Sometimes there is disagreement among specialist book dealers concerning which books by modern authors who later achieved fame were the first to appear, as opposed to which books by authors who achieved some sort of press attention early in their career. It all depends, I suppose, how one can judge fame. In a catalogue issued by Firsts & Company of New York City around the mid eighties, and subtitled ‘ 100 First Books of Authors ‘, the authors selected are not all famous. One thing is certain, however, all the authors ( famous or not ) are arranged in alphabetical order.
1) Margaret Atwood. The Edible Woman. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969. First edition, in d.j. Small, almost invisible tear lower edge of front panel, slightest wear to jacket, else fine. $250.00 Today £152
Certainly a famous by a now celebrated writer whose novels have been televised and adapted for the silver screen. As the Ahearnes point out, she published eight titles in limited editions between 1961, when Double Persephone appeared, and 1969. The Edible Woman, therefore, is her first ‘ regular’ novel.
2) W. H Auden, Poems. London: Faber, 1930. First edition. Blue-green wrappers. Unusual fine state of this fragile book, generally seen in poor condition. With publisher’s announcement laid in. In a slipcase. $ 600.00. The Ahearnes have it at $350.00 in 1986. Today it might fetch £350.
A case in point. This is not Auden’s ‘ first’ book, but his second. The first was the legendary Poems of 1928, which was printed by Stephen Spender on a clunky machine designed to print chemist’s labels. After printing a few copies the machine broke down and Spender was forced to complete the tiny edition by running to the Oxford University Press, who duly obliged. Poems is exceedingly rare– so scarce that copies change hands at over £30,000 each, if you are lucky enough to find one.
It is puzzling to learn that Auden’s second book was ‘ fragile ‘ and ‘generally seen in poor condition ‘. Though it is true that the book was such a sensation when it appeared that many who bought a copy may have read it ‘ to death ‘, it wasn’t particularly fragile’, unlike the Poems of two years earlier. If any book of poems deserved a slipcase to protect it, this is this one.
7) Saul Bellow, Dangling Man. London: John Lehmann, 1946. First English edition, in d.j. Fine. Bixby A1b. $300.00. Today £190.
So not the true first edition , which was published in America.
9) Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky. London: Lehman, 1949. First edition in d.j. Slight clipping to top and bottom of jacket spine, and jacket price-clipped, else very good. $200.00
10) Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. London: Smith, Elder. 1846. First edition, second issue, being the remaindered sheets of the first state issued by the new publisher, with cancelled title-page and ads for the Bronte’s books at the rear. Spine and edges darkened, chipping to head and tail of spine, else fine. $400.00 Today £2,000.
According to the Ahearnes, copies of the true first, which was published by Aylott and Jones in 1846 and valued at $7,500 in 1985, was published by Smith and Elder , using the remaindered sheets, in 1848. As Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights had both appeared in 1847, this would explain why Smith and Elder were proud to advertise these best-selling novels in their 1848 edition of Poems. As the Aylott and Jones issue of Poems is now prohibitively expensive, even for well-heeled Bronte fanatics, most fans would be glad to have the Smith and Elder second issue.
16) Joseph Conrad, Almayer’s Folly. London: T. Fischer Unwin, 1895. First edition, first issue (with ‘ e’ missing from ‘ generosity’, next to last line, p.110). Original green cloth , trifle dull, top of spine slightly worn. In cloth slipcase $1,000.00. Today £290
17) E. E. Cummings, The Enormous Room. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922. First edition, first issue (p.219), in d.j. Presentation copy. Light wear to covers with slight spotting to endpapers. Jacket slightly soiled with a sizeable chip at the front and small chips at the extremes. Else a very good copy of a book rarely seen in a jacket or as a presentation copy. $700.00 Today £2800 (unsigned).
According to the world expert on dust jackets — G. Thomas Tanselle– the practice of protecting a book with a wrapper originated as far back as the 1830s in the U.K., but this innovation did not lead to a trend. Books appearing soon after the 1880s can occasionally be found sporting jackets, but these are rarities and sometimes command a premium. In those days, jackets weren’t appreciated as being an integral part of the book, and anyway most owners disliked their books looking tatty, and also because it is easy to drop a book with a jacket. Books with jackets dating from the turn of the twentieth century onwards are more commonly found today, but only those titles of special interest fetch good prices. The earliest jacketed book in your Jotter’s library is a copy of Marie Stopes’s A Journal from Japan (1910). To find a copy of Cumming’s debut with a jacket shouldn’t be that difficult, but perhaps Sims is right. Having said that, $700.00 is a lot of money.
19) John Fowles, The Collector. London: Cape 1963. First edition in d. j. Near mint. Presentation copy. Roberts A1 $800.00 . Today £175 unsigned.
The Collector became a cult film and therefore Fowles’ novel became a sought after collector’s item. The fact that the cover was by someone ( Tom Adams) who was clearly aping the style of Richard Chopping, who is better known as the cover designer for the James Bond novels, is another point in its favour.
24) Ellen Gilchrist, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams. Fayetteville, Ark.: University of Arkansas Press, 1981. First edition, in d.j. Mint.. her first book of stories ( Also published in wrappers) signed. $100.00
Ellen Gilchrist ( 1935 – 2024) was a late starter, but this, her debut as a short story writer, sold 10,000 plus copies within 10 months and won immense critical acclaim, one reviewer maintaining that she ‘ writes about New Orleans as no other writer. Laced with envy, lust, terror and self-deceit, her stories will shock and compel readers…’. Today this debut sells from £95 to £960.
R. M. Healey