A while back I bought the Armed Forces paperback issue of Pattern for Conquest from Morgan Wallace.  He was kind enough to enlighten me as to his GP interest.  He has all four Gnome paperback issues, and actually wrote a piece for Paperback Parade in 2005 outlining the history of the Gnome Press paperback dalliance.  Morgan sent me scans of his article and of the four GP paperback titles.  Here is first the piece and then his covers.

Many thanks for these Morgan.  They are greatly appreciated and a fantastic addition here at the Odyssey.  They’ll make a permanent home over on the Trivia page.

Come to think of it, if I was truly familiar with the cover image, I should have picked up the errant markings.  Now that I know they are there, I can see them well enough.  Can’t see the pen marks, but can see where the original ink has been removed in trying to erase them.  Now two pics taken by myself:

Clicking through on my images will get you a big size look.  You can see the markings quite clearly in the image above.  The pic below gives you a real in your face view.

It really annoys me when the vendor either a) doesn’t have a close look at what they’re selling, and for $175 that’s quite irresponsible, or b) chooses not to disclose any and all flaws, which is just plain dishonest.  Not sure into which camp he falls here.

The vendor did offer a full return refund though, including postage.  That’s still no excuse for any oversight or misleading of the customer.  I could just send it back, but I have it now, and I don’t really want to do that.  I’ve been interested lately in the restoration route so I’ve sent it, along with my now two-piece The Porcelain Magician jacket, off to a book restorer in the States.  They are going to give me a quote on restoring them.  Should be interesting.  No doubt the cost might exceed their true worth, but what the hell, it will be an educational exercise.  With regards to the Heinlein title, it might prove to be worth it in the longer term anyway.  I’ll keep you posted on progress…

UPDATE 26/01: I have corresponded with Jerry whom I bought this book off.  We have resolved this to my total satisfaction.  Jerry is jbs15 on eBay.  Jerry is a gentleman of integrity and cares about books and his customers.  Highly recommended.

At the moment I’m out in the countryside just north of Seoul doing English language immersion camps.  Actually, this is third consecutive camp since I started here on December 14th.  The first two were two weeks each and this one is for three weeks, so I’m not done until February 4th.  The place we’re at is called The Transnational Law and Business University and they run these camps for elementary and middle school kids during winter and summer vacations.  It’s located within the bounds of Goyang City, but it’s up the side of a hill in the countryside.

This is looking more or less west today from my classroom on the 5th floor.  It’s kind of remote (by Korean standards) – I have to walk about 20 minutes to get to a convenience store.  It’s also very cold at the moment.

Back to GP.  I’m closing in on the 75% mark – only two more titles to pick up.  I’m into the realms of books that for the most part can’t be just picked up on a whim off eBay or a vendor somewhere online.  Many of the remaining titles are truly sought after and have to be saved and planned for, such as the Foundation series, I, Robot, City, Methuselah’s Children, the Conan titles… I’ll need to be more methodical and considered in my pursuit of the remaining books.

Well, I haven’t been able to get enthused about reading for a long time.  Still collecting though.  I’ve picked up a several new books since that last long time ago post.  L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt’s The Carnelian Cube, the Northwest of Earth collection from C.L. Moore, another collection, The Menace from Earth by Mr. Heinlein and currently a signed, inscribed non-fiction work Lost Continents from L. Sprague de Camp is on the way.  I also picked up a seemingly near-new jacket for The Porcelain Magician by Frank Owen.  I say ‘seemingly’ because the thing had a rather severe crease right down the center of the spine.  So severe in fact, that it promptly fell in two when extracting it from the shipping tube.  I was very disappointed, but thankfully the vendor was great and gave me a full refund.  I’m going to send it away to a restorer to get a quote on repairing it.  I haven’t had much luck with dust jackets lately as the jacket for The Menace from Earth has some ball-point pen writing on the front.  It was invisible in the auction image and the seller never mentioned it.  The markings are faint, but obvious to any cursory examination, and unmistakeable to a collector.  I think I’ll send that away for a restoration price too.  It’s a real shame as the book and the jacket are in very good condition otherwise.  Still, the restoration route could be interesting.

