Adventures in collecting
Had an exciting book day today. I’ve wanted to read George MacDonald’s Phantastes, a Faery Romance for ages, as it made a real impression on CSL when he was about 18, contributing to his conversion to Christianity many years later. He found “rather a tired Everyman copy” on the station bookstall while catching a train from Oxford to Reading in 1916, and was so profoundly affected by it that references to it are peppered all through his diary and letters for decades to come, and he turns to it when he’s tired or depressed as to an old friend. A footnote in my volume of his letters said it was the 1915 Everyman edition that he was reading, the book having first been published in the 1850s.
So I’ve been cruising Abebooks.com for weeks trying to find a cheap but pretty copy. I found a 1980s paperback copy for £8 in Blackwells but the cover was so execrable that I couldn’t bear to buy it. What I did want was an Everyman version, so that it would be the same size and text as the one CSL read. I eventually found one, an undated duodecimo hardback Everyman edition, for £11. I ordered it, and (oh joy of living in the UK), it arrived three days later.
I went upstairs to open it, and as I did, a shower of wisteria blossoms fell out of the inside of the parcel, having no doubt fallen into the postie’s bicycle basket. It’s the most beautiful edition, even though pretty battered, with the typical gilt Everyman lettering down the spine. There’s an inscription on the flyleaf dated 1949, and I knew that the 1923 edition had, on the half-title, “First published in this edition, 1915; reprinted, 1923.” So it wasn’t there and I was disappointed, because that indicated mine was an even later edition, as did the inscription. But then I actually applied rational thought, and deduced that because the edition date wasn’t on the half-title, it was much likelier that the book was published earlier, not later than I thought. But then there was that 1949 inscription... so I turned back to the flyleaf, and saw that someone had scrubbed out another inscription, actually rubbing the paper off. It was in faded brown ink, and I could just make out the word September, and a partial date... 1922. 1922! Which means that for £11, accidentally, I have exactly the same edition that CSL picked up off that bookstall back in 1916. Talk about serendipity.
However, then things got even more serendipitous, because I was cruising Daily Info, the Oxford website for what’s on, and TOMORROW there is a lecture on Phantastes and Lillith (another George MacDonald novel) by a visiting lecturer at Regent’s Park College. And then I kept cruising and sort of squeaked out loud when I saw that next week there is a lecture by Walter Hooper, CSL’s secretary just before his death, and the editor of the very collections of letters I’ve been immersed in for the last three months. I am so hyper I’m bouncing off the walls.
So I’ve been cruising Abebooks.com for weeks trying to find a cheap but pretty copy. I found a 1980s paperback copy for £8 in Blackwells but the cover was so execrable that I couldn’t bear to buy it. What I did want was an Everyman version, so that it would be the same size and text as the one CSL read. I eventually found one, an undated duodecimo hardback Everyman edition, for £11. I ordered it, and (oh joy of living in the UK), it arrived three days later.
I went upstairs to open it, and as I did, a shower of wisteria blossoms fell out of the inside of the parcel, having no doubt fallen into the postie’s bicycle basket. It’s the most beautiful edition, even though pretty battered, with the typical gilt Everyman lettering down the spine. There’s an inscription on the flyleaf dated 1949, and I knew that the 1923 edition had, on the half-title, “First published in this edition, 1915; reprinted, 1923.” So it wasn’t there and I was disappointed, because that indicated mine was an even later edition, as did the inscription. But then I actually applied rational thought, and deduced that because the edition date wasn’t on the half-title, it was much likelier that the book was published earlier, not later than I thought. But then there was that 1949 inscription... so I turned back to the flyleaf, and saw that someone had scrubbed out another inscription, actually rubbing the paper off. It was in faded brown ink, and I could just make out the word September, and a partial date... 1922. 1922! Which means that for £11, accidentally, I have exactly the same edition that CSL picked up off that bookstall back in 1916. Talk about serendipity.
However, then things got even more serendipitous, because I was cruising Daily Info, the Oxford website for what’s on, and TOMORROW there is a lecture on Phantastes and Lillith (another George MacDonald novel) by a visiting lecturer at Regent’s Park College. And then I kept cruising and sort of squeaked out loud when I saw that next week there is a lecture by Walter Hooper, CSL’s secretary just before his death, and the editor of the very collections of letters I’ve been immersed in for the last three months. I am so hyper I’m bouncing off the walls.