On buying books previously owned by others....

I was wondering if anyone else has had the experience upon finding a 'new' second hand bookshop or simply revisiting one that you haven't browsed for a while that you seem to be looking at/buying the books of one particular person?

By this I do not mean the actual author of the book but a previous owner whose name is written in the front cover? For example, I seem to have purchased quite a few books that previously belonged to a man called David Hughes, York. While in Wiltshire, I purchased books that had previously belonged to the Rev. R. Brinton.

I don't know if either of these men had died and their books had been sold by relatives or friends or whether they had simply done some seriously pruning of their shelves.

It's not that unusual an experience, I think. Used bookstores often buy collections from estates, so if you have the same interests as the deceased, it's not surprising that you might find yourself seeing the same bookplate in your purchases.

A local used bookstore has a "new arrivals" table, and, when I browse it, I find myself thinking, "this person was into Japanese art" or "which economics professor died?" I recall several years ago noticing that nearly every book I looked at from that table was from the library of a recently deceased family friend.

I know what you mean about the new arrivals, in one of my favourite bookshops in York, you can sometimes seem the owner behind his counter and sometimes not - as a hundred weight of books arrive from someone's house. A collection of Trollope novels or books on trains, etc.

However, what made me write the original comment was that last weekend I was looking in a section of completely new interest to me - topography for books about Oxford and lo and behold, I ended up buying a book previously owned by 'David Hughes, York'.

I don't often buy books owned by the same person (unless they are, as others have said, new arrivals together at the bookstore.) However, I have quite often found myself buying books that previously belonged to people I know, and not just in my area of professional expertise. If I lived in a small town I might expect that, but I 'm in quite a large metropolitan area, and am always surprised by it.

This has made me think about another issue - do you always right your name (and any other information, e.g. location of purchase, date etc) in a book?

I have to admit that I don't always remember to, which is a shame as I love to pick up a book from one of my shelves and find a date and location written into the front cover as it transports me back to a holiday or simply a nice day.

I never write my name in books, but I often find second hand books with dedications in the front. It's a bit sad that the original owner didn't think they were special enough to keep. I also have a copy of Around the World in 80 Days by Michael Palin, signed Michael Palin! I wonder if it's genuine?

Your second-hand book dedications may have come from estate sales.

Either that or the dedicator really was not tuned into the recipient's taste in books :-)

There's a David Hughes who is connected with the University of York as either a professor or who studied there.

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/wdavidhughes

My favorite is a book of poetry given as a prize to a student (Andrew Stone) at Yale College for "excelling in composition", signed by the president of the school, J. Day, in 1835. I emailed a member of the history faculty at Yale University, who confirmed that the president of what in 1835 was called Yale College was Jeremiah Day. I've not been able to find any information on Mr. Stone.

Os.

>Osbaldistone...

Your ancestor Andrewstone was a teacher at the "New York Deaf and Dumb Asylum" just a few years later in 1838...
http://books.google.com/books?id=CqBLAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=%2...

I frequently buy my used books at yard sales/garage sales, and sometimes it turns out they're actually estate sales. It's strangely intimate going through the book collection of a dead stranger and feeling like sometimes you already know them better than the relatives running the sale (some of whom have obviously never bothered looking in to the library.) Or, as happened a few weeks ago, having such similar tastes in odd reading that you get quite sad that you never met them in life!

11 > Yes, I was at a resale shop a few months ago which had received a large donation of books with such consistent themes in areas I enjoy I thought they might have been from a professor or other professional.

Either they were seriously downsizing, or it was an estate donation. I kept thinking about my own books winding up in such a shop, and all the reasons I haven't donated my husband's books. I want them to go to good homes.

>10 Crypto-Willobie:
Thanks, Crypto. I'll add this info to my notes on this book.

Os.

>7 PhaedraB: The saddest one I ever found was a WWII book given as a Father's Day present in 1972. Written in front was "This was your war, Dad." I just found it at a library fundraiser sale recently, so it made me quite sorry to think how it got there.

