Whitmore Rare Books has issued a Holiday Catalogue 2024. Despite the catalogue name, most of these books aren't particularly oriented toward the holiday season. There are exceptions, such as A Christmas Carol and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but most are classics good for any time of year. They also make great presents for a favorite collector or reader. Here are a few of them.
We start with one of those holiday titles, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. This edition came almost a century after the first, from the Monastery Hill Press in 1940. Monastery Hill was noted for its book bindings. This one uses full red morocco, ruled in gilt with holly sprigs. It's most appropriate for its subject. The story is about the evolution of the old miser, Ebeneezer Scrooge, after a ghost leads him to see the spirits of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. He realizes he has wasted much of his life and his future looks even dimmer. In the end, he sees the error of his ways, becomes generous, and finally starts to live. It's a morality play, but one Dickens could relate to having grown up in poverty like the street people in the play for whom Scrooge had little sympathy. The cover features an image of a dancing Mr. Fezziwig, his generous first employer who was nothing like what Scrooge became. Item 23. Priced at $1,500.
Here is another look at poverty, and while it too is fiction, it is much more realistic than the exaggerated stereotypes Dickens presented. This is the classic portrait of the Depression, and Dust Bowl Okies forced to flee their homes to become subsistence farm workers in California. There were many people in 1939 America, not just Dust Bowl Oklahomans, who faced similarly difficult situations at the time. They could relate to the story of the Joad family. John Steinbeck sympathized with the quest for fair treatment of workers like the fictional Joads. His novel is The Grapes of Wrath, which would receive all sorts of awards, as would the film version starring Henry Fonda. Item 86. $2,950.
This is the story of a challenge of a different kind, one its participants willingly took on. They were out to reach a goal no one else had before. They succeeded. The title is The Ascent of Everest, by John Hunt. It is an account of the first successful climb to the top of Mt. Everest in 1953, published the same year. He includes information on the preparations and how the climbers managed to survive the extreme conditions to reach the top. You may not think of Hunt's name when you think of the first ascent to the top of Everest. Most likely, you think of Edmund Hillary and Tenzig Norgay, the two who reached the peak. However, it was Hunt who was the expedition's leader. Including all the porters and base camps, several hundred people were involved, but it was ultimately Hillary and Norgay, the strongest climbers, who reached the top. Today, hundreds of climbers reach the top every year as they weave their way through the long lines of climbers who attempt the ascent. Item 45. $1,250.
This is a story of a great British hero, The History of the Valiant Knight Arthur of Little Britain. It is an 1814 reprint of a c.1555 edition, but with hand-colored illustrations engraved by Charles Heath and a decorated morocco binding. King Arthur was the leader who tried to defend the British from invasions by the Anglo-Saxons in the late fifth and early sixth century. There is a host of characters associated with Arthur, from Merlin the Magician to his wife Guinevere and his sword Excalibur. The only shortcoming of Arthur et al. is that they probably never existed, or if the story had some element of truth, Arthur was some sort of composite of people none of whom possessed the powers attributed to the King. His story does not appear in writing until several centuries after his supposed time, at which point there would be little accuracy in any group memories if such even existed. Item 3. $4,500.
Samuel Pepys was a 17th century naval administrator in Britain. He never went to sea, but reached a high position by being very good at paperwork. He is not remembered for that. What he is remembered for is his diary. It was a lengthy undertaking. It covers the years 1660-1669 when Pepys was 27-36 years old. Much of it was in his own form of shorthand and code so it took a long time to translate it, especially since it contains around 1,250,000 words. A lot it was personal. Pepys wrote about things you don't usually put on paper, such as his sexual encounters. It also contains much information about the times, which includes the Restoration, plague, and the London fire. It was not published until over a century after Pepys died, sparing him any personal embarrassment. This edition is even later, 1927, from Bell and Sons. The title is Everybody's Pepys and it comes with illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard. Item 62. $2,850.
Whitmore Rare Books may be reached at 626-714-7720 or info@whitmorerarebooks.com. Their website is www.WhitmoreRareBooks.com.
