My 1968 Paperback Copy of . . .

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vixey

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Vanity Fair. Published by Washington Square Press; 748 pages with a 47-page center section featuring a Pictorial Background of Plot Highlights. Original cost: $0.95. I paid $0.15 for it at a used book store.

My husband found it in a box in my son's bedroom (we moved a year ago) along with my 1978 Penguin copy of Tess of the D'Urbervilles (cost $2.50). I used to salivate at the bookstore as a teenager over anything published by Penguin. I loved their covers! Still do.

Does anyone else have gems like these lurking on your bookshelves (or in boxes)?
 

Ken

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I heart Penguin covers too: all black with masterpieces of art on them. The used book store by me sadly went out of business, recently. Got some gems from there, and the original prices on the covers were very low, as you say. Many paperbacks published in the 70's went for as little as 75 cents. ps Tess is awesome!
 
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DamaNegra

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The oldest book I have is Amadís de Gaula, printed in 1985. I wasn't born until 1989, yet bought that book (new!!) about a year ago. Yeah, that one's very popular.
 

vixey

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If we're talking oldest books on our shelves, I have:

The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians, and Grecians, Vol. VI: The Continuation of the Hiftory of the Persians and Greece. Published in London, MDCCXLIX (1749).

It's a really little book that no one would bother to read. But it's cool to have a book that's 259 years old!
 

Chumplet

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Oh, I have plenty... lemme check...

1908 Magner's Standard Horse and Stock Book (courtesy of Uncle Bob, who received it in 1955 as a gift from neighbouring farmers. Uncle Bob passed away about 4 years ago. I also got his brass spitoon).

1909 cloth bound hardcover of The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. Published by Greening & Co. Ltd in London, and WM. Briggs in Toronto. Illustrated, with advertisements at the beginning for other books.

My husband has several 1960's paperbacks of Ian Fleming and Jules Verne books.

I kept most of my textbooks and readers from my childhood in the 60's.

Several years ago, I found a copy of my aunt Lorraine's Nurses Handbook of Obstetrics, 9th edition, from 1952. Pretty scary stuff. My mom says she remembers her little sister and my dad's sister at about age 12, curled up together on a chair, going through the book. Both declared they would NEVER have children!
 

Blondchen

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I have two first editions - Lady Morgan's Passages From My Autobiography (1859)and William Ainsworth's The Lancashire Witches (1849). But on a personal level, I think my most valuable book is a 1952 paperback of John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps. I found it at my grandparent's house when I was a kid and it's like mac and cheese comfort food - perfect rainy day reading!
 

Kryianna

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I collected old books when I was a kid, so I have a ton of antique children's books. In college, I scored a lot of old books when the school library was cleaning house. Got an almost complete set of Shakespeare from 1898. That's probably my favorite.
 

Danger Jane

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I have a Greek mythology book from the 1870s in a plastic bag (for preservation of course) on my bookshelf back home. It has lots of really nice black and white illustrations and everything, just like a really old book OUGHT to have, and the actual writing itself is good. Ten bucks on ebay goes a long way :D
 

JamieFord

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I have a nice set of first edition books by Earl Derr Biggers, starting with House Without a Key (1925). These are the first Charlie Chan books, as politically incorrect as they are...
 

benbradley

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I've got a lot of books, but the one that stands out the most lately is a hardcover from the 1960's I got a month or so at a thrift store for about three dollars, Alexander Key's "Sprockets: A Little Robot." I read through this quickly while trying not to so I could savor it. This was the first time I read the book, but I vividly remember reading its sequel, "Rivets and Sprockets," borrowed from the library when I was about ten years old. I've got lots of older and more valuable (as far as dollar amount) books, but they don't mean the same thing to me as this one.
 

tehuti88

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I'm just glad when I find hard-to-find books on eBay for a reasonable price and manage to get them before anyone else does! :D

A few years ago I managed to get hold of Landes's "Ojibwa Religion & The Midewiwin" for around $30, which sounds like a lot considering it's only from the Sixties I think, but it's hard to find and booksellers online regularly have it going for $100 or more, last I checked. Ew. I felt so lucky when I got that. Also, "Prehistoric Mackinac Island," when I got that it was the first time I'd ever seen it on eBay, or even heard of it, for that matter. I've since seen it maybe once or twice more. I was so jazzed when I got that book! It's just this plain little drab hardcover from the late Forties/early Fifties but I love it so much.

