Best book finds and stories from the years

Best book finds and stories

Over more than 50 years in the trade Matthew White has bought and sold thousands of fine, collectibl books. Perhaps Huxley’s single best buy, he says, was an original set of six volumes of prints by the French naturalist Le Vaillant.

He has made several exciting acquisitions. Probably the best of these is a scarce first edition of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar published under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas.

Another good find was a first edition of James Grant’s A Walk Across Africa published in 1864. Grant was a companion of the great explore,r John Speke, discoverer of the source of the Nile.

Among other interesting finds are:

 

A two volume encyclopaedia of women composers, several first edition James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, a fine first edition of the sci-fiction classic A Canticle for Liebewits, a first edition of poems by Louis Leipoldt with corrections and emendations in red ink in his own hand for the second edition, and copies signed by famous people such as Jan Smuts, Noel Coward, Sir Alfred Beit, William Faulkner and J.R.R Tolkien.

It is especially nice when a book finds a good home, says Matthew. “I was delighted, for instance, to have been able to find a copy of the late, great cricket commentator Charles Fortune’s book on the 1956/7 MCC tour of South Africa for his widow. She said it was the only book of her husband’s she did not have in her collection. Iwas also able to find a first edition of When the Lion Feeds for its author, Wilbur Smith, after his own copy was stolen.

Another special occasion was having Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer attend a book signing at Huxley’s.

Matthew tells a sad story of attending a book sale at a retirement home. Disappointingly asked one of the residents if there were no other books. She replied: “Oh we threw some books into boxes. You may look at them if you line, but they are all ols and useless, like me…”

Luckily Matthew was able to rescue three or four really fine items, including a first edition of poems by Cecil Day-Lewis.

Does he have any regrets? “Few and small,” he says. “Perhaps my biggest regret is having sold my personal copy of the letters of Oscar Wilde which I would dearly love to buy back so I can read it again.”

Huxley’s today and its publishing arm

Huxley’s book’s specializes in a few book genres, mainly: Africana (books and other cultural materials related to Africa; so called ‘classic’ Africana typically relates to travel, exploration and natural history), literature and modern first editions, but will handle almost anything scarce and valuable. Africana is the busiest sector with most sales these days to customers in the USA, where there is huge African studies. Huxley’s sells to institutions as well as private buyers.

Huxley’s is also a small publishing house, with a handful of books – children’s tales, short stories, health and sociology — in both print and digital format.

Matthew says that, while not actively canvassing for manuscripts, he is willing to take a look at any that cross his desk or is sent to his computer. If thinks there’s a market he is willing to pursue the idea. The manuscript would then need to be edited and set in type, a cover will be designed. Then comes the really hard part: selling.

Books vs. E-books, what our view is.

For years now, there has been an ongoing debate among readers, authors and publishers about the relative merits of printed editions versus e-books. Both have something unique or special to bring to the table.

One of the big differences between books and e-books is cost. With e-books typically costing a lot less than printed editions. Every printed story needs to be edited, printed, have a cover made by a designer, copyrighted and distributed. Every book sold contributes to the author, editor, publisher, des\igner, sales clerk, tax, logistics, author’s agent and so forth. E-books on the other hand don’t need to be printed, distributed or sold by a clerk, this cuts the cost dramatically. Most e-books have a price range of 99c to $9.99 (many books sold online are sold in US dollars) and many classic books online can be downloaded for free.

Other pros ofs e-books include the option to increase font size for easier reading, the capability to store thousands of books (essays, magazines and articles) on one device, the lightness of the device and are more environmentally friendly.

This is not to say that e-books don’t come with their cons (which vary from brand to brand and model to model). E-books run on electricity and need to be re-charged, some e-book screens are not easily readable in sunlight. Many people have reported strained eyes since using an e-book and the technology easily becomes outdated and obsolete, and e-books are easily pirated.

The cons of printed books in this debate are few but significant, books are heavy and take up a lot of shelf space in comparison to e-books. They also tend to be more expensive, they are easily damaged and are less immediate to get hold of than e-books.

The pros on printed books although few are invaluable, rare and out of print books can’t be downloaded. The sentiment that many people feel for printed books in indescribable; many people speak about the smell of old pages, the feel of soft pages and the simple comfort of a good heavy paper back.

When it comes down to it at the end of the day, each to his own. Many people prefer e-books with all the technological advances as well as the desire to be up to date. Many people rather enjoy traditional print. Every person should try both and then decide what is best for them.

Matthew White of Huxley’s Books says that E-books are a tremendous resource particularly for research however many people including himself among them really enjoy a real book, he would find it hard to get the same level of enjoyment from an e-book of poetry than from a finely bound book printed on good paper.

The changing nature of the book business

Matthew White got into the book trade because he had a special love for, and a passionate enjoyment of, books despite the fact that his father disapproved of the long hours he spent reading. Though both his parents have passed on, Matthew says he can still hear in his head hi mother’s panicked voice saying: “Quick, put that book away, here comes your father”’.

