Three more additions to my mad quest to collect signed firsts of every Ray Bradbury book.
(I think that’s a stray dog hair in the upper left…)
Posts Tagged ‘Hill House Publishers’
Library Additions: Three Signed Ray Bradbury Firsts
Thursday, December 2nd, 2021Library Addition: Ray Bradbury Signed Limited Edition
Friday, July 10th, 2015Take a moment to pity the people who ran Hill House Publishers, as they had more good taste than business sense. They were publishing the right authors (they did several Gaiman limiteds), but usually at the wrong print runs and price points to make it a reliably profitable enterprise.
Take this nifty Ray Brabdury production, for instance:
Bradbury, Ray. The Cat’s Pajamas: Stories +5. Hill House Publishers, 2004. First limited edition and first edition thus (containing five stories not in the trade edition), #352 of 1,000 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy in a Fine die-cut cloth slipcase with an extraction ribbon to pull out the book. Contains 5 stories not found in the William Morrow trade edition. Bought for $35 off eBay.
Given that it’s an attractive production by a legendary author, what’s the problem? Well, namely the fact that they did 1,000 copies at $150 a copy. The price point was simply too high for a limitation run that large. Also, the book wasn’t the true first, as the Morrow trade edition precedes. So no wonder Hill House (which is now out of business) had enough copies left over that someone would buy them at clearance and blow them out cheap on eBay…