I wasn't as fortunate with "Legends Of My People, The Great Ojibway" by Morrisseau (sic?), however. :( People are always crazy-mad to get their hands on that book and I wasn't willing to pay quite as much as they were. *sigh* Have to keep looking, but I'm quite proud of the little library I've built up mostly from eBay, even if most of the books themselves probably aren't terribly expensive.

*also has her fingers crossed for Dewdney's "Sacred Scrolls Of The Southern Ojibway" and Walker's "Red Indian Legends"*
 

jessicaorr

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I just got a f/f hardcover first edition of Gaiman's American Gods for 2.50. Now to get it signed...

Other treasures in our collection:

The Dinosaur Heresies
by Robert Bakker - signed by author
Steele's Popular Sciences: Chemistry (1887) - I love the cover. It's so ornate.
My father's copy of The Hobbit, Collected Shakespeare, Complete Mark Twain, New Library Treasure of Poetry and his Doctoral Thesis. The later is my favorite because it smells like his old office.

I love all my books but I would cry rivers if these were lost or stolen.
 

Pagey's_Girl

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My mom has a huge old guide to North American birda at home - it's bigger than a dictionary with gorgeous color prints. It's also old enough to list the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet as extant species. :(.
 

vixey

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My mom has a huge old guide to North American birda at home - it's bigger than a dictionary with gorgeous color prints. It's also old enough to list the passenger pigeon and Carolina parakeet as extant species. :(.

Is it an Audobon? I saw something similar to this at a historic home outside of Charleston.
 

Darzian

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I wish I could contribute to this thread. :cry:
 

Soccer Mom

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I have some blue cover Nancy Drews, some early yellow cover Nancy Drews, some original Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Belden's, Red Ryders, and a several first Marguerite Henry's with the original illustrations. I not only read and write genre, I collect it.
 

Calla Lily

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I have a late-1700s Imitation of Christ (with the 's' written as elongated 'f' everywhere).

I have a handful of signed first editions. A Dick Francis is among them. (I'm at work, so can't list the rest--the memory ain't that anal. ;))

I have first French and first English editions of Cyrano de Bergerac. (That play was my obsession as a teen.) Also a first of Trilby.

Love old books. Just love 'em.
 

Phaeal

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A couple of my favorites -- a Vanity Fair so old the pages weren't cut. Wow, I had to use a paper knife, just like those readers of novels in Victorian novels. Then a first edition of The Fountainhead with a very cool ex libris sticker on the inside front cover. Not in the greatest condition, and the slip was in tatters, but obviously much loved and read.

I'd tell you about my manuscript copy, in Arabic, of Alhazred's Al Azif, but then I'd have to curse you.
 
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Oberon

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I once had a great idea for a Disney ride: A pinball game, people riding in balls, being bounced around. I even proposed it to Disney and got a polite reply. In the process, I bought a little paperback in a used book store: "Special When Lit." I was shocked to learn later it was worth five hundred dollars! My old favorites: I have, in a huge box in the garage, a nearly complete Andre Norton collection, many early 60's paperbacks, and a first edition hardcover of Breed to Come. OK, not Dostoevsky, but she saw me through a lot of hard times.
 

katiemac

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I'm glad this thread popped up--I actually need some help! We're helping a neighbor clean out the house and I stumbled upon some books I told her I'd look into. Got any ideas where to start?

1- Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. The publisher is Saalfield Publishing, with illustrations by Francis Brundage. There's no copyright date or page. The best I can figure is from the personal inscription, which is dated 1936.

2- Gone with the Wind, Macmillan Publishing, dated 1951.

There are three or so more, but those two are the popular titles.
 

vixey

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1- Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. The publisher is Saalfield Publishing, with illustrations by Francis Brundage. There's no copyright date or page. The best I can figure is from the personal inscription, which is dated 1936.

Katie - Did a google search for 'used book search engine' and found this:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=alcott&kn=brundage&sts=t&tn=little+women&x=54&y=13

It suggests your book may have been published in 1929. There are several copies available to buy and it looks like they're all similarly priced.

ETA: In Keywords I typed the publisher's name and year.

Hope that helps.
 
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angelgirl

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I have some blue cover Nancy Drews, some early yellow cover Nancy Drews, some original Bobbsey Twins, Trixie Belden's, Red Ryders, and a several first Marguerite Henry's with the original illustrations. I not only read and write genre, I collect it.


Wow. I was a HUGE Trixie Belden fan when I was a kid. I've never met anyone else who has ever heard of her! I wish I had kept all my childhood books, but too many moves...

I have a 44 vol. collection - The Library of Little Masterpieces from 1909 that I absolutely love.
 
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