The nature of the book business has changed hugely since the advent of the Internet, he notes, with literally thousands of book shops around the world have closed. Also, with so much audiovisual entertainment, many people do not spend as much time reading as previously.

One of the reasons the education in South Africa is failing, he believes, is because of the lack of encouragement for children to read. He recalls manning the book stall at his children’s primary school fete. s“One of the children remarked that he had never seen so many books. I asked how many books he had in his home, to which he replied ‘none’. I suggested that he buy a book for himself but he said he only had money for sweets”.

It’s not always the children who have no interest in reading. One day a woman asked if she could leave her son to browse in the bookshop while she had her hair done. “She returned about an hour later, and her son handed her a book that he wanted her to buy for him. ‘Oh, you don’t need a book,’ she said. ‘Put it back and I’ll buy you an ice cream instead.’”

The fact is that books and reading are crucial to education, speech and vocabulary development for children. Parents who read themselves need encourage their children to read.

The major trend of book selling has matured into a new way of selling books online, because it’s more convenient in our fast-paced world. His most important task at Huxley’s says Matthew, is to keep finding fine, collectible, books to buys.

What makes a book collectible and basic book maintenance

A book may be rare without being collectible. What makes a book valuable is that somebody wants it badly enough to pay a high price. Books that fall into this category are usually both scarce and of merit, for example an early folio of Shakespeare, or a first edition of an early book by Ernest Hemingway or D H Lawrence that is still in fine condition. preferably with its dust jacket.

• Artist’s Books
• Association Copies
• Chapbooks
• Dedication Copies
• First Editions (when more than $50)
• Fore-edge Paintings
• Leather, Vellum, or Suede Bindings

A collectible book is any book that somebody wants to collect. Tare serious collectors of modern books, such as those of Wilbur Smith and Terry Pratchett. A rare book is one of which there are very few copies.

Condition is all important when finding out if a book is worth something. A book would have to be extremely scarce for a collector to want it in poor condition. The best way is to compare your copy of a book with a similar copy of an identical printing that is offered for sale. The simplest way is to check on one of the book portals such as, biblio.com or bookfinder.com.

Selling books: These days there are several auction sites, eBay being the most famous. But in South Africa this is really practical only for quite expensive books. If you sell to a dealer you will be offered only a fraction of the retail price because the dealer will buy only when he can make a profit.

“Collect what you love,” says Matthew, “my own collection, started when I was a bo,y was of the Biggles series of books by W.E. Johns. From there I started collecting books about the Second World War, then aft Africana (books about Africa), particular sbooks about South African newspapers. My best collection was of the works in English of Vladimir Nabokov”.

The price difference between a fine copy of a collectible book such as Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby can be worth hunderds if not thousands of dollars, so it is obviously worth looking after your books properly, preferably on a shelf behind glass beyond the reach of the sun, the damp, the dust and the silverfish moth.

Leather-bound books need particularly careful thandling, and regular treatment with a lotion such as the British Museum leather dressing.

Rebinding is almost a lost art. To get it done properly is extremely expensive and for most books isn’t worth it. That said learning craft binding is surely a most worthwhile hobby.

The history of Huxley’s Books

Huxley’s Books was founded in 1994, when a seller of fine, rare and collectible secondhand books, Matthew White, who had entered the book trade in 1962, expanded his small shop to a large, basement store in Rosebank, Johannesburg. The new store was scheduled to open on the 1 of August 1994. However it was discovered that July 26^th was the birth of Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World and many other notable works, 100 years earlier. Iit was decided to name the shop in honour of him and open on that day.

After some difficulties, the business began to trade profitably. An open-air restaurant above Huxley’s was open until late at night. Huxley’s took advantage of this and opened their doors from 9am to 9pm, seven days a week, closing only on the occasional public holiday. Unfortunately, three years into the five-year lease, crime spiked in the area, causing many problems for Huxley’s and surrounding businesses. The restaurant and its customers were robbed by armed gunmen three times in six weeks. Police were never seen on the streets of Rosebank unless they were out shopping. Extra security was contracted to guard the centre but to no avail. At the end of the lease the restaurateur left the premises, leaving the area poorly lit. With few customers in the evening, Huxley’s changed its trading hours to 9am to 5pm.

The mid 1990s marked the beginning of online book trading, and Huxley’s was an early competitor in this new channel. When the lease for the shop was due for renewal in 2001, Matthew decided to abandon retail for more advanced “e-tail” game. He and his wife, book designer Iona Heath White, bought a smallholding with large outbuildings in a semi-rural area and began trading books electronically, saving the swinging costs of retail rentals and security.

The early days of electronic retail were extremely exciting. There were several portals available to booksellers which provided better business opportunities than the stand-alone website that has to compete with millions of others. This was before Facebook and Google made Internet advertising effective and practical for small businesses.

Matthew put his best and rarest books on first and was the first seller to list a number of these editions. However. as time passed, more copies of these editions appeared, but at lower prices. It became clear that sellers were progressively setting their prices lower. “This is strong evidence,” says Matthew White, “of the correctness of economic theory which contends that perfect competition, in which no participants are large enough to set prices, and all buyers have access to all sellers, drives down prices.”

