![]() For the book collector a bookcase is more than a place to store your treasures. From there it's another book in a series, or perhaps a stand-alone novel where the author takes the reader to a new place of connection to the world around us. It starts with a good book: a relatable character, a hero or heroine flawed, wronged yet engaged. And, whether you’re curious about starting a collection or developing a new direction, we’re always happy to talk.You are here: Home > Resources > Book Collecting 101ĬLICK HERE to sign up for Book Collecting 101 Newsletter! Whatever your style, be open to the idea that your tastes may change over time. Where do you go next? Do you buy his letters, or the playbills of places he read in public? Do you buy different editions of his work? Perhaps you’ve bought the copies in leather bindings – you could now look into a collection of Dickens in original bindings. “Say you love Charles Dickens but you’ve bought all of his books. And, in the meantime, you’ll get to touch some incredible books.” The more you see, the more you’ll understand where your collection might want to go. Dealers are usually incredibly generous with their time and knowledge – if you want to look at a book that’s worth £200,000, they’ll normally be very happy to show it to you. “If you’re just starting out as a collector and you haven’t got a great deal of money, book fairs give you the opportunity to see and handle books that you might aspire to buy in the future. In either scenario you might hope to buy a nicer copy at a later date.” Some books are so rare that you really have to buy the copy that’s available. ![]() As a bookseller, we never advise people to buy as an investment. “Some books are so rare that you really have to buy the copy that’s available and hope that at some point down the line you might have a chance to buy a nicer copy. Of course, that’s still a huge amount of money, but it proves the point. At Jarndyce, we recently sold a perfect copy of Great Expectations for £185,000, which looked just as it did when it came out of the shop in 1861, whereas we have another copy, which is perfectly nice, for £45,000. “In the book trade, condition is unbelievably important. What’s important is that you’re passionate about the things you’re buying.” Many people collect because they are interested in the type of bindings, rather than what’s inside the book. It could be that you have a connection to a particular book because you read it when you were younger, or because you studied that author and want to buy an early edition of their works. “People collect for all sorts of reasons. And, as Ed explains here, you don’t need a country mansion with a library of its own to start collecting – just a bit of curiosity to get you started. While some of the titles stocked by Jarndyce will sell for tens of thousands of pounds, Ed’s keen to stress that it’s also possible to find antique versions of well-known tomes for the same price as it would cost to buy new.Īs well as being tangible – and ownable – artefacts from the past, antiquarian books can be a great way to introduce some period-appropriate literary cachet into historic homes. Despite the familiar image of dusty leather-bound books and vast imposing libraries, collecting old books is gaining in popularity – in part because of how surprisingly affordable it is to start. “It was only meant to be a for a short break – and I certainly felt no pressure to work here,” Ed says. While he gave it a good shot, working as a chef in London restaurants for five years, Jarndyce eventually drew him in. It would prove hard, Ed discovered, not to follow in his parents’ footsteps. His father founded Jarndyce, the antiquarian bookseller, in 1969, before coming to run it with Ed’s mother in the handsome 18 th-century building opposite the British Museum it still occupies today – a structure that, in one form or another, has been a bookshop for more than 100 years. Ed Nassau Lake was born into the world of antique-book collecting.
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