The Diary of a Bookseller

OCTOBER

First edition snobs were much commoner than lovers of literature, but oriental students haggling over cheap textbooks were commoner still, and vague-minded women looking for birthday presents for their nephews were commonest of all.

George Orwell, ‘Bookshop Memories’

First edition snobs are, sadly, a dying breed, although many people who bring books into the shop in the hope of selling them will point to the verso of the title page, where the edition is displayed, and expectantly await an offer of untold wealth. Now, I rarely check the edition unless it is a pre-1960 Ian Fleming, or a well-known author’s first title or something similar. In non-fiction – with a few exceptions – it barely makes any difference what edition a book is, yet people still cling to the notion that first editions are somehow imbued with a magical and financial value. Textbooks are something we don’t even bother with in the shop these days. Every year they appear to be very slightly revised and republished. Students (oriental in Orwell’s case, of every kind in mine) are expected to be armed with the latest edition, rendering all previous editions essentially worthless. Commonest of all these days are not ‘vague-minded women’ but men trying to track down a particular title. Their disappointment at being told that we don’t happen to have a copy in stock is matched only by their sense of smug satisfaction on hearing that information. Should the quest for their holy grail ever be completed, many of them would have no further purpose in life. By far the favourite is the search for an odd volume to make up a complete set of something. It has to be the same edition, same binding, same colour. Most booksellers don’t stock odd volumes unless it is a particularly interesting title, or a volume with fine illustrations, so the benighted crusader searching for his missing third volume of Gordon’s The Works of Tacitus (fourth edition, Rivington, London, 1770, tree-calf, five raised bands, purple title panel) can be confident that his quest will continue until he can no longer remember what he was looking for.