Why Collect First Editions?

Ask Ginni, our resident Literary Lady, anything you want to know about reading and relationships! She’ll comb the books and wrack her brains to help you out with your page-turning problems, your wordy woes, and your novel nuisances. Fire away, Bookworms!

Dear Literary Lady,
Why do some people collect first editions of books?
–FlummoxedbyFolios, Bend, OR.

Dear FlummoxedbyFolios,
I have a slight obsession with collecting first editions myself, so your question hits home for me. It’s a hobby that not a lot of people share. While many people love books, it’s the stories, the language, and the characters they care about, not whether the book is a particular copy or a particular edition. So why, then, do book collectors care?

Book collectors value first editions because it’s the closest one can get to the author’s intent. The author is usually more invested and involved in the first printing process because it’s the first time their work is born and introduced to the world. The first printing is also closer in time to the actual writing of the book than any other printing. This proximity in time results in a more accurate reflection of the context in which the book was written and the writer’s mindset at the time of composition.

There’s also a great deal of cachet to owning a book before it receives critical acclaim and becomes widely available. The first batch of any book is going to be small because new works are almost always a gamble—publishers don’t know how well they’re going to sell. If a book is well received, publishers increase their production in later printings. Those later copies no longer represent a literary gamble and are thus not as fun to collect.

Also, it’s kind of cool to have a humble, scrappy first edition of the book before the work became famous. The first copies of award-winning books often don’t have any awards or accolades yet: there’s no prize seal on the book cover. There’s no mention of the book winning an award. Even better, there’s nothing on a first-edition book cover that mentions best-seller lists or “millions of copies sold worldwide”or “now a major motion picture.” With fame and fortune, unfortunately, comes a great deal of repackaging, tweaking, and marketing of the book itself. For book collectors, the first edition is the book in its purest form.

Lastly, here’s why I personally collect first-edition books. A long time ago, I visited Chumley’s, a former speakeasy and literary hangout in New York’s Greenwich Village. Twentieth-century American literati like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, John Dos Passos, Willa Cather, and most of the early New Yorker’s writing staff frequented the establishment. Whenever each of them finally published a book, they would tear off the cover of their newly printed magnum opus and affix it to the walls at Chumley’s.

I remember looking at the wall of book covers and thinking, “THAT was the book they first beheld. THAT was the book they ran with to the bar, the book they waved proudly in the air, the book they wanted everyone to see they had finally finished.” That was the copy of the book I wanted for my own bookshelf.  It was then that I first started collecting first editions.

To this day, I delight in finding a first issue of a book because I like to imagine the author’s pride, relief, and joy at seeing their work in print. To me, first editions are the the apple of the author’s eye, the physical manifestation of years of blood, sweat, and writer’s block tears. While many of these books went on to become widely read classics reprinted in dozens of languages, there’s something wonderful about turning the pages of a book in its humblest state.

So next time you see the first printed copy of any book, whether it’s a contemporary young author’s debut or a weathered copy of a famous classic, stop and think about the author. You might just start a collection yourself.

Love and paperbacks,
Literary Lady