There are so many activities associated with owning and running a bookshop. At the moment, I am doing up “the books” for the quarter so I can file the HST return. The book room needs constant maintenance, panic when the dehumidifier stops working, packaging up books for shipment, handling tariffs and duties, participating in shows, and etc.. However, there are two main functions, and they are buying and selling books. Buying is more fun, but selling is more rewarding.
Visiting someone’s home to view a library that no dealer has ever seen gets one’s heartbeat up very quickly. You know on the door, meet the owner(s) and get a first look at the books. It can be very demoralizing, and you try to put on a good face knowing you are going to leave empty handed. Or, you have an “Oh Boy!” moment – where do I start.
Going into a fine used bookshop for the first time is fun too. When I travelled a lot for business, charting out the bookshops in the area is job one. Much easier now with the internet – it used to be, check into the hotel, find the thick old yellow pages, and start thumbing through.
Going into your favourite thrift store is fairly routine. Many times, you leave with nothing. Which is not necessarily a bad thing if you have some discipline about what to buy. When I first became a dealer, I bought books that still clutter up the shop. After a couple of years, I started to ask myself “Why isn’t this a $20 book?”. Several years ago this became “Why isn’t this a $50 book?” Much better. Still a thrill as you approach the book section.
The big art books, older leather bound books, and such are easy to spot and put in your cart. But, I also look for the unusual, out of place items, small books that just need to be looked at, weird titles and subjects. Which leads me, finally, to the topic of this week’s musing. Two days ago I spied a small, spine slightly faded, no dust jacket, orange book with the title “Spelling Bees”. That qualifies as weird. I picked it up looked at a cover illustration that certainly caught my attention. This is different, I thought.
And then, I opened to the title page and within seconds, I knew that this was a good book. “illustrated by DR. SEUSS” and the woman’s face in the frontispiece was a tell tale. And then I looked at the verso “Copyright 1937”. An early Dr. Seuss item. The book went right into the shopping cart.
I typically do not bother with children’s books (nor cookbooks, biographies, health and medical books and modern fiction) unless they are pre–World War II or earlier or by a famous author. Over the decades I have picked up many Dr. Seuss books to see if was an early first edition – never happened. Until I picked up a curious little orange book.
Spelling Bees: The Oldest and the Newest Rage; by Albert Deane, illustrated by Dr. Seuss; Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1937.
The author, Albert Deane, of whom I could find nothing at all in my research, had a very strong sense of humour. Evidenced first of all by selecting Dr. Seuss as his illustrator. But his Introduction was hilarious. I started to read it but stopped after A read one sentence – “The Infectious proclivity for polysyllabic interchange of incomprehensible and occasionally irrefutable and unanswerable ratiocination, invective and oftentimes laryngeal trivialities is a poltroonery that is permissible of the most censorious and punitive retaliation.”
You would have stopped too as the headache kicked in. This nonsense went on for a page and a half. Then on the next page was “Translation of the Introduction – This is a book for wits-nit, half and full. It seeks to make words seem fine and full of life, if you think you can use words as they are meant to be used, with poise, tact and charm, then by all means use them and have no fear; but if you have not the sense to use them this way, then be wise and do not try.”
The book contains hundreds and hundreds of words, by both topic and size of words. So, for the spelling bee aficionados this was a serious book.
Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904 – 1991) was an American children's author, illustrator, animator, and cartoonist. He is known for his work writing and illustrating more than 60 books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. His work includes many of the most popular children's books of all time, selling over 600 million copies and being translated into more than 20 languages by the time of his death.
Geisel was educated at Dartmouth College, graduating in 1925. Upon graduating from Dartmouth, he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, intending to earn a Doctor of Philosophy. Geisel left Oxford without earning a degree and returned to the United States in February 1927, where he immediately began submitting writings and drawings to magazines, book publishers, and advertising agencies.
His first nationally published cartoon appeared in the July 16, 1927, issue of The Saturday Evening Post. This single $25 sale encouraged Geisel to move from Springfield to New York City. Later that year, Geisel accepted a job as writer and illustrator at the humor magazine Judge. Geisel's first work signed "Dr. Seuss" was published in Judge about six months after he started working there.
In 1936, Geisel and his wife were returning from an ocean voyage to Europe when the rhythm of the ship's engines inspired the poem that became his first children's book: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Based on Geisel's varied accounts, the book was rejected by between 20 and 43 publishers. According to Geisel, he was walking home to burn the manuscript when a chance encounter with an old Dartmouth classmate led to its publication by Vanguard Press. This first book was published in 1937 the same year that Spelling Bee was published.
And what a career he went on to have, becoming once of the best known and loved authors of all time.
Enjoy the following illustrations from Spelling Bee. You will likely recognize some of the features!
