Featured What’s Your White Whale?

Looks like I found my people! What a tremendous place with fascinating discussions!

Here’s a topic for discussion: What’s Your White Whale? What book(s) would you love to own but probably never will because either…

• Cost, way too high for you to justify… or
• Rarity, no matter how hard you search, the probability of finding the volume is remote.

For me yes, First Edition of Melville’s Moby Dick is on the list. But at $50,000 +/- not in my league. But I am working on some other collections that are in my wheelhouse and help with “driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.”

 

Tangible Visions by Wardwell...
but I finally found a signed copy...not too long before he passed away.

 

Welcome!
Author signed Winnie the Pooh

 

That is on my wife's list... or at least a first edition.

 

SIDEBAR.......4 you and your wife DWBooks......enjoy....

 

I want a copy of Laura in good condition with dust jacket. I am sure I will never find it but I look where I find books

 

Stones for the Rampart, aka Stones on the Barricade, (ENGLISH VERSION) by Aleksander Kaminski.

This book was originally written in Polish under the title Kamienie na Szaniec in 1943. I've been looking for the 1944 English language version for several years now and have never yet found one. It tells the true life story of a group of scouts called ''Szare Szeregi'' (Gray Ranks) during the early years of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw. My teenage father was a member of this group all the way through the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, after which he was captured and placed in a German POW camp for the remainder of WW2. It's difficult to find much info written in English about the Gray (aka Grey) Ranks.

I only know a smattering of Polish words and phrases and could never get through the book in Polish, even with the help of Google translate (which doesn't handle Polish very well).

 

Welcome, Dave.

 

Tommy Tomato - a strange little book that my Mom had from her childhood. All the illustrations are photographs of the characters made out of the vegetables in their names. Colonel Okra, for instance. I read it a lot as a child as did my siblings as they came along and I was amazed to find it again when helping Mom move in 1999. Both my sister and I know it was there. But when it came time to clean out the house after moving mom into assisted living, it was gone! My baby sister really wants a copy too and everyone else knows, so if one of the others has it, they're not saying. I've tried Googling it, but there's a much more recent cartoon character by that name and that's all I've found while searching.

 

The Kelmscott "Morte d'Arthur" (William Morris).

Golden Cockerel "Gospels" (Eric Gill).

I can't even afford the facsimiles.

 

What a fantastic idea!!

There are dozens. Here's a few:

The Coverdale Bible. First English bible from 1535. At half a million dollars, it's not going to happen. There are so many bibles in the world, why not choose this landmark work? If it helps, I'd build a room on my house just to put it in. It's fun to dream, right? The principle author, William Tyndale, was martyred for his trouble. Can you imagine that kind of belief and dedication?

Signed first editions of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Seems like I've seen them for a variety of prices, none of which fit my budget. My sentimental fave books of all time.

The Wizard of Oz. Since I'm dreaming, it might as well be signed and included with the first dozen or so Oz titles, all first editions. Estimates are well over $100K for the bunch. See above for why I'll never have them

Joyce Carol Oates: 'By the North Gate' a signed first edition is not totally unrealistic. Her first book from 1963. She's one of the last of the living literary titans: Brilliant, prolific, learned, and although her work is very dark, she's very funny in person.

Daniel Burnham: 'Plan of Chicago." I do alot of architectural history work in Chicago, and this limited edition from 1909 is central to understanding how the visionary City Beautiful movement shaped - and might have shaped - the city. A first edition will require some rabid saving, but I'll get one eventually.

'The Architectural Works of Graham Anderson Probst & White.' This one I actually did get, and it proves the above about getting first editions. 2 volumes on acid free, handmade paper from 1933. I know, I know, it's a specialty title of little interest to most people, but these guys designed hundreds of U.S. buildings in the early and mid 20th century, and most of them are still standing. The Wrigley Building, the Field Museum, etc. etc. etc. Printed in an edition of only 300, they were never sold. Each volume weighs 20 pounds.


Some of the titles and the reason folks want them up above is very interesting. I'm intrigued by Stones for the Rampart, the first edition (of course!) of Moby Dick, the Kelmscott 'Morte,' and what's the story with 'Tangible Visions?'

Actually, I'm interested in all of these books. I always love finding out more about interesting books and the people that want them.

 

Make Do With Spring by Emery Bonett. Published in the UK by William Heinemann in 1941. A copy not to be found anywhere.

Debora

 

If it's this Tommy Tomato, I can understand why you'd find it charming.

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Bo...mato&sortby=17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title19

Debora

 

Author-signed first editions of the Narnia Chronicles or the Screwtape Letters.
The same for Asimov's I Robot or Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles or Zelzney's Amber Chronicles

I wouldn't mind an original King James Bible either, the original translation that is. The current one was revised in the 1760s if memory serves. There's a rumor Shakespeare was on the original writing team.

As for the Tyndale one... if you happen across a spare, I'll take one.

 

That's it. Debora, but the version we had was all black and white photos. I don't remember any color in it.

EDIT - Come to think of it, maybe I just didn't spend a lot of time looking at the cover.

 

I'd love to have a copy of Pierre-Joseph Redouté's Choix Des Plus Belles Fleurs or his Les Roses from the early 1800s. I'm in a bit of a state of reverie just thinking about seeing these books in person.

 

@Pat P - not positive these are what you were looking for but thought I'd give you a couple of links.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pierre-Jos...=item23b49ca60d:g:4HgAAOSwHphcTRP-:rk:34:pf:0

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Redoute-ch...9:g:woYAAOSwI9FcRCwc:rk:1:pf:1&frcectupt=true

 

Thanks, wiscbirddog. The eBay listings are for relatively recent reproductions, while the original books were published in the early 1800s. Those originals are the ones I'd drool over, with their hand-painted illustrations!

This is the least expensive copy on abebooks.com of an original copy of Choix des Plus Belles Fleurs...
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30012520053&searchurl=yrh=1850&bi=0&ds=30&bx=off&sortby=17&tn=Choix+Des+Plus+Belles+Fleurs&an=redoute&recentlyadded=all&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title2

 

GASP! Guess you'd probably need to win the lottery, eh?

 

Gasp, indeed!