In addition to inscriptions, previous owners sometimes leave personal items inserted in the books. Among other things, I've found a tintype photo of a middle-aged gentleman in a straw boater, a lock of hair and several newspaper clippings. The newspaper clippings are the worst because they stain the pages. Most recently, a US$5 bill, which was more than I paid for the book!

Buying used can be quite fun.

Os.

At a thrift book shop in Austin quite a few years ago, I used to come across very nice (i.e., clean) copies of English literature from the library of a Virginia or Ginger Hall. Clean bookplates with lovely handwriting. The books seemed to trickle in, so I doubt they were from an estate, and the signature looked to be quite "youngish". I always fantasized about meeting Ms. Hall and asking where she picked up her interesting editions. On jaunts to the UK, perhaps?

I also had occasion at the same bookshop to pick up quite a few older books on medieval history signed by Augustus (A.C.) Krey. Some of the books were inscribed to Dr. Krey by the author. This was in the pre-internet days, but I've subsequently discovered that Dr. Krey was a former student of the Medievalist Dana Munro, and a respected medievalist in his own right (he was a translator of the elusive A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea). He taught at, I think, the University of Minnesota, but married a woman who was a rather respected Texas novelist, and they presumably moved to Texas upon his retirement. She died around the time I found the books, so I assume they ended up at the thrift shop as a result of that. He must have had many more books, and I used to wonder where the bulk of his collection ended up. For a student of medieval history and the crusades, there must have been some wonderful goodies in that collection!

>10 Crypto-Willobie:
I hadn't looked into Andrew Stone for several years until Crypto-Willobie pointed me to one source. I did a broader search and found information that I didn't run across the last time I looked. Andrew Stone of Yale, class of 1837, went on to study at Union Theological Seminary and became, among other things, a chaplain in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. There's even a photo-portrait of him here: http://howardlanham.tripod.com/link64.htm

Wonderful to match an inscription to a real person. Thanks Crypto.

Os.

Years ago when I was trying to collect Sinclair Lewis first Editions I was offered a copy of Babbitt that had the bookplate of Arthur and Susan Marx, Harpo and his wife. It was out of my price range but I did lust after it.

>17 Osbaldistone: Yes it is (you're welcome)...
I often research the previous owner when I find an interesting bookplate or old signature in a book...

Just last week I acquired a copy of Edgar Saltus's first book, a treatise on Balzac published in 1884, bearing the bookplate of one Edwin Oscar Cooke. Using friend Google I determined that Cooke was a shipyard draftsman living in Fredericksburg Va, that he contributed poetry to various magazines, and that one of his poems, a lullaby called "Slumber Song," was in 1901 set to music by the then-famous soprano Liza Lehmann.

* * * *

As to accumulating multiple volumes from the same previous owner's library, I've found myself in this situation a number of times. This has happened mostly when buying books for one of the core categories in my library -- theatre history and Shakespeare studies. Usually the repeats come from the same store, but in the case of one prominent Shakespeare scholar, James G. McManaway, I have found 7 books from his library among several different stores in the Washington DC area.

I placate the book-bereft ghosts of my predecessors by recreating their libraries in small with LT tags. Right now I have ten different "ex libris" tags. Seven of these consist mostly of theatre-related books which once belonged to people with interests similar to mine; three of them contain more than 40 books each. I enjoy the feeling of communing kinda-sorta with these scholars and enthusiasts of the past...

>12 PhaedraB: One thing you might want to consider would be to put together a gathering of book loving friends and tell them to please help themselves to whatever stack of books you are no longer interested in. My parents had a large book collection and when they died we kids took the books we were interested in keeping but that left a mind numbing pile. We had asked several book dealers to come over to make an offer and, with the exception of one who just wanted to take one or two volumes, none of the others even put in an appearance.

We held the wake at my parents house and announced to everyone present that they were not allowed to leave until they had helped themselves to some books. We explained all of the above and we made the point that we would really prefer the books go to homes where they would be cherished. After some hesitation people got into the swing of things and every last book found a new home. We were happy that the books had gone to places where they were wanted and I like to think they will remind their new owners of my mother and father.