Also I’ve been expanding my Gene Wolfe collection.  I succumbed and picked up PS Publishing’s limited (100 copies) and slip-cased first edition of The Very Best of Gene Wolfe, as well as the similarly limited and slip-cased first edition (250 copies) of Kerosina’s Storeys from the Old Hotel.  In addition, I picked up The Shadow of the Torturer series from Innovation Comics, based on Gene Wolfe’s legendary books.  I never knew this existed until I ran into it on eBay.  Apparently it was supposed to run to 6 issues, but only made it to three.  I wish it ran to completion.  It’s quite good.

Also, I’ve been part of a book myself!!  When I was president of the Seoul Photo Club, back in 2009 we embarked on something called The Seoul Metro Project.  The fruits of which you can find on Magcloud.  It’s one photo from every stop in the Seoul subway system (over 400!) pulled together into a beautiful coffee table photo book in which I contributed a section on Line 3.  Many thanks must go to my good friend, Seoul Photo Club stalwart and one of the finest photographers I know, Flash Parker whose brainchild the whole thing was and who put the book together.  I recently wrote an article outlining the background to the project that will be published in next (February 2012) edition of Groove Korea magazine.

I’ll get some images of those offending jackets up before I send them away.  I don’t know when that might be, as I’m in an English language immersion camp in the countryside north of Seoul at present and my books are of course not with me.  I’ll have another three weeks out here but maybe I’ll have time in my fleeting weekend visits home to snap something.  We’ll see…

It arrived today.  Another very attractive addition to my signed Gene Wolfe first edition collection.  I’m now feeling like I’m wanting to pick up the first tome in this series, 2009′s The Very Best of Gene Wolfe.  These are getting pricey… I dunno…. but they are SO beautifully presented as I mentioned in the look we had at The Sorcerer’s House. I might succumb.

Well, lets have a look at them.  These aren’t super-detailed examinations like the regular Close Ups, just a quick look.  First is The Sorcerer’s House.  Click on the pics for a bigger view.

Beautifully tray-cased, and you can see the signature page there signed by Gene Wolfe and the author of the introduction, Tim Powers.

If we crack it open and have a look we can see how nicely its presented.  Unfortunately, you can see some nasty reflections there on the lower left of the jacket.  This is because of the jacket protector I put on it a while ago.

Having a look at my copy of Home Fires, note the identical presentation, though the signature page containing Mr Wolfe’s and Alastair Reynolds’ scribbles isn’t of the same high quality as that of Sorcerer’s.  Incidentally, I’m on an Alastair Reynolds fix at present having listened to Chasm City, The Prefect, Revelation Space and Redemption Ark over the past couple of months, and currently on Absolution Gap.

Although I mentioned consistency before, they aren’t consistent in one respect. The ribbon used to draw the book from the case is anchored on the left here, yet fixed to the right in the previous book’s case.  Check it out.

No reflections here – the jacket protector went on subsequent to this photo session. Back to the consistency thing, in the case of Sorcerer’s (pun intended..), drawing on the ribbon raises the spine end to be grasped whereas in this case (again, pun intended..), the open edge is elevated to facilitate withdrawal.

I’m very happy small independent publishers like PS Publishing can give us attractive editions such as these.  They are gorgeous editions from my favorite author and grand additions to my library.

Some interesting things surround the circumstances of this.  I asked the seller, Tim, to send me a couple of images so I could see the condition of the book a bit better.  The condition seemed to be indeed better (but not much) than my copy, and I directed Tim to the Close Up so he could see for himself the comparison.  Tim, it so happened, had previously learned of Gnome Press through this website!!

Interesting.

In addition, the jacket is in slightly better cosmetic condition than my copy, the pages are less GP age-toned, and… the binding is different.  This surprised me.  F.L. Wallace has no listing in Currey and there is no binding info anywhere else I have seen.  My original copy has tan boards and this one from Tim has navy blue boards.  This is something for the Trivia section.

Interesting.

Anyway, many thanks for the book Tim.

I received an email from a gentleman who is apparently working on a show for the Discovery Science Channel entitled ‘Prophets of Science Fiction’.  He was wondering about obtaining the rights to use some GP cover art in the show.  It’s an interesting question as to who actually has them these days.  I don’t know of course, but suggested he contact Brian at Red Jacket Press and also try First Edition Library as a couple of their books were GP reproductions.  I imagine these two companies would have had to secure the right to use original GP cover art somehow for their reproductions, and they could probably advise him better than I.  He was particularly interested in Heinlein and Asimov.  I imagine any cover art would now belong to the artist or their estate.

