Great Day at the Book Sales - more Walter Scott

A few weeks ago I had a once in a lifetime Scott find. Today, of course, could
not be a repeat of that, but I did find 6 of 10 volumes of "The Poetical Works
of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet" published in 1823 by Archibald Constable & Co.,
Edinburgh, 12mo, all in calf, with gilt edges and gilt on spine with leather
label titles. Unfortunately, there is damage to most of the spines and covers
are detached (but all present and accounted for). Otherwise, the interiors are
fine. So they are worth some effort to restore the spines and reattach the
covers, assuming that that is the thing to do.

(A follow-up to my comments a few weeks ago about the estate from which the
Waverley volumes came: Most of the really valuable books were auctioned on July
17th in Northampton, MA. I was not there but a dealer I know (who bought a
large lot of the books that were not auctioned) told me about it today. He said
that you had to have a deep checkbook that day, and that many hundreds of
thousands of dollars passed hands. One book that did not go on auction as had
been expected was a copy of Melville's Moby-Dick that was annotated by Melville
himself. I can only imagine that a company like NOrton Publishing would dearly
desire to own such a unique copy and have perpetual control over the
authoritative critical edition of the work.)

Another interesting find today was a copy of Erich Maria Remarque's 1957 novel
"The Black Obelisk". What made it interesting was the dedication page which
states "To P. G.", nothing more. Well, this particular copy had penned on that
page "Remember me? [with an arrow pointing to the 'P.G.'] Love, Paulette". So
there was an indication that the book was signed by the person to whom it was
dedicated. Discovering who P. G. was took a second or two, as in 1958, Remarque
married Paulette Goddard. The final question was whether this was her
signature. And there the internet made short work of the question. In an hour
I had downloaded two signed photographs and a letter Paulette Goddard wrote.
The signature sures seems authentic.


Francis A. Miniter

Congratulations on a wonderful day of prize-finding and satisfying detective
work!

Alice


"Francis A. Miniter" wrote in message
news:46abef8e$1@kcnews01...
A few weeks ago I had a once in a lifetime Scott find. Today, of course,
could not be a repeat of that, but I did find 6 of 10 volumes of "The
Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet" published in 1823 by Archibald
Constable & Co., Edinburgh, 12mo, all in calf, with gilt edges and gilt on
spine with leather label titles. Unfortunately, there is damage to most of
the spines and covers are detached (but all present and accounted for).
Otherwise, the interiors are fine. So they are worth some effort to
restore the spines and reattach the covers, assuming that that is the thing
to do.

(A follow-up to my comments a few weeks ago about the estate from which
the Waverley volumes came: Most of the really valuable books were
auctioned on July 17th in Northampton, MA. I was not there but a dealer I
know (who bought a large lot of the books that were not auctioned) told me
about it today. He said that you had to have a deep checkbook that day,
and that many hundreds of thousands of dollars passed hands. One book
that did not go on auction as had been expected was a copy of Melville's
Moby-Dick that was annotated by Melville himself. I can only imagine that
a company like NOrton Publishing would dearly desire to own such a unique
copy and have perpetual control over the authoritative critical edition of
the work.)

Another interesting find today was a copy of Erich Maria Remarque's 1957
novel "The Black Obelisk". What made it interesting was the dedication
page which states "To P. G.", nothing more. Well, this particular copy
had penned on that page "Remember me? [with an arrow pointing to the
'P.G.'] Love, Paulette". So there was an indication that the book was
signed by the person to whom it was dedicated. Discovering who P. G. was
took a second or two, as in 1958, Remarque married Paulette Goddard. The
final question was whether this was her signature. And there the internet
made short work of the question. In an hour I had downloaded two signed
photographs and a letter Paulette Goddard wrote. The signature sures seems
authentic.


Francis A. Miniter

The Remarque/Goddard sounds like a wonderful association item!
Congratulations, and thanks for sharing the fun of the hunt with us...