I confess: I love reading the ads for Bauman Rare Books that are often on the back page of the New York Times Book Review. First editions I’d love to own, signed books, historic books…books that are selling for thousands and thousands of dollars. This is exactly the ad to read when you’re despairing that no one values books. These people do (as long as your dust jacket is in good condition).
But even more satisfying than that full page ad is the Bauman catalogue, which we get in the mail (you can also view it online here). Full color! Lush paper! The size and shape of a thick magazine! This last edition even has a title: “90 Great Books,” and includes “a lovely first edition of Salinger’s classic” The Catcher in the Rye ($17,500), James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ($16,000), Moby-Dick (first American edition, in unrestored orginal cloth; $74,000….maybe this is the copy I should read? Maybe it’s better in “unrestored original cloth”?), John Milton’s Paradise Lost (from 1668! $42,000), and on and on. Totally droolworthy, with droolworthy language describing the books:
“Interior generally fresh with light scattered foxing, slight edge-wear, rubbing, with minor separation to joints of fragile contemporary boards,” from the listing for Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia. ($16,500)
And even MORE satisfying than slowly paging through this catalog is a visit to the real live Bauman shop in New York City (535 Madison). I have never failed to encounter kind salespeople who are excited to talk to like-minded book admirers. If you’re enthusiastic and interested and respectful (and your hands look clean), they are happy to pull down from their amazing shelves virtually any volume you wish to see and let you hold it in your own two hands…yes, even The Catcher in the Rye!
