first edition

Is There a $100,000 Book on Your Shelf?

Filed under: Books

One lucky British family happened to see a photo of the spine of a first edition of "On the Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin. Don't we have that at home?, they thought.

They did. According to Reuters, the book was purchased for "a few shillings" in the 60s or 70s and has been sitting on the shelf, undiscovered, until now. Tuesday marks the edition's 150 year anniversary, and it will be auctioned off at Christie's. It is estimated that the book is worth £40,000 - £60,000 ($66,000 - $100,000).

If you've got a first edition or a very old book on your shelf, if might be worth searching it on abebooks.com and alibris.com to see if it's commanding a high price. The price of your book will be affected by the rarity of the edition, condition, and things like typos or signatures. Empty Mirror Books offers more insight here.

**Update 9:20 PM, 11/24/2009**
Guess what it fetched at London's Christie's? Including the buyer's premium, it sold for £103,250 -- about $172,000 -- almost twice the maximum estimated price. The AP reports that the shelf it was sitting on was a "toilet bookshelf." If you've got Darwin in your collection, you might want to note that British authorities are reportedly "searching for a leather-bound notebook Charles Darwin used in developing his theory of natural selection."

[via Reuters]

Tags: book, Charles Darwin, CharlesDarwin, first edition, FirstEdition

The World of Rare Books: The Gutenberg Bible, First and Most Valuable

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

There are countless rare books in the world, but by most expert's standards the rarest of them all is the Gutenberg Bible. It was the first book ever printed back in 1456, and although several hundred copies were originally printed finding a complete first edition would net you $25-$35 million. In today's market single pages alone go for $25,000 each, and several years ago just 1 volume (it's a 2 volume set) sold for $5.5 million.

Besides the Gutenberg Bible other rare books include the first edition of Shakespeare's collected works from 1623 (worth $6 million), a collection of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts (potentially worth as much as $100 million), and of course any first edition copy of the Declaration of Independence (worth $8 million). Edgar Allen Poe's work also makes in onto the "rarest books" list with his first published poem ("Tamerlane") being rare and difficult to find due to a byline of simply "By A Bostonian." It's worth as much as $200,000 to the right buyer.

Source

Tags: Bible, book, books, Declaration of Independence, DeclarationOfIndependence, Edgar Allen Poe, EdgarAllenPoe, first edition, FirstEdition, Gutenberg, rare, rarest, Shakespeare, the rare, TheRare

J.K. Rowling's Book of Fairy Tales Finished: But Only Told to the Rich

by Sarah Gilbert (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Charity

We have all been waiting eagerly to see what projects J.K. Rowling will embark upon in the post-Harry Potter days. News that she has not only chosen a project, but completed it -- a volume of fairy tales entitled The Tales of Beedle the Bard -- is thrilling indeed. Except when you read further. Only seven copies will be ~~printed~~ handwritten. The seventh one (the other six were gifts) will be sold at auction, with a starting price of $62,000. Given that a first-edition Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone sold for $40,000, it seems that this volume will sell for far more.

While the proceeds are headed to charity (surely a laudable goal), something in this news makes me queasy. When J.K. Rowling burst to the scene with her first Harry Potter books, much was made of her struggling, lower-class background: the welfare mom made good. And many pundits have lauded her tales for making reading exciting again for children everywhere. She made literature relevant to even those who were, like she was once, just squeaking by.

So the concept of exclusive literature leaves me cold. If you're interested in the etymology, however, it's more than appropriate: a bard was a poet employed by the wealthy to tell tales of their great deeds. I always thought of J.K. Rowling as something far more free-spirited; but it this bard's tales will only be told to a few.

Update: A commenter pointed out that I was incorrect that these would be printed -- the books are handwritten. However, the commenter says these copies will be available to the public; that is not true according to this source.

Tags: beedle, fairy tales, FairyTales, first edition, FirstEdition, harry potter, HarryPotter, j.k. rowling, J.k.Rowling, jkrowling, limited edition, LimitedEdition, rowling, tales-of-beedle-the-bard, talesofbeedlethebard