What's the most sought after 1st edition post 1900?
03-12-07, 08:10 PM
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What's the most sought after 1st edition post 1900?
I've been thinking about the whole notion of book collecting lately, and I started to wonder...what is the most sought after book published around 1900 or later? I'm thinking something like Huckleberry Finn (1885 I think), but what else? Anything newer come to mind?
If you were a hardcore book collector with money to burn, which first edition would you be looking for?
If you were a hardcore book collector with money to burn, which first edition would you be looking for?
03-12-07, 10:53 PM
#2
Hmm... it's hard to say how much someone would actually really pay for a hard-to-find, rare, 1st edition. But looking at abebooks.com, there are some extraordinary prices asked by sellers of some gems:
James Joyce: Ulysses (1st edition 1922, with author's inscription to his brother) $548409 (what an odd amount to ask for, eh?). Other 1st editions of this work can be found for around $30-50K
William Faulkner: Soldier's Pay (1st edition 1926) $85000. One of his more known titles, "Sound And The Fury" is going for $30-40K. Guess not too many copies of the more obscure titles exist.
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (1st edition 1952) $10-20K
Hemingway's 1926 The Sun Also Rises goes for $175000 !! And his "Three Stories and Ten Poems" from 1923 goes for $225000
There's a couple of copies of Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon (1930) listed for just under $100K as well.
Interestingly, Mark Twain's Huck Finn (1885) is listed for only some $17000 for a 1st edition, which is even less than what some of Faulkner's books are listed for. An 1851 1st edition of Melville's Moby Dick can be had for $50000, whereas Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter goes for around $13000.
All these prices are only from abebooks.com. Wonder where else you could find prices that are actually paid (but I suppose these type of transactions aren't really that commonplace).
Anyone else find a more expensive 20th century first edition than Ulysses?
Maybe I'll go to Borders and get a copy of Thomas Pynchon's Against The Day, and see how much that goes for some 50 years from now.
Kidding there.
James Joyce: Ulysses (1st edition 1922, with author's inscription to his brother) $548409 (what an odd amount to ask for, eh?). Other 1st editions of this work can be found for around $30-50K
William Faulkner: Soldier's Pay (1st edition 1926) $85000. One of his more known titles, "Sound And The Fury" is going for $30-40K. Guess not too many copies of the more obscure titles exist.
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (1st edition 1952) $10-20K
Hemingway's 1926 The Sun Also Rises goes for $175000 !! And his "Three Stories and Ten Poems" from 1923 goes for $225000
There's a couple of copies of Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon (1930) listed for just under $100K as well.
Interestingly, Mark Twain's Huck Finn (1885) is listed for only some $17000 for a 1st edition, which is even less than what some of Faulkner's books are listed for. An 1851 1st edition of Melville's Moby Dick can be had for $50000, whereas Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter goes for around $13000.
All these prices are only from abebooks.com. Wonder where else you could find prices that are actually paid (but I suppose these type of transactions aren't really that commonplace).
Anyone else find a more expensive 20th century first edition than Ulysses?
Maybe I'll go to Borders and get a copy of Thomas Pynchon's Against The Day, and see how much that goes for some 50 years from now.
Kidding there.
Last edited by Autotelik; 03-12-07 at 11:20 PM.
03-13-07, 06:38 PM
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I bought a couple books in the $100-$200 range, and even that seemed a little crazy. I'd have to have lottery money to consider spending more than that.
03-14-07, 08:25 AM
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David, I was thinking Catcher too. That or In Cold Blood. Not necessarily the most expensive books, but definitely something cool worth having.
03-14-07, 01:26 PM
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Slight threadjack but the only 1st edition that I really wanted was George R R Martin's Game of Thrones. And I was lucky enough to find it in NM condition at 1/2 priced books for < $10. 
03-14-07, 03:25 PM
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I hate to bury this question in this thread, but I'm also wondering...what's the most collectible genre? If you took a sampling of the "best" books from all genres in a particular year (with all things being equal, like print run), which genre's books would sell for more?
