big effect to feel significant to
anyone who keeps a shelf of vintage automobile romances in stock). I would
expect the effect to be something like "pushing up the values" for most of
the books from $5 to $20, to $15 to $25, which on the good side will save
me from having to erase & rewrite all my prices.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/