How to Sell and Value of a Private Published Book (1872)

[gremkie]

I'm an only child who received the estates of my mother, grandmother, two uncles and their wives.  I really don't want to do this to a distant relative.  I have a book private published in New York in 1872 and the title is In Memoriam Selected Poems of Jane Lewers Gray.   From an Internet search the only one I can find is an online download from Open Library. 

What is the best way to list the book (cover okay - not great) but the pages are very good?  And is it worth trying to sell?  This is a field that I am just totally unfamiliar with - althought my husband and I read a lot!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance, Mary-Margaret

[bruskberry]

I think that the price depends on the meaning of the book from the state of the pages maybe some sort of collector  will offer you an interesting amount and you will sell your book)

[figtree3]

Since "In Memoriam" does not appear on the title page, it is not considered part of the title by most booksellers or catalogers.

This book has been reprinted and is also sold by some as "print on demand." The original edition has been digitized in archive.org: https://archive.org/stream/selection00gray#page/n0/mode/2up

I searched only for a few minutes and did not find anybody selling a copy of the original edition. Just because a book is rare doesn't mean that it has value. Have you done research on the author? There is a biographical sketch about her in this book:

https://books.google.com/books?id=1X9Na4_B8TsC&pg=PA273&lpg=PA273&dq=%22Jane+Lewers+Gray%22+-reprint...

[argon38 · Accepted solution]

There's some interesting biographical material here that you could work into a listing (with proper attribution, naturally):

https://archives.lafayette.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/gray.pdf

Note that the link is to a PDF file.

[gremkie]

Argon 38 - thank you so much for the link - it provided really valuable information, especially about Lafayette College.   In all my researach I never found that link - so again thank you!!!!

Mary