Ellery Queen on Book collectors by Warren Bull

Ellery Queen on Book collectors by Warren Bull

In the Queen’s Parlor and Other Leaves from the Editor’s Notebook by Ellery Queen was published in 1957. The author(s) present fifty snippets of writing about including anecdotes, reflections and reminiscences. All of them have to do with telling mystery stores. It is the equivalent of inside baseball as told by baseball insiders.  

One of the topics that interested me was book collections and book collectors. I have a modest mystery book collection of my own. This section of the book is called: Evolution of a Biblomanic.  Queen describes four stages of evolution. The earliest stage is the fledgling stage in which a person surrounds himself or herself with a menagerie of books on a variety of topics in a variety of conditions for the purpose of reading. To satisfy what George Bernard Show calls a “dangerous amusement” the pre-collector gloms onto whatever looks interesting about whatever subject matter appeals at the moment.

However, Queen warns that a virus may have been contracted with alarming symptoms such as looking at his or her piles and experiencing pain that can be relived only by replacing perfectly readable books with the first edition of those same books. The person now revels in the identification of self as a Connoisseur.

Should the symptoms worsen the person will be next seized by the desire to have not only first editions, but first editions in the finest state of preservation. He or she seeks books as pristine as when they came hot off the press. Along side the desire for pristine books comes an even greater problem, the desire for original dust jackets. Without question the collector has now entered the realm of a Fanatic. Queen suggests that in this state the word bibliophile may also be spelled “biblofool.”

Unfortunately there is one more level with even more severe symptoms.  Unsatisfied by the mint condition books that rest side by side, and may never be read, the person plunges deeply into the depths by haunting bookstores, online purveyors of all things written and auctions.  The person is now in pursuit of books that meet the highest standards and have been inscribed by the author. At this point the poor person (and he or she may be poor as the result of paying for first editions) is now in the full stage of bibliomanic.

Queen states the attraction of signed first editions is that the owner has a totally unique work. This is followed by thoughts about inscriptions. Queen, of course, has written many. The author notes that, while mundane messages are highly valued, on occasion the author pens something personal. As examples cited were, Katherine Anne Porter who once wrote: “I wish I knew how to inscribe books, but I don’t.” Israel Zangwill once wrote at a forty-five degree angle: “Don’t read the last page in the middle.” Richard Harding Davis once struggled to find a way to avoid the hackneyed best wishes. Opposite the last printed page he repeated the last line of the book: “You sign it,” he said. — Richard Harding Davis.

I could continue but I don’t want to steal the fun of discovery from those who have not read the book.  There is no plot and little mystery but, if you want to know what one or two of the great mystery writers and publishers thought about, this is the book to read.