`Give Me Books'

The Friends of the Fondren Library, at Rice University where I work, held their annual book sale on Friday, thoughtfully coinciding it with my birthday. As I entered the Great Hall in Rice Memorial Center, where long rows of tables were packed with books and already mobbed by readers, I felt familiar symptoms – sweaty forehead and palms, tingling scalp, dry mouth. Conspicuously, my heart pounded. This is what hunters feel when they take to the field.

I reconnoitered for 45 minutes, trying to appear nonchalant, and bagged my biggest catch almost immediately: the boxed, two-volume set of The Letters of John Keats 1814-1821, edited by Hyder Edward Rollins, published in 1958 by Harvard University Press. Finally, I can give away the paltry paperback selection I’ve had for years. Its original price was $20, the Friends charged twice that amount, and I would have happily paid more for volumes graced with some of my favorite prose, by one of the heroes of the language. This comes from a letter Keats wrote his sister Fanny on Aug. 28, 1819:

“Give me Books, fruit, french wine and fine whether [sic] and a little music out of doors, played by somebody I do not know…”

Note that Keats capitalizes “Books” but leaves “french” in the lower case. Here’s what else I found:

The Modern Library edition of The City of God, by St. Augustine, with an introduction by Thomas Merton. The Penguin paperback I’ve had for 34 years is held together with a rubber band.

The Painter’s Eye: Notes and Essays on the Pictorial Arts, by Henry James. This was edited by John Sweeney, and published in 1956, in London, by Rupert Hart-Davis. Across from the title page is a photograph of James, taken by Alice Boughton, I had never seen before. The Master stands in front of a small portrait, hanging on a wall, of what appears to be a man in profile. James’ nose is perhaps 10 inches from the canvas. He wears a long coat and a tall black hat is on his head. With hands behind his back, he holds gloves and a cane or walking stick. In profile, and except for the clothes, James resembles a Roman emperor

A hardcover copy of Samuel Johnson: A Biography (1977), by John Wain, which I have read several times but never owned.

A first edition of James Boswell: The Early Years 1740-1769 (1966), by Frederick A. Pottle.

Another prize, my favorite after the Keats: a first edition of Robert Chandler’s translation (1985) of Life and Fate, by Vasily Grossman. This is among the supreme works of fiction of the last century. Now I can give my New York Review Books paperback to some deserving reader. In the Grossman, between pages 158 and 159, I found the Delta Air Lines boarding passes of Bonnie and John Bauer. They were bound for Atlanta.

For my kids I found two Dr. Seuss titles, Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach, and The Knobby Boys to the Rescue (1965), by Wende and Harry Devlin – all hardcovers.

All this bounty for $59, and the money goes to the library. Happy birthday, indeed.