Another catalogue from G. F. Sims, rare bookseller extraordinaire

This is the second catalogue of rare books issued by G. F. Sims that we have reviewed in Jot 101.Sims was regarded as a particularly rara avis among dealers, principally because his catalogues were chock full of scarce and interesting items—not only printed books, many of which were signed and uncorrected proof copies, but manuscripts. In the eyes of some collectors these catalogues were worth collecting in themselves.

In this catalogue No. 79, seemingly dating from the early seventies, there are several delectable items, including a number of titles from the Fortune Press and many others containing inscriptions from the author. Some of Sims’ prices seem pretty reasonable today—so reasonable that we have taken the liberty of including the prices that they might fetch in 2025. However, one annoying feature of this particular catalogue is the absence of information regarding pagination. Most potential buyers would surely be interested to know how many pages an item contains. For instance, how long is The Atlantic Anthology? If one was shelling out £25 in 1972, this is critical information.

1) We should start with an author whose letter interleaved in the inscribed book boasts about the rising market value of this particular volume. The author is Paul Ableman and the book is I Hear Voices ( Olympic Press, Paris 1958). Today £8. 24p.

‘ …it is a first edition, and actually, I gather, it is acquiring slight bibliophile value—someone told me that on the NY second-hand market, it was fetching twenty-five bucks…’

Actually its rise in value ( if true) is genuinely surprising considering it had only been published fifteen or so years before. Ableman ( 1927 – 2006) was an experimental novelist who also wrote plays and specialised in that very modern genre, TV novelisations. He was responsible, for instance, for turning ‘Porridge’, ‘Dad’s Army’ and ‘Shoestring’, into novels. He also wrote non-fiction, including a rarish pamphlet which argued that feminism had betrayed its roots and had turned into an anti-men campaign. Ableman, by all accounts, led an extremely bohemian life in his Hampstead eyrie.  His friend Margaret Drabble, who provided a preface for a reprint of I Hear Voices, painted a very amusing picture of life chez Ableman.         

2) Christopher Whitfield, The Village and other poems ( Alcuin Press, 1928). No. 1 of 100 copies on handmade paper. £5.50.  Today a signed copy is a small bargain at £36.

Whitfield ( 1902 – 67 ), a budding poet,  migrated to Chipping Campden, possibly to be close to the town’s greatest resident, F. L. Griggs, the visionary etcher and Arts and Crafts champion, whom he befriended and helped during his later years.  While there he kept a fascinating diary which was published by his son Paul in 2012. In his superb biography, F. L. Griggs, the Architecture of Dreams (1999) Jerrold Northrop Moore refers frequently to Whitfield and his diary, which was then unpublished. Griggs died in 1938 and Whitfield followed him twenty-nine years later.

3) Atlantic Anthology ( Fortune Press, 1945). Uncorrected proofs for the first edition. ‘This the publisher’s first page proof without the contributors’ names on the title page or the illustrations… Quite likely a unique state of this interesting anthology with contributions by Lawrence Durrell, John Peale Bishop, Henry Miller, Allen Tate and Wallace Stevens…’ £25.  Today £57.

A pretty big price for this anthology, but Sims is probably right about its rarity. In contrast, the next Fortune Press item from Sims is  A Fortune Anthology (n.d.), which contains contributions from at least three of those writing for the above, but is priced at just £5.

10) Light Blue Dark Blue (1960). First edition. Contributors include Ted Hughes, Dom Moraes and Sylvia Plath.  £7.50.  Today just £7.00, somewhat bizarrely.

Read more: Another catalogue from G. F. Sims, rare bookseller extraordinaire

By this date Hughes was already a rising star, but Plath was only just beginning to make an impression as a poet of remarkable gifts. Following her tragic suicide in 1963 and her reassessment by a cottage industry, Plath’s star is very much in the ascendant, whereas Hughes (whose other partner, Assia Wevill, also killed herself and her child), is seen as an abuser. This almost deification of Plath by her admirers means that this ‘ little’ magazine should fetch a good deal today.

13) Charades. Written a hundred years ago by Jane Austen and Her Family. nd. Privately printed 1895). Printed on hand-made paper and bound in hand-made paper wrappers….£5.00. Today, thanks to the huge interest in Austen, a reprint will cost you $200. There is no first edition online.

These charades were actually devised by Austen and her family and appear to have been uncovered using archives.

15) George Barker, Calamiterror. Uncorrected proof copy for the first edition published by Faber (April 1937). Original green wrappers faded, with the printer’s stamp, dated “26 Feb. 1937”.   £15.00. Today £41, but overpriced by Rooke Books, as is their wont. ( Barker pictured above)

Although it was fashionable in the neo-romantic 1940s to admire his often incomprehensible and frequently ill-crafted verse, the reputation of George Barker, who died in 1991 aged 75, did not last beyond the era of New Lines in the fifties. One illustration of the depths to which his reputation has sunk is that his hefty biography by Robert Fraser was seen priced at just £2 in a remainder shop window in Hitchin not long after its publication.

Such was the fate of a man who was taken up and published by Eliot in 1937

possibly because he was seen to be a corrective to the social realism of Auden and his circle. But Geoffrey Grigson, who was part of this poetic movement, saw through him immediately, and though he was happy to include him in New Verse, later savaged him, along with Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell,  in his wonderful article ‘ How much me now your acrobatics amaze ‘. Barker’s obituarist in the Guardian memorably dubbed him ‘a sort of public-house Byron ‘, which considering how the poet viewed the proper subjects of his art as ‘sex and death ‘, was pretty apposite. Barker spent his final days in a comfortable old Norfolk farmhouse which had been given to him by an admirer ( not Elizabeth Smart ) in the pretty village of Itteringham. It looked neglected and empty when your Jotter last saw it. A bit like his poetry.

For some reason, Sims offered four other Barker collections in this catalogue, three of which are priced at £7.50. One of these, The True Confession of George Barker (1965) was notorious as containing such obscene material that questions about it were raised in the House of Commons. 

To be continued.

R. M. Healey