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Frankenstein Books

I was recent­ly at a rare book fair, which was quite fas­ci­nat­ing. Peo­ple, for a great vari­ety of rea­sons, wish to own first edi­tions of books. A mix of com­pul­sion, obses­sion, and, to be sure, a great love of books, was on display. 

Years ago, I embarked upon a search for old children’s books, haunt­ing flea mar­kets on an almost week­ly basis. The books I found — and I found more than three thou­sand — were nev­er expen­sive, nev­er more than one or two dol­lars. This was before children’s books became collectible. 

At any rate, at some point, I stopped search­ing for them and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly had no place to keep them. In the end, I gave them all to the library at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, which was build­ing a research col­lec­tion of children’s books. They are still there.

The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald first editionBut the books and ephemera at this fair were about a dif­fer­ent world. I am not sure I would be will­ing to pay $250,000.00 for the first edi­tion (with mint dust jack­et) for Fitzgerald’s The Great Gats­by but appar­ent­ly, there are peo­ple who can, and will make such a pur­chase. A let­ter writ­ten by George Wash­ing­ton (the ink fad­ed) could be bought for $15,000.

And I was fas­ci­nat­ed by the man who was a lawyer by day, but a major col­lec­tor of Mark Twain books, and the mem­o­ra­bil­ia that per­tained to the TV series Star Trek.

I did learn that peo­ple who col­lect books are full of sto­ries about books. It was great fun to hear them.

I also sat in on a pan­el dis­cus­sion titled, “The Dark Side of Book Col­lect­ing.” This was a talk by four col­lec­tors that dealt with book thefts, forg­eries, and fak­eries of all kinds in this rare book col­lect­ing world. I found it quite fas­ci­nat­ing. It was like lis­ten­ing to four detec­tives talk about their favorite cases.

My favorite part of the dis­cus­sion was about “Franken­stein Books,” a term I had nev­er heard before.

What are “Franken­stein Books?” These are books that have been altered, marked, notat­ed, restitched, or muti­lat­ed by their own­ers, not with evil intent, but just the oppo­site, with exces­sive love. It might be a book with notes in the mar­gin, as in “I love this pas­sage,” or “This state­ment is ter­ri­bly wrong.” It might be a book that was con­vert­ed into a scrap­book. In my col­lect­ing days, I used to find books that con­tained pressed flow­ers or four-leaf clovers. Unusu­al book­mark­ers. Or even let­ters. All these Franken­stein Books reveal some­thing, not so much about the books, but the peo­ple who owned them.

My own favorite Franken­stein Book was a 19th-cen­tu­ry children’s book I once found that con­tained two short sto­ries. One was about a young woman who mar­ries a poor man, and the con­se­quences of that mar­riage. The oth­er sto­ry was about anoth­er young lady who mar­ries a rich man and the con­se­quences of that marriage.

But—on the fly­leaf of that book was a hand­writ­ten mes­sage. As I remem­ber it read some­thing like:

“Dear Mol­ly,

By the time you are old enough to read this book, I will have been long gone. But when you read this book, I hope you fol­low the wise advice my favorite sto­ry offers. I did.

 Your Lov­ing Grandmother…..”

 But “Grand­moth­er” nev­er indi­cat­ed which sto­ry was to be followed.

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