>20 alco261:
That is an amazingly great idea.
One of my daughters has already blessed me with a comment that she looks forward to inheriting my books (it was a compliment on my collection, not a "can't wait till you're gone" moment.)
But realistically, SOME of my books will need to find other homes.

>21 2wonderY:,
You're fortunate indeed.

I love the idea of the book wake alco261. I would like my books to go the same way.

One of my life goals is not to get rich or change the world or have kids who surpass me... it's to become a significant enough figure that a library will let me donate my collection to them, intact, on my death.

20 > I wish I would have thought of that. But at the time of his death, most of his books were in boxes (we had been planning to move) and now all of them are in boxes in a storage locker. Luckily, I have some specialty book people interested in at least some of them. As I'm now unemployed, small sales make a big difference. And because of LT, most of them, if not all, are meticulously cataloged :-)

What a number of excellent comments! I love Crypto-Willobie's idea of using the LT Tags to recreate 'their libraries in small' from previous owners. I hope that you do not mind, but I intend to now do the same the next time I am home in York.

I also loved alco261's account of what they did with their parent's book collections - really moving .

Good luck to melannen with their ambition, I hope that they make it!

I have thought about what will be the eventual fate of my books and as there isn't a next generation of my immediate family with any even remote interest in books. I have thought about leaving my books to a favourite charity for them to sell to raise funds and so that my books go to second hand dealers for new people to buy and collect them. Maybe to look at the name written in the cover and wonder who that person was.

I am the chairman of a small foundation that gives grants to science fiction fans, and to raise funds we accept donations of used books which we sell att SF conventions. We've received three batches of books from deceased readers of SF and fantasy so far.

My wife is nine years younger than me and as ardent a book lover as I am, or worse, so I don't think it will be my problem what will happen to the books after I'm gone. We don't have any children, but I think there's one or two nieces and nephews who might want some of them after my wife dies. I wonder how many of our books that will have any commercial value when that day comes, which might very well be fifty years into the future.

Weaving the two strands of this thread togtther, I'll point out that of my "ex libris tag" libraries-in-small the largest (70+ books) is composed of books that once belonged to my father. And two of the others contain books formerly belonging to an aunt and uncle, and to a close family friend, my father's mentor...

I love finding inscriptions in the used books I buy. When I was posting my whole library onto LT about 15 books a day for a long time, I would often stop to Google the names I found inscribed in the books to see if anything interesting would come up. I can't recall the name now, but I had one book that had been owned by a prominent SF Bay Area socialist and labor organizer.

But my favorite, although in some ways saddest, inscription is very personal. During the late 1980s, I studied for and earned a Master of Arts Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing at San Francisco State. A few years after I'd finished my graduate work, I was in a San Francisco used bookstore and saw one of my adviser's novels. I took it down and saw that it was inscribed from him to one of my favorite instructors at the university, also a published author. The inscription read, "Here's hoping my characters come as alive for you as your characters do for me." The sad part was that by that time, just a few years after my studies had ended, both of them had already passed away. Naturally, I bought the book on the spot. When I told the bookseller the story, he insisted on giving the book some protective coating for no charge.

Definitely a cherished possession.

That is a really lovely comment, I am not surprised that the bookseller gave the book the protective coating that it truly deserves!

I've posted the link to this site on other threads, but it's been awhile, so here it is again: http://bookinscriptions.com/books/

This site collects and posts images of inscriptions in books. Truly fascinating, often poignent or humorous.

Os.

What an excellent site! I shall have a great time looking through and maybe adding to (?)

I recently found a book in a local thrift store, The Kingdom of the Hittites, with a bookplate from MacDonald Wood, MD. I did a little research and found that Dr. Wood died a few years ago in his nineties, and that he was instrumental in the establishment of a respected burn center here in Arizona. As my edition of the book was published in 1998, it's nice to know that Dr. Wood was still buying books into a ripe old age!

One of my collections is called "My Sentimental Library." It contains books previously owned by other book collectors, and some rather famous people. I posted the beginnings of the collection on my website.

All the books in this collection are listed on Library Thing.