Posts Tagged ‘Limited Editions’

Library Additions: Limited Hardback Edition of Ides of Octember Roger Zelazny Bibliography

Wednesday, October 30th, 2013

Another crazy collector item for my Zelazny library:

(Zelazny, Roger) Kovacs, Christopher, compiler. The Ides of Octember: A Pictorial Bibliography of Roger Zelazny. NESFA Press/Camelot Books, 2011. First hardback edition, letter M of 21 lettered copies with a Zelazny signature sheet (taken from unused Ultramarine Press Zelazny books), a Fine copy in three-quarters bound leather, in a Fine patterned traycase with the pictorial cover from the trade paperback edition, sans dust jacket, as issued.

An elaborate aftermarket edition of this Zelazny incorporating unbound NESFA sheets obtained by the compiler.

Octember HD

I paid $191 for it, considerably less than the $500 list price it was offered at.

Dispatches From Other Outposts of Bibliomania

Monday, March 25th, 2013

My own bibliomania is well documented. But every now and then I stumble across instances of bibliomania in others. Some are completely orthogonal to my own, while others have some overlap.

One with a bit of overlap is Awful Books, the page of a collector who has a fair amount of science fiction, fantasy, and horror works. However, Mr. Awful (the owner’s name is not readily apparent on the website) seems to be interested far less in the writing content than the physical quality and presentation of limited and ultralimited editions, which he details and reviews with copious pictures.

And here’s his own collection of limited editions. Including not only comics and artbooks I would never contemplate buying, but even Danielle Steel limited editions (“I bought for a song on eBay [about $15.00 each]”).

And while I’m not a big fan of post-first edition limiteds, I must admit that Hill House lettered edition of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is off the charts. (“Yo dawg, we heard you like traycases, so we created a traycase to hold your traycase.”)

Another example of bibliomania a little more closely aligned to my own madness preferences is Mike Berro’s Vance Tracker. “This page is dedicated to tracking the location of every special edition of books by Jack Vance. Primarily limited editions, but also rare trade editions, uncorrected proofs, and manuscripts.”

I’ve corresponded with Mike for well over a decade on our shared bibliomania (for Vance and others), and he was one of the driving forces behind the Vance Integral Edition. The tracker is well worth looking at if your Vance bibliomania pegs at “fanatic.”

Library Additions: The Folio Edition of Neil Gaiman’s The Rhyme Maidens Broadsheet

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

I recently got in the Folio edition of Neil Gaiman’s Rhyme Maidens broadsheet just published by Biting Dog Press. It’s unbelievably huge; in fact, it’s slightly taller than the Centipede Press A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H. P. L. book. There were only fifty of them made. This is about the point where it stops being a book and starts being a fetish object.

Here’s a shot of the folio slipcase sitting next to the Subterranean Press edition of M is for Magic (which I still have copies of available for sale) for the sake of size comparison.

And here it is spread open:

It looks slightly blurry because it was shipped with tissue paper across both panels to protect it. It’s the same poem, in different colors and with a different illustration, on each page.

This edition sold out from the publisher.

I’m going to have one copy of Folio edition for my next Lame Excuse Books catalog, along with one copy of the regular broadsheet.