John Gilkey

De afgelopen weken het boek The man who loved books too much* gelezen, in bed, onder de leeslantaarn.** Ik vond het in een kringloopwinkel. Meende me te herinneren dat het gerecenseerd was in de NRC.*** Jammer genoeg bleken er flinke scheuren te zitten in de bladzijden 139/140 en 141/142.
Het boek is gemakkelijk samen te vatten:

Pinocchio, first Italian edition, 80.000 dollar
The tale of Peter Rabbit, first trade edition, 15.000 dollar
The Cat in the Hat, first edition, 8.500 dollar
Beethovens Fifth Symphony, first edition, 13.500 dollar
Watson and Crick: first and second DNA article offprints, signed, 140.000 dollar
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, first edition, 500 exx., 30.000 dollar
The History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, first edition, 139.000 dollar
Toni Morrison: Beloved, first edition, 125 dollar
John Updike: Rabbit Is Rich, first edition, 45 dollar (na zijn dood in 2009 meer)
Reverend Frognall Dibdin: The Bibliomania or Book Madness (..) 'Dibdin further noted that back in his day, the early nineteenth century, collectors were mad for (in order) "I. Large Paper Copies; II. Uncut Copies; III. Illustrated Copies; IV. Unique Copies; V. Copies printed upon Vellum; VI. First Editions: VII. True Editions; VIII. A general desire for the Black Letter" (heavy ornate black type, the earliest of which were from the Gutenberg presses). Dibdin himself "craved uncut copies (..) virgo intacta' (VERZAMELAAR)
A Bostonion (Edgar Allen Poe): Tamerlane and other Poems, (1827), 198.000 dollar
Ludwig Bemelmans: Madeline, 1.500 dollar
Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita, first edition with green octavo shell, 2.500 dollar (getekend ex. voor Graham Greene: 264.000 dollar)
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five, first edition, 6.500 dollar (indien gesigneerd)
Eugene Field: The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac, 1896 (VERZAMELAAR)
J.W. Dilley, History of the Scofield Mine Disaster, 1900, 500 dollar
Henry Edwards Huntington, 1850- (VERZAMELAAR)
Herschel V. Jones, tijdgenoot van Huntington (VERZAMELAAR)
Toddle Island (Lord Bottsford's diary, 1894), 113 dollar
Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge, first edition, two volumes, 2.500 dollar
The Patchwork Girl of Oz, 1.800 dollar
Thomas Mann: Joseph in Egypt, autographed, 850 dollar
Gay Talese: The Overreachers, first edition, 40 dollar
Gay Talese: The Bridge, first edition, 40 dollar
John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath, (geen specificaties), 6.500 dollar
Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, first edition, 7.500 dollar
Jack Kerouac: On the Road, first edition, 4.500 dollar
The Great Gatsby, first edition, 4.000 dollar
1984, first edition, 2.000 dollar
A.A. Milne: When We Were Very Young, Winnie-the-Pooh, Now We Are Six, The House at Pooh Corner, first editions, samen 9.500 dollar
Thomas Jefferson Fitzpatrick,  -1952 (VERZAMELAAR)
Thomas Jefferson, third president of USA (VERZAMELAAR)
Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis, -1979 (VERZAMELAAR)
Guglielmo Libri, 1803-1869 (VERZAMELAAR)
P. Alessandra Maccioni Ruju/Marco Mostert: The Life and Times of Guglielmo Libri, 1995 (LEESVOER)
Don Vincente, nineteenth-century Spanish monk (VERZAMELAAR)
William Blake: The Book of Job, 100.000 dollar
A Streetcar Named Desire (geen specificaties), 3.000 dollar
Willie Mays, autobigraphy, signed, 400 dollar
John Dunning: Booked to Die, first edition, 400 dollar
Thomas More: Utopia, first edition, 244.500 dollar
Federico da Montefeltro, fifteenth century (VERZAMELAAR)
Marcello Simonetta (ed.): Federico da Montefeltro and His Library, 2007
John Carter: ABC for Book Collectors (LEESVOER)
Nicholas Basbanes: Among the Gently Mad (VERZAMELAAR)
Idem, A Gentle Madness (VERZAMELAAR)
Robert Vosper: A Pair of Bibliomanes for Kansas: Ralph Ellis and Thomas Jefferson Fitzpatrick, 1961 (LEESVOER)

Verder weinig aan. John Gilkey boeide me niet echt. Zijn creditcard-virtuositeit kwam beter uit de verf dan zijn bibliomanie. Het verhaal zou erbij gebaat zijn geweest als de verslaggeefster zelf uit stelen was gegaan, aangestoken door de obsessie van haar studie-object. Dan de feiten maar losgelaten, zoals Ingrid pleegt te zeggen.


* Allison Hoover Bartlett, Riverhead Books, 2009; portrtet van de boekendief John Gilkey
** Ikea, Tived
*** Stine Jensen weet ik intussen, vrijdag 18 december 2009