To the collector, the spoils

Last month I explored the Firsts Rare Book Fare in London's Saatchi Gallery. I went with a good friend of mine who - as well as being a fellow Deighton collector - is one of the world's top Ian Fleming collectors, with a collection that is the envy of many. 

Funeral in Berlin ... at a price

Tbere were plenty of Ian Flemings on show - a complete collection of first editions would set you back £145,000! But there were also a good number of Deighton first editions on show, the nicest of which was the Funeral in Berlin with the Michael Caine wraparound, at nearly £,2000 (above).

There were, naturally, books from every possible author you could think of, classic and modern, and covering both fiction and non-fiction alike. 

The size of the show - and the prices of the Flemings and other 'star' books (£11,000 for a first edition Harry Potter) - point to two things. One, even in this digital age, there remains a market for both books, and rare books; and two: prices, while they may seem outrageous, continue to reflect the old economic adage of supply and demand.

Some books are clearly more in demand than others. Why does an Ian Fleming first edition of Casino Royale cost anywhere up to £25,000, whereas a first edition of SS-GB by Len Deighton, or The Fourth Protocol by Frederik Forsyth cost maybe £50 to £110?

Lots of factors, I suppose, with Fleming. Timing: the publication of Casino Royale in the 'fifties as the UK emerged from the privation of rationing, but with the heroism of the war still fresh in people's minds, is one thing; the desire of readers for escapism and adventure, too, of course; Fleming's connections in the publishing and media world helped launch the series, of course. Plus, they're clearly very readable books, still.

The films, of course, also boosted popularity of anything associated with James Bond, not least the rare book market. My Fleming-collecting pal regaled me of stories of first editions passed on decades ago when on offer at a tiny fraction of the current market price, with regret in his voice. Fleming collecting requires deep pockets.

John Le Carre was perhaps the author whose rarities at the show were starting to aspire to Fleming prices and collectability, with some first editions of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold demanding £4,000 to £5,000 or more, and many other of his books heading north of £2,000 a short.

Like most other forms of collecting, as decades go by, scarcity increases, and prices necessarily do too. Despite the best efforts of the dealers at the show and book dealers around the world to find, preserve and bring to market lost treasures and ephemera, inevitably editions will disappear from circulation, be destroyed, get defaced, or simply mislaid.

In my experience as a collector of Deightons, it is the very scarcity of some books and items that makes them attractive as collectable items; that, and the obvious factors of great story telling and interesting cover designs, of course. But the scarcer something is, the more a collector will want it.

A relative bargain, based on the median prices evident elsewhere at Firsts

On this blog, over the years, I've made posts about a number of super rare items that I've been lucky enough to find - sometimes after an intense search, sometimes just through dumb luck - and there is a frisson of excitement whether at a rare book far, a second half bookshop, or online, whenever something rare comes up. The dealers at the show understand this, and create value for themselves and collectors by scouring the globe for rare items and bringing them together at shows like Firsts, where some will dig into their pockets, while other visitors will just look on and admire (as I did on that day).

Rarity in the case of Ian Fleming books means eye-wateringly high prices, because the world of Fleming collecting is for the upper echelons of the collecting world. The heavy hitters. The big guns. The top collectors know the top dealers personally; they all know their clients 'want lists', and know the value of repeat business to both parties, and of discretion. It's a fascinating relationship to understand at this rarified end of the book collecting world.

With Len Deighton's books, prices are more reasonable on the whole. Of course, first editions of The Ipcress File, Billion-Dollar Brain, Funeral in Berlin and Horse Under Water do attract quite high prices, being now so limited in number (for example, The Ipcress File pictured below was going for £2,450). But then, other editions, like the SS-GB shown above, were more reasonable, at £70, as supplies remain good, given the large print runs these books got compared to earlier stories.

Rarity, of any author's books, means higher prices

I started collecting Deighton's because I enjoyed the books and found them an affordable and relatively straightforward option to collect. So, while I've spent good money on the odd rare item, I've never had to break the bank and go beyond my means.

