October 4, 2006
bibliographic debauch at the Baltimore Book Festival
I admit I could have gone to the National Book Festival, on the National Mall, here in Washington, DC, last weekend--but I didn't. Mostly because it was drizzly all day, and because I had gone to the Baltimore Book Festival the day before, which satisfied my rampant bibliophilia.
My partner Wallace and I went up. It was a beautiful evening in Baltimore. We never actually made it to any of the official presentations, talks, etc. We never made it past the book stalls. Wallace found a metaphysical book stall that was selling books at half-price. He's a sucker for that stuff (sorry, darling). I'm a sucker for used books. I found a terrific used-book stall (whose name escapes me). Initially I went there and bought a hard-back of Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) for $3. Couldn't pass that up. After I bought it, I went to extract Wallace from the metaphysical book stall. I didn't think I'd be back there.
But Wallace and I wandered back that way. That's when I went through their books more thoroughly. I found the three-volume paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings that I'd read three consecutive summers while in high school, for $6 (Ballantine, 1973). Had to have it. By this time, Wallace had a stack of his own. I needed a couple bucks to get the Tolkien, and he could barely spare it.
Then, just as they were closing (the festival had already closed down for the night), I found boxed, cloth-bound books for only $6 each. The first one that caught me was an edition of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress with watercolor illustrations by William Blake (see example above)! HAD TO HAVE IT! But had no money. I did have my ATM card with me. I rushed off to find an ATM, once they assured me they would not close down before I returned.
Wallace and I had been joking out loud about how much we were book junkies. That's exactly how I felt as I raced through the Mt. Vernon neighborhood, at 10:30pm, searching for an ATM, so I could "score" some more books.
It took me quite a while, but I finally found an ATM and withdrew some money, and then raced back to the book stall. The book stall proprietors said they could stay open a few more minutes while I perused the remaining beautiful boxed books. Besides the Blake, I also bought an edition of Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books (which I may be teaching some day), with illustrations from William Hogarth (the Idle and Industrious Apprentices series). And I purchased a collection of poems by Shelley with gorgeous woodcut illustrations by Richard Shirley Smith. One of the images from that book now serves as the wallpaper image for my desktop computer. It features a naked man in a bower, and I'm pretty sure the man is supposed to be Percy Shelley!
All three of these were published by the Heritage Press, which published fine, classic, illustrated books, for member-subscribers (the Heritage Club)--this according to the website linked to below. All three include the Sandglass insert, describing the book and the book-makers. I recognized that insert from my beautiful illustrated edition of Thoreau's Walden that I own (box long since lost).
So after an orgy of bibliophilia such as that, how could I go to the National Book Festival, especially since I was pretty sure there would be no used book stalls (only full-price stalls, and I'm a poor grad student, I can't afford top price. Though, I know, authors got to make a living...)? In any case, I didn't go. Maybe next year. That is, if I don't go to the Baltimore Book Festival the night before, like this time. Because then, I'm sure, I'll just be recovering from another bibliographic debauch, and won't want to go.
P.S. Here's more on the Heritage Press, defunct (alas) since 1970:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uthrc/00197/hrc-00197.html>
P.S.S. The reason I don't remember the name of the used book stall is because they don't have a store. Besides books fairs, they sell their books, like so many used book dealers now, over the internet.