We’ll see what becomes of this.  Interesting.

In other slightly interesting news, It hasn’t arrived yet, but I picked up Gene Wolfe’s latest book Home Fires in limited edition, tray-cased form.  From the same publisher and very similar to The Sorcerer’s House which I got a few months ago.  I followed that up by putting bids on a couple of Hugh Walters books, Destination Mars and Expedition Venus.  I have so badly wanted to get some of his YA books as I enjoyed them so much when I first started reading SF out of the old Napier Public Library.

Also have a bid on another book which fired my imagination and scared the hell out of me when I was about 8 or 9 years old.  I enjoyed reading it again and again way back then.  A 1st edition A Book of Ghosts and Goblins by Ruth Manning-Sanders.  I really hope I pick this up as well.  It’s one of those books that you think about often over the years.

Interesting.

Lucky, lucky me.

This is one of the Gnome Press titles that I didn’t expect to get for a long time, and certainly not at this price. Essentially it is the same as the regular edition except in a couple of cosmetic respects. You can find the Close Up for the regular edition here, and if you’re interested in the contents you can also check out the Review.

The obvious differences are in the binding.  The Limited Edition is bound in crimson boards with gold lettering and a black spine.  The top of the block is also blackened.  The other difference is of course the text proclaiming the limited nature of this book.  Lets take a look.

Not in as nice a condition as my regular copy, but ok nonetheless.  Taken a bit if a ding about halfway down the spine at some point as you can see.  Now we’ll compare the bindings.  First the regular edition in it’s burgundy cloth, and then the limited binding.

Very nice.  I normally do the rest of the Close Up with the jacket on, but the jacket is of little interest here as it’s identical to that of the regular edition.  Lets continue.  Note the blacked top of the block.

There’s a little damage to the head of the spine – it’s quite brittle at that point.

We’ll close out by looking at the signature page.  I have copy number 78.

Note the “…of which one hundred are for sale.” statement.  The remaining twelve were taken by Nelson Bond himself and are different again.  Those twelve copies have no dust jacket and are presented in a slipcase.  I (still I hope..) have one earmarked for me when I get around to paying for it.

Year: 1949
Paid: $52
Art: James Gibson
Copies: 112 (Eshbach)
Binding: Currey priority (A). Crimson cloth, black spine with gold lettering on spine and cover.  Blackened top of the block.
GP Edition Notes: 1st and limited edition so stated
Chalker & Owings: THE THIRTY–FIRST OF FEBRUARY, by Nelson Bond, 1949, pp.272, $3.00. 5000 copies printed, of which half were hardbound on printing, the rest paperbound in trade format for Armed Forces distribution a year or so later at $1.00. An additional 112 copies were signed and numbered on tip-in sheet with spine blackened, gold titling, in black cardboard slipcase, $5.00. The 112 copy fancy edition, the only one Gnome did, was done at Bond’s request. Although it is basically a kludge and uses the regular edition, there was an attempt to give it the “look” of Bond’s special limited version of Exiles of Time (Prime Press). Bond, who had a bookstore of his own in Roanoke, VA, reportedly took and sold almost all of the special himself. We’ve seen only one of the specials offered for sale in over 25 years, and we bought it.
Currey: THE THIRTY-FIRST OF FEBRUARY. New York: Gnome Press, [1949]. Two issues, no priority: (A) Crimson cloth, lettered in gold on spine panel and front cover, spine panel and top edge of text block stained black. 112 numbered copies signed by the author.  12 copies reserved for use of the author were enclosed in paper slipcase and apparently issued without dust jacket.  100 copies for sale were issued in dust jacket and apparently some if not most were issued without the paper slipcase.  Limited issue.  (B) Magenta cloth lettered in black.  Trade issue.  First edition so stated on copyright page.  Note: Reprinted circa 1952 in paper wrappers for distribution to US military personnel.  Although a later printing, the first edition statement is retained on the copyright page.
Comments: In any condition, this is a great addition to a Gnome Press collection.  Especially so at only $52.  I am ecstatic to have it.  Chalker & Owings miss what is mentioned by Currey regarding the special presentation of the 100 vs. the 12.  A discrepancy in the Currey description above as I pointed out in the Close Up of the regular edition is the color of the cloth and the lettering.  Currey claims magenta cloth with black lettering for the regular edition, but obviously you can see it’s burgundy with darker burgundy lettering.