If you're a fan of Ian Fleming, or John Le Carre, starting a collection now - as opposed to thirty years ago - is now pretty much out of the question for many people.

Who knows what the next Ian Fleming will be? Will there ever be another popular fiction writer that dominates the new and rare book markets as he did? Of modern authors, I think right now J K Rowling is starting to show signs of being the modern standard setter for rare and collectable book prices, judging by what I saw at the show. 

But then, there's no rhyme or reason sometimes to why some authors are popular - and pricey - while some can be purchased for virtually nothing. Something can always change - a film often help - and propel an author into the collecting stratosphere. 

I think one such author who could become as collectable as Len Deighton or John Le Carre is Mick Herron, whose Slow Horses series of books is now, judging by what I saw at First, eminently collectable and rising up the charts. The popular TV series may also drive interest in the original books, too.

I remember discussing with my pal in the pub afterwards that book collecting - like records or stamp collecting - could be seen as a form of addiction in a way: the desire for 'just one more' book for the collection is powerful. It's not for nothing, perhaps, that the stands at the show were peopled by book 'dealers'.

But, as addictions go, it's fairly benign. No one really gets harmed by it. Both sides - sellers and buyers - benefit from the transaction. And both help preserve our literary history, one book at a time which, in this electronic, on-demand, screen driven world, can't be a bad thing.

The radical act of having a book on your shelf

The inevitable snowflake!

Any collector of first edition or out-of-print books might think their hobby is immune to the ravages of the "culture wars" which are infecting the body politics on both sides of the Atlantic.

Far from it.

As this interesting article in the UK"s Spiked magazine shows, the simple act of collecting an old or out of print edition of a book is now a radical political act, on a par with the publication of samizdat editions of books in the old Soviet Union.

Sure, the author exaggerates a little to make a point. But it does highlight concerns I and other collectors have about the growing readiness of publishers to revise new editions of established works - often using the services of the delightfully termed 'sensitivity reader' - and excise from them any sort of "problematic" wording.

Problematic to whom? Who declares it a problem? Is this agreed by everybody? Is it a genuine assessment, or the opinion of some fruitcake with a Twitter handle?

I hate the word "problematic". 

It's so mealy-mouthed, and redolent of much of the official corporate jargon that's now a feature of publishing, as well as other industries, for which the risk of offending somebody or some online group now takes precedence over, well, the integrity of the novel, of art, of history.

This is a new phenomenon - the whole sensitivity industry (for that's what it is) has grown up maybe in just the last decade. But it is affecting many authors that readers of this blog will be familiar with.

Roald Dahl's children's books are a famous victim of this seemingly benign, but in truth dangerous trend to - literally - rewrite the past.

In the world of spy fiction, Ian Fleming's novels are now undergoing the same treatment, to remove some of the so-called 'problematic' references which the publisher is worried about.

In both those (and other) instances, the novelist has passed away and their estates - charged with looking after the interests of the author's works - are, seemingly, happy to go along with this.

The judgement must be that today's readers, growing up in a society where everything offends someone, should be pandered to; and you can perhaps see a commercial case for doing so. Why risk a Twitter 'pile-on' and put sales under threat.

But, it's such a cowardly act, I think, not least because it changes the author's words, often without their permission.

Should we repaint the Last Supper because it is insufficiently diverse? Should Wagner's operas be expunged of any notes that might hint at German nationalism? Do we change the lyrics of 'Dear God' by XTC because the religiously minded don't like it?

Where does it stop? And who decides?

The author, I think, must be the arbiter. 

To my knowledge, in the most recent Penguin reissues of Len Deighton's novels, there have been no edits or excisions prompted by sensitivity readers.

That may be because, although they are written in the sixties, seventies and eighties and nineties, they are not replete with egregious examples of racism, sexism or any other -ism you can think of.

Sure, there are a few words and characters which a sensitivity reader might baulk at; but, having read most of the novels at least a couple of times, to me these words - auxiliary though they may be - are just as important as any of the key passages or bits of dialogue.

