Incredible.
Bob, if I ever see a Hugh Howey book in your collection thread, I'll feel like the first time I heard Santa wasn't real.
Incredible.
Bob, if I ever see a Hugh Howey book in your collection thread, I'll feel like the first time I heard Santa wasn't real.
Do you have -- or have you read -- Emma Straub's novel? It's quite good.
Author of The Road to the Dark Tower, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences and The Dark Tower Companion. Co-editor with Stephen King of the anthology Flight or Fright.
That's interesting -- I hadn't thought of that.
Author of The Road to the Dark Tower, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences and The Dark Tower Companion. Co-editor with Stephen King of the anthology Flight or Fright.
Peter Straub's daughter, Emma, has published her first book and it is titled LAURA LAMONT'S LIFE IN PICTURES. I thought the title was interesting in that Peter's first real publication was a little poetry chapbook titled MY LIFE IN PICTURES. And I wondered if Emma's choice of titles was some sort of homage to her dad or if it was entirely coincidental.
I was browsing ABE for Straub titles back in 1999 and I came across a listing for MY LIFE IN PICTURES by Straub and published by Seafront Press in 1971. It was listed by a bookseller in Dublin. I had never heard of it and I asked the seller if it was THE Peter Straub, novelist. He said he was pretty sure it was the same so I took a chance and bought it. It is a little 8" x 6.5" chapbook that consists of only three pages with three poems.
I've never seen another for sale and probably never will. I took it to a book signing in Dallas in 2000. Peter seemed surprised and pleased to see it. I've also included some e-mail correspondence from Peter that I got when I was trying to be certain it was by THE Peter Straub. Obviously it is one of my favorite Straub collectibles.
Front.
Back.
Last edited by carlosdetweiller; 04-24-2014 at 04:07 AM.
Amazing. The stuff you have never ceases to amaze me!
Truely amazing!
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That's a great story. Thanks for sharing, Bob.
Just read through the full thread. Interesting stories, thanks for sharing!
"...that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little." ~ Ray Bradbury
Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures was not actually Emma's first book. There's one that came before it called Other People We Married. It's an excellent story collection. (I can't swear that that was actually her first, but I know it came out prior to Laura Lamont.)
@carlosdetweiller Wow that is an amazing story and great scans! I stumbled across a copy of "Open Air" in my university in Ireland many years ago and corresponded with Straub briefly about it - I thought this was cool but your story and that book is beyond cool, simply amazing! Straub is the author I read and collect the most after King so was pretty happy to find this post. Thanks for sharing this.
Author of The Road to the Dark Tower, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences and The Dark Tower Companion. Co-editor with Stephen King of the anthology Flight or Fright.
Ordered an ex-library paperback edition of "Open Air" (one of 500 unsigned) as an extra copy. Imagine my surprise today when it turns out what they had listed was actually one of the 100 signed casebound editions (I got number 19). It's in mostly good condition, one tear inside and a few library stamps - and as I only paid 10 sterling for it expecting a paperback I think it's a bargain!
The casebound editions of Open Air are really scarce; more scarce it seems than the stated 100 limitation. I asked Peter about this several years ago and he said he had some flooding in his garage or basement and it damaged a lot of books including a hoard of hardbound Open Airs. I'm not sure of the numbers but I never see any copies with "high" numbers; mostly low ones like your 19.
So how much DID you pay for the '10 pence' pamphlet Bob?
"It's none of my business, but I can't help being curious"
"A real limited edition, far from being an expensive autograph stapled to a novel, is a treasure. And like all treasures do, it transforms the responsible owner into a caretaker, and being a caretaker of something as fragile and easily destroyed as ideas and images is not a bad thing but a good one...and so is the re-evaluation of what books are and what they do that necessarily follows." - Stephen King
That's really cool! Thanks for sharing. I think I've seen it go for $200-$400 before but I'm not sure of the "value" on it. I was delighted because it was purely unexpected - I have a paperback and hardcover edition of it now, both library marked unfortunately - but gently so. I've also ordered a non-libary-marked edition of the paperback as well. I love that little book of poetry, I find myself re-reading a lot of his early poems.
LOL! I'm curious too I'd love that in my collection. There's actually a copy in the National Library of Ireland that I got to view and read, and they also give photocopies of it. I keep hoping I'll stumble across a copy of it here in Ireland but I think it's highly highly doubtful.
I bought it for $200. I'm pretty sure it was before any Straub bibliography had come out and I had never heard of it. I recall sending quite a few questions to the bookseller on ABE to make sure it was THE Peter Straub, although, really, who else could it be? The thought that I could be making a big mistake occurred to me but now I'm really glad I bought it. I have never seen another for sale.
You definitely made the right decision. I wonder what value it has? I'm clueless about these things as I just pay for what I like, but I imagine it's worth at least $500, maybe $1000 or more? It's probably a very difficult item to place a value on in fact.
p.s. do you know the approximate value of the casebound "Open Airs"? I'd never sell it but I'm just wondering HOW good a deal I got! LOL - I think I've seen them go for $200 before, maybe $400 - but those may have been pristine copies, and I think they were on abebooks.
On another note, I've often found it strange how low flatsigned and inscribed Straubs - and even some S/L Straubs go. I know he's not as popular or as collectable as King but even Richard Laymon sells for higher bucks - at least from what I've seen.