E.L. Doctorow, An Open Letter to the President

Midwest Booksellers for Social Responsibility, nd.

One sheet, folded in half. A reprint of an essay addressed to the first President Bush that appeared in the Jan. 7, 1991 issue of The Nation magazine, just as allied forces were preparing to take back Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. Doctorow argues that Bush should not fight Iraq just because he has amassed the troops to do so. He favors a siege, which would hasten Saddam's downfall: "All we have to do is stand here silently, in our armor, and watch it happen." Doctorow was wrong about the Gulf War, but his arguments applied a decade later. 

Only one copy online, from Waverley, for $200. "Certain to prove a stopper for many Doctorow collections," the bookseller notes. Perhaps, but how many Doctorow collections are out there? Allan had one -- this is unpriced because he had it at home. Doctorow had something of a comeback with The March, his 2005 Civil War novel, but otherwise his recent books have not generated much excitement in the collecting or the reading community. 

Comments

[Joe Marchione]

An author's name in the context of this blog can conjure vivid images of Allan-in-a-place in me. I see "Doctorow" and flash on scouting a large bookstore in Southern California while we were down there to do a fair..., possibly the big Book Baron in Anaheim, certainly a store with a smaller room in back where part of the fiction alphabet was shelved. There's Allan pulling out Doctorow's scarce second book, Big as Life. It had problems of some sort or another, either condition or perhaps a later printing (*Were* there later printings of this book?). I recall that the price properly reflected both the issues and scarcity, i.e., no great bargain but no great burden either. I would have hesitated but it was a no-brainer for Allan, an instant buy-and-gloat. Vague memory that he felt it would be a jacket upgrade for his collection but that was secondary to the prime buying directive... If it is scarce, buy it.

[Joe Marchione]

I really do believe the Doctorow was a second printing. But I can't find any evidence that such a creature existed. As I grow older, I find that what I remember does not always have the one-to-one correspondence with reality that I used to be able to rely on. Since reality will not corroborate memory, allow me to present it as a convenient fiction, a launching pad for yet another ramble about Allan, books and values...

In the world of Modern First Editions, a later printing for most booksellers is nothing but a 'swing and a miss.' Sure, you may be able to harvest a jacket but the later printing rarely evokes interest beyond that. Sure, there is the 'reading copy' use and, for nicer early printings, the 'placekeeper copy' sale. But genuine interest in the thing itself is rare. Yeah, there's the stray bibliographer. Perhaps the elusive 'completist.' In general though, for most booksellers, if it ain't a first, it's really not worth even thinking about.

There's always been a bit of the bibliographer in me so I cannot help but notice aberrations in the printings of books that cross my path. Take, for example, Annie Dillard's first book, "Tickets for a Prayer Wheel." The first printing is uncommon and usually found for full retail at book fairs. Oddly, copies I found 'in the wild' were always third printings. Yeah, I know. No big deal. Keep it for the dust jacket, sell it as a reading copy or throw it back. Move along, nothing to see here.

But as I pulled one off a poetry table at some local sale and thumbed to the copyright page, I hear Allan's voice from across the table saying 'third printing' in a half-statement/half-question tone. I knew I'd see 'third' before I even got to the copyright page but went through the motions anyway, just in case. "Yup. You already saw it?" "No, but they're all third printings!" I nod in agreement.

There are certain questions you learn not to ask experienced higher end dealers out of fear that you expose yourself as some sort of pretender. Oddly, "Have you ever seen a second printing of X?" where X= [a book that is very uncommon in second printing] turns out to be one of those questions. Being quite comfortable with my 'pretender' status in that world, I'd ask anyway and invariably get the same response. A shrug, a negative shake of the head and a general attitude that expressed one thing and one thing only: "Who on earth could possibly care?" It's a fixation on value that I was (and still am) uncomfortable with.

But Allan was different and I sensed that very early on in our relationship. So I asked him. "Have you ever seen a *second* printing of Prayer Wheel?" He actually paused a moment while scanning the table and said "You know, I haven't." Genuinely interested in this economically useless but bibliographically interesting anomaly. We discussed it later, guessing that perhaps it was a regional scarcity on top of a small print run. But I think we both harbored both suspicion and yes, even hope, that perhaps there wasn't a second printing... an error on the part of a copy editor or printer.

With the world searchable at our fingertips these days, I can now verify that our first guess was correct. Second printings are scarce (only 2 currently listed on line) but do exist. No more mystery here. Yeah, it's nice to know. Of course I welcome the knowledge. But still, nearly everything I've relished learning in life started with a mystery to be solved. Here's hoping the mysteries keep coming.