They were chosen by the author. 

And as a reader, I want to read what the author wrote. I don't want to read what someone thinks I should read.

The question here is one of integrity.

Any book, by its very nature, is of its time, and so will also reflect the sensibilities and language of its time. And to that extent, I can see perhaps the sense of adding a publishers' note in the end papers advising readers of that fact. It's merely a guide, a sop to the more sensitive reader, that leaves the book unsullied

But change the language?

That feels like a step too far. Any novel represents the author's vision and story, and language and description and dialogue is integral to that. Changing one word, one sentence, one paragraph, or a character's name or description, undermines that cohesive vision.

There's often a reason an author may have used a racial slur in a book, or gave a character a certain character trait, or presented a character with a physical difficulty. We don't know that reason - and nor should we - so it's not for us to second guess why it's there.

But it is there, and it should remain there. We can acknowledge it; comment on it; wince at it. But, change it?

If you're offended by it, well, don't read the book; or, just put the book to one side.

To push for having the book altered to suit your own sensibilities or that of a certain group in society seems utterly selfish and self-important.

So, going back to the original article's point, I am, evidently, now a radical. 

I don't feel like one. But I understand the (incredibly minor) role I play as a collector in keeping reality, and truth, and artistic integrity alive.

Indeed, I also have a full collection of Spike Milligan's works - loved by children and adults alike but, in their subversiveness and (in the case of his war memoirs) unexpurgated frankness, they are ripe for the sensitivity readers chopping block. 

Same with my Tintin first editions.

Much of their contents would make the average Gen-Z aploplectic. But, I enjoy them, nonetheless.

By keeping them on my shelves, and perhaps in future passing them on to someone else or selling them through a dealer, I feel some solace that I am undertaking an entirely passive, but revolutionary act, in the name of truth and reality, during this current period of cultural perturbation.

As if I needed another reason to keep my collection safe, and growing!

What do you think?

Another serendipitous find

As a collector of Len Deighton's output (along with a couple of other authors) for a number of decades, through talking to dealers, scouring second-hand book shops and trawling online sites like ABEBooks, I've got a pretty good idea of what the market is:

• Which books are rare
• How often the crop up in the market
• What represents good value

That allows me, as a collector, to be more focused and targeted and ensure that any spare cash I use on adding to my collection, is well-used and helps me get a more complete collection.

Every so often, something comes along that I've never heard of or seen before for sale; one recent example explored here on this blog was the SS-GB Whitehall postcard - super rare - which I found after years of searching. Surprisingly, within a couple of months, I found another (which I purchased) that included some of the original publicity content sent out to booksellers.

Feast and famine, and serendipity. Such is the experience of the serious book collector.

This week, I found another item that was totally off my radar. It's a limited edition book of illustrations, called An Alphabet in praise of Frogs and Toads by John Norris Wood. And, it has a foreword by Len Deighton (as a serious collector, I don't collect just Deighton's books, but his forewords and book jacket illustrations too). 

Why? Well, it turns out Wood and Deighton were fellow students at London's Royal College of Art, where both were graphic designers and illustrators. Deighton's forward recalls his time at the college and his friendship with Wood. The book itself is simply page after page of - admittedly well done - pictures of frogs and toads. But, as a limited private printing of just 320 copies, it's rare.

I checked with other collectors and online and found that the market price was in the £2-300 mark.

Me? I paid £50 online for it. I'd consider that a bargain for something so rare. 

It just goes to show that for those of us who enjoy collecting books - of whatever kind - there's always something new to find, and that's why we do what we do; that's why collectors are rarely satisfied or say to themselves, "You know, I'm done."

Happy collecting.

The quest is over: the tale of the elusive SS-GB postcard

This is a post about collecting, and the thrill of tracking down big game.

In my case, the 'big game' was in fact small and rather insignificant - a postcard 4 inches by 6 inches. But bagging it bought to the end fifteen or more years of patient stalking.

