Nabokov's Butterfly : And Other Stories of Great Authors and Rare Books

by Gekoski, Rick

• ISBN13: 9780786716548
• ISBN10: 0786716541
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-21
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

A first edition of Ulysses sold for $460,000 in auction at Christie's in 2002. The price might have upset the union chief, convicted gangster, and major-league James Joyce book collector Dennis Silverman, who had sold his copy, signed and inscribed by the author, for a mere $135,000 ten years earlier. Great books attract all kinds and come to fascinating destinies of their own, as Nabokov's Butterfly amply demonstrates. Here, noted author and rare book dealer Rick Gekoski whose vocation led to the BBC radio series titled Rare Books, Rare People, profiles twenty editions of major books that have passed through his hands and made publishing history, as they have become the legends of rare book collectors. Sued by J. D. Salinger, harassed by Harold Pinter, berated by Ted Hughes who unloaded his personal and passionately inscribed copy of Sylvia Plath's The Colossus, Gekoski is a convivial participant in these histories, including his sale of Mr. Tolkien's college gown. He recalls one day purchasing from Graham Greene his first edition of Lolita, with Nabokov's signature drawing of a butterfly inside, and on the next day he sold it to Elton John's lyricist at a $10,000 profit.

Author Biography

Rick Gekoski became a book runner while working on his PhD in English at Oxford. In the 1980s he left his lectureship at the University of Warwick to become a full-time, full-fledged rare book dealer—a vocation that led to a series of radio programs for the BBC titled Rare Books, Rare People.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
Lolita	1	(12)
The Hobbit	13	(12)
Lord of the Flies	25	(12)
The Picture of Dorian Gray	37	(12)
On The Road	49	(12)
Ulysses	61	(12)
Sons and Lovers	73	(12)
The Catcher in the Rye	85	(12)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom	97	(12)
The Colossus	109	(12)
A Confederacy of Dunces	121	(12)
Brideshead Revisited	133	(12)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit	145	(12)
Three Stories and Ten Poems	157	(12)
After Two Years	169	(12)
Animal Farm	181	(12)
The Satanic Verses	193	(12)
Poems (1919)	205	(12)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	217	(12)
High Windows	229