SATNROSE’S BOOK QUIZ

[lludwig]

SATNROSE’S BOOK QUIZ

2. What is the most valuable printed book?

Answer in invisible ink: 2. Was The Gutenberg Bible; now it is the Caxton Canterbury Tales

Note: I think a complete Gutenberg would beat the Canterbury if offered up to auction. However, the Caxton Canterbury is currently the most expensive printed book ever to change hands. 13 million? I forget.....

[bookthink]

Close, Kathleen, but both of you have it partly right.

Three variants are noted in PW - buckram, 3/4 morocco and full morocco, the latter two being the so-called edition de luxe. Additionally, an alumni edition de luxe of 1000 sets was issued for distribution to Harvard alumni and students, the difference being that it was bound in green cloth instead of morocco but contained the same upgraded illustrative and vellum content of the other de luxe editions. The buckram variant I've seen as yet only in green cloth with sprinkled text block edges and gilt lettering to the spine panels. The distinguishing issue point seems to be the absence of either a blind-stamped or gilt-stamped Collier shield on the spine panels, which do appear shortly thereafter. 

[booquemeister]

Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf still appears to be in demand

[lludwig]

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833. This longest, continuously running series of Americana changes the color of the binding every 25 years. What is the name of the series and what are the 5 colors that have been used?

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[mmadigan]

833. RR Donnelly, with a plant down the road from me, has been publishing the Lakeside Classics since 1903.  The cover colors are green, red. dark blue, brown and turquoise.

[lludwig]

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Mmadigan - That is the series and the colors! There is also a  RR Donnelley plant in a town near me. 

"Lakeside Press an imprint of R. R. Donnelley & Son, has produced these carefully bound books as Christmas gifts to their employees, stockholders, vendors and business associates. The books in the series have never been sold by R. R. Donnelley, so their sale only occurs when the books have entered the secondary market.

From 1903 to 1927 the publisher used a dark green cloth to cover the boards (now often referred to as the "greenies".) From 1928 to 1952 there was a red cloth covering; from 1953 to 1977 a dark blue cloth was employed; from 1978 to 2002 a dark brown cloth was employed. In December of 2003 the publishers again changed the cloth binding to a blue turqoise color to mark the 101st year of Lakeside Classics. All have gilt text stamping on the spine and the front boards have always shown the then current seal for the Lakeside Press.

Reliable sources have informed us that The Lakeside Press produced approximately 1,000 copies of the 1903 edition. However, for the years 1904 through 1910 the number of printings was reduced to approximately 600 copies for each year. Reprints of only the first five books in the series were produced for sale under the Reilly & Britton Company imprint. They were printed and bound in the same format by The Lakeside Press but released under the general heading of the Patriotic Classics."

Source: http://www.townsendbooks.com/lakeside.htm

"A few volumes have become so extremely rare that collectors who own a complete set usually consider themselves most fortunate."

List of The Lakeside Classics: 1903-2015

Source: http://www.rrdonnelley.com/about/lakeside-classics/

"The Lakeside Press" distinctive company logo -- an Indian chief's profile

http://www.lakesideclassicbooks.com/

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[lludwig]

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834. What is the oldest surviving joke book? 

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[pauperback-2]

834. Philolegos

"A young egghead sold his books when short of money. He then wrote to his father, 'Congratulate me, father. I am already making money from my studies!'"

As a aside, the oldest joke:

"How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish."

Some things never change...

[lludwig]

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pauperback-2 - haha!  Philogelos (Anonymous) is the book!

"Compiled around the fourth century by two Greek writers. Many of the jokes poke fun at anyone not fortunate enough to have been born Greek: the Kymaeans (mocked for being stupid), the Sidonians (mocked for being very stupid), and the Abderites (mocked for being stupid and for developing hernias a lot). Some of the jokes can still be admired for their economy of language, such as this exchange between a barber and his customer: ‘How would you like your hair cut?’ ‘In silence.’"

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[lludwig]

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835. What Edgar Allan Poe book was the only one to be successful enough to be reprinted during his lifetime?

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[rockmaple]

835. The Conchologist's First Book
https://www.poemuseum.org/collection-details.php?id=115

"This is the first edition of the book that was to become Poe's best seller during his lifetime. It was printed in three editions in six years.

At the request of a conchologist, whose own book on shells was too expensive to sell at his shell collecting lectures, Poe prepared a less expensive version of the existing book. Poe contributed a new introductory essay and rearranged the plates of the existing book and was probably paid $50 for his efforts. Poe's name was added to the cover and the title page because the publisher of the original book would not allow the original author to release a cheaper copy of his own book that might undercut the sales of the more expensive version. Although he had rewritten the book at the request of the original author, Poe later faced accusations of plagiarism. On the third edition, published in 1845, Poe's name was removed from the cover and title page.

This book reminds us that, in order to make a living as a writer in America in the 1830s and 1840s, Poe needed to find several sources of income, including writing book reviews, editing magazines, and lecturing. The Conchologist's First Book can be seen as an example of Poe finding ways earn a living as a writer.

Perhaps Poe's most important contribution to this piece was his arrangement of the color plates in order from the simplest organisms to the most complex. This was a reversal of the customary arrangment in biology textbooks of the time. Making this even more unusual, the book was published before Charles Darwain published his own theories about the evolution of species from simple lifeforms to more complex organisms. Other evidence of Poe's revolutionary scientific thinking can be found in his last book Eureka, which contains a book-length essay about the universe."

[lludwig]

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Rockmaple - Fast answer and right on the money!

835. The Conchologist’s First Book.

"Poe may be celebrated these days for his contribution to the short story (he’s even the first known person to have used the term), but the only book successful enough to be reprinted during his lifetime was a non-fiction study of molluscs. Although the book’s often regarded as hackwork - Poe wrote it for the money, and much of the writing entailed simply rewriting previous scholarly studies of snails - Stephen Jay Gould argued that it was an innovative work of natural history, not least because it was one of the first such books to discuss not just the shells of the snails but the molluscs themselves."

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[forest-pine]

hes a strange cove and no mistake

[forest-pine]

836: What Viking Portable Library edition prompted a Nobel Peace Prize?

[forest-pine]

Say, lludwig, do you remember what the time was that those guys on the original Book Board would all post at, (trying to hit the exact time down to the second)? It happened every night, same time.

[lludwig]

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Forest-pine - No, I don't remember the time. I usually wasn't on the BB when people tried to do it and I didn't pay much attention to it the next morning.  Maybe 11:11 pm?

836 "The Portable Faulkner"

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