This blog - and the Deighton Dossier main website - started as a means of documenting and sharing my collection of Len Deighton books and other items. It has since grown over a decade and more into a small but well-informed community of fellow collectors, readers and spy fiction fans, including over on the main Facebook group.

I'm still a keen book collector - not just of Deighton, but other authors too. Even though my collection is (according to a number of dealers) impressive, there are still odd gaps here and there. 

Most of these I would class as 'hyper rare' items of ephemera. This week, after keeping my eyes open online for fifteen years plus, I found what I'd been looking for.

It is this, a simple postcard, part of the marketing materials for the first UK edition of SS-GB:

Designed by Raymond Hawkey, it shows on the front the 'Siegesparade in London, 20 April 1941', divisions of Waffen SS marching confidently down Whitehall to mark the victory of the Nazis over the British which forms the central conceit of Deighton's famous 'alternative history' thriller, which was made into a series by the BBC.

The image was also used on the dust jacket of the UK first edition.

What's so special?

A woman, scorned

The first edition is the ultimata ratio of any book collector, the Holy Grail of the bibliophile. But there is also gold in the unusual and lesser known.

This blog post was prompted by an email from a Dutch Deighton fan and collector, Henk Konings, who sent me the image of his Companion Club Edition An Expensive Place to Die, above. It got me thinking - are they, and other unusual imprints or later editions, as important as the first editions to a collector? Or are they just sprinkles on an otherwise delicious cake?

As a long-standing collector of Len Deighton's works (alongside the works of Spike Milligan), I've always had uppermost in my mind the need, the challenge of completism, to be able to track down and secure (for as little money as possible) a copy of every book in its UK first edition format (and often, too, the US and German first editions).

Over years of collecting it's generally been relatively easy to do as, maybe until the last five to ten years, Len Deighton's first editions - with a couple of exceptions - have been both competitively priced - as against, say, John Le Carré or Ian Fleming first editions - and relatively available on the market and in second-hand bookshops.

Sure, one or two editions - and I'm thinking of when I finally picked up my pristine Billion Dollar Brain first - have required some tracking down and financial outlay. But it's been an achievable challenge such that relatively early in my collecting career, I had got most of the first editions lined up on my shelves.

As a fan first - but also a collector - my thought was then: what next? That's when I started on the next phase of my collecting, when I started to actively track down special editions, book club reproductions and other oddities which the purist, perhaps, might overlook.

Why? Well, based on my collection - and, judging from Henk's email, others' too - these special editions can be just as fulfilling to track down and interesting to consider as the first editions in terms of book design, style and illustration than the first editions, if not more so in some cases. First editions are ultimately about rarity and first impressions. When you don't have rarity, an alternative edition has to offer something else.

Book of the month

From my own collecting, online hunting and correspondence with other collectors, there are plenty of readers who like to focus on book club editions, such as the ubiquitous Book of the Month Club or the slightly more urbane Franklin Book Club special editions, as a collecting goal in themselves.

Shelf life ....

On the shelf

A visit to my local Waterstones recently: Harper Collins' reissues of Len's books. All good.

The lure of rarity

Recently took a trip to Leicester to see James Pickard, who was selling a collection of Deighton items from one of the world's leading collectors of Deighton materials (...Deightonaria, perhaps?) but who's sadly having to sell it. If anyone reading this blog is looking to snap up some really fabulous items for their collection, do get in touch with James through his website.

I managed to pick up some super rare items that I've been looking for for a long, long time - gaps in my collection - including the original Dove Ark supplement, three pristine copies of the first three novels and Elephanta, the rare as hen's teeth in-house magazine for the White Elephant restaurant in London, which in the seventies was one of the main haunts for the 'stars' of stage, screen and music. Len Deighton was one of the contributing editors. The magazine itself is of some interest - it has a rare photo of Deighton in it - but it's of more interest as a cultural artefact from the seventies, replete with flexi-disc (now, that dates it!).

Always worthwhile, trips up to Leicester. But as I always find out from James.....there's more to track down!