(Anne Rice) Book Collecting
I was reorganizing my bookshelves yet again, which meant trying to come up with a system for the Anne Rice collection yet again. The collection is about to be two years old, and I've learned a few things about this particular corner of book collecting in that time that might be helpful for other people, whether you're collecting this same thing, or another author or group of books within the past fifty years or so.
I don't work in books, so some of these explanations may be slightly off:
Signed means a book is signed with only the name of the author. Signed (bookplate) means that the author signed a book plate and it was placed into the front of the book. Inscribed usually means a book is made out to someone by name. The cost of editions with the author's signature go down in price in about the order I just listed them, with signed (not made out to anyone) being the most expensive.
There are multiple types of first editions. A first edition first printing is usually the most valuable version of a book. A book may also be a first edition but not a first printing or may be a first trade edition. If it's, for example, a first edition third printing, it means it is from the third run of books done prior to the publication date based on orders received. A first trade edition is the first edition that was sold to the general public, which means there may have been a prior limited or special edition. Whether or not you care what edition you're buying and under which definition is up to you.
A Book Club Edition (BCE) is not a first edition. This is relevant to Anne Rice collecting particularly because the Book Club Edition of Interview with the Vampire is easy to find, but not very valuable. Book Club Editions are kind of cute, they're smaller than the normal books. They also look similar to first editions if you're buying them online.
They made so many paperbacks in the eighties and nineties. So many. Infinite paperbacks. Many of them were not designed to stand the test of time, so their condition tends not to be as good, but they are extremely easy to find very cheap within the United States. There are some books that are actually paperback first editions. This can either be the first paperback printing after a hardcover was already made, or, in some cases (The Mummy) the first edition WAS a paperback.
If you are buying a book from an online used book retailer, there is no set standard for what Like New, Excellent, Very Good, Good, or Acceptable means, and most likely, your idea of what it means is better than the seller's. If you care about the quality very specifically, purchase from a listing with an actual image of the book you are buying. I will mention in my experience some of the really large used book retailers, like Thriftbooks, aren't bad about refunding if the quality you purchased was Like New or Excellent and it comes in with writing or damage on it.
If you want to protect the dust jacket of old hardback Knopf hardbacks specifically for some reason, from the eighties and nineties, you want to get the 10" mylar covers. You can get them pretty cheaply, which will be helpful if, once you put them on your one really fragile dustjacket, you decide you don't like how it looks for any of the others and decide against that plan. Those things are simple to put on and a good option for protecting covers, but they do make them look like library books.
People who list used books on eBay are often not aware of the value of the book they are listing. In the best case scenario, they are undervaluing something rare. Much more frequently, they are really overpricing something. Don't spend a lot of money on an edition that isn't rare. In person book stores are also extremely bad at pricing signed books, usually overestimating their value. I've seen multiple signed Anne Rice books in rare or used bookstores for sale at three to five times the price they are commonly listed online.
"Wow, you must be really obsessed to have the hobby of collecting books from a specific author." First of all, yes, but also second of all: I started this collection when I was the most broke I had ever been, because Anne Rice books are incredibly cheap if you live in the US in an area with a variety of used bookstores. If you want a fun niche hobby when you can't afford to do much else, get into collecting something niche and slightly hard to find that is cheap, and sold in stores that are fun to wander around in!
Possessions won't buy you happiness, but seeing which genre section the confused employees of my local bookstores think Anne Rice books should be in- that does make me happy. Shoutout to Taltos in the Erotica aisle, The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty shelved in horror, and most iconically, the store near me where all the Anne Rice books, including Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, are shelved under Paranormal Romance.