On the up side, for both buyers and sellers, more buyers have greater access to truly rare books than ever before. Such items have continued to increase in value faster than the inflation rate.

A short biography on Matthew White

Matthew White has enjoyed a dual career as a writer and a book seller. His love of books developed shortly after the end of World War 2, when at the age of seven he was allowed to choose a book from his school’s library.

School libraries gave Matthew a vast amount of pleasure. His secondary school, Gifford High in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, had libraries built in the late 1920’s where he served as a student librarian. As a reward, the head of English, who was responsible for the libraries, allowed Matthew to suggest books for the annual acquisition list. The library had a huge collection of P.G. Wodehouse’s humorous novels, which started an addiction that has lasted for more than 60 years.

While still in his teens, Matthew was devouring books by authors such as Conrad, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Forster, Gogol, Gorky, Graves, Hemingway, Huxley, Kafka, Kerouac, Lessing, Mailer, Orwell, Sholokhov, Steinbeck, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Waugh, Rebecca West and Edith Wharton, ,any of whom are still among his favourites. For many years past, Matthew had been reading about a hundred books a year: biographies, histories, novels, plays, poetry, letters, science…

Also in his teens, Matthew started writing book and jazz concert reviews for local newspapers and magazines such as the London Financial Times and the Swedish Dagens Nyheter as well as a string of technology and business publications. While he was doing this, he continued to collect fine, rare and collectible books, “Finding fine books gives ont the thrill of hunting without the blood and cruelty,” he says.

Shortly after joining the Cape Times in 1971, he and his family drove to Paarl, the pearl of the cape Winelands, and happened on a deceased-estate auction. Bidding was brisk for furniture and silver in the cape but there was almost no interest in book. Matthew bought the lot for R5 a shelf, which were more than a meter in length. The books contained some interesting Africana and militaria. This was the foundation stock for a small bookshop he opened in Claremonts’s Cavendish Square staffed mainly by UCT students. Later the shop moved to a larger premises, in the Village of Rondebosch.

One of his customers there was an avid collector of first editions of the “Just William” books written by Richmal Crompton. After acquiring a fine copy of one, Matthew called the customer who rushed over to pick it up. In the conversation which followed this, the customer remarked: “These stories constitute the finest epic cycle in the English language.”

About this time, Matthew’s first book, a biography of Rhodesian rebel leader Ian Smith, was published by Nelson. Though fairly well received by its viewers, it earned very little.

He left Cape Town for a job in Johannesburg which didn’t last, but he grew to love the Highveld and stayed. His Rondebosch shop was taken over by his sister and her husband.

In the mid 1980s while working as a journalist, Matthew opened another small book shop in Rosebank. It was this small shop which became Huxley’s Books.

The life of Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley was born on July 26 1894 in Surrey, England. His family were renowned scientists who specialized in the fields of physics and biology. At the age of fourteen Huxley’s mother became ill and died. Huxley, too, became ill and was diagnosed as legally blind during his recovery. His blindness affected his biological studies and prevented his entrance into the army. His brother later noted this as a blessing in disguise for it allowed Aldous to obtain his bachelor’s degree in English literature.

Although Huxley finished his first novel at the age of 17 (which he never published), his writing of novels only seriously began when he was 20. At the time Huxley was working as journalist and art critic, using his degree to find work where ever he could. He began writing novels as a way to supplement his living.

Although Huxley is mostly renowned for novels such as Brave New World and After Many a Summer, his degree allowed him to write other things such as short stories, poems, screenplays and travel guides.

At 25, Hhey married his first wife, Maria Nys, a Belgian refugee who was also an author (as well as being a qualified anthropologist and epidemiologist). Maria and Huxley had their only child, Matthew Huxley, soon after. Eighteen years later, he and his wife moved to Hollywood, California. He continued to write novels and scripts, being credited with Pride and Prejudice and a synopsis of Alice in Wonderland which was rejected by Walt Disney as being unintelligible.

In 1955, Maria died of breast cancer and a year later Huxley married Laura Archera, also an author, who wrote Huxley’s biography after falling in love with the story of his life.

In 1960, Huxley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. He spent the last three years of his life writing the utopian novel Island. On his deathbed, being unable to speak, Huxley wrote a request to Laura for a dose of LSD. She administered one dose and a few hours later she administered another, Huxley died soon after. Despite his reputation and success, his death was overshadowed in the media by the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His ashes were sent back to his family in Surrey.

Huxley was deeply interested in spirituality and the teachings of Buddhism and similar philosophies, but despite his practises he strongly claimed to be agnostic. He was known to keep the company of Jiddu Krishnamurti, Rosalind Rajagopal and D.H. Lawrence. He was concerned with the effects of mass media and mood-altering drugs on society,s as well as the misuse of sophisticated technology. After meeting millionaire Alfred Matthew Hubbard, Huxley was known to regularly use the narcotic LSD. He was a well-known humanist, pacifist and satirist. He has been regarded as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time.