There's a long-established and old-fashioned bookshop in Southport,
Lancashire, called Broadhurst's - new books downstairs, old books
above, and they wrap your purchase in brown paper and string before you
leave. The really high-value stuff is in a room that resembles Sherlock
Holmes' study, with a velvet rope across the doorway, while on the same
landing is a room filled with more modestly-priced first editions.
I was
there a couple of weeks ago, and though I wasn't specifically searching
for it, in the latter room my eye was caught by a copy of the Ward Lock
version of Meet the Tiger. This was the novel in which Leslie Charteris introduced Simon Templar, alias The Saint, to the world. Charteris was in his 20s when he wrote it, and later in his career he'd declare himself so dissatisfied with the book that he withdrew it from sale. It was a second (1929) edition rather than a
first, but a rather nice one. I read the opening page; yep, regardless
of his later disclaimers, the Charteris voice was there and the
character read as recognisable and fully-formed.
It wasn't exactly cheap, but it wasn't Vanderbilt money either. I like
books that have aged gracefully, and I'd rather have something
affordable and a bit shabby than mint and untouchable. After I came
away, it played on my mind so I did some internet research and
established that a) the second-edition price was probably a fair one,
and b) I could put aside any thoughts of a first edition. So I went back
this Saturday and visited again, read a couple more pages, left the
shop and walked around a bit to prolong the moment, then caved in and
bought the book. For the wrapping they have a purpose-made 1920s table
with the brown paper being pulled down from a roller and the string from
a ball.
So now here's my problem. I've brought it home and I can't bring myself
to undo the parcel. A brown paper package, that's tied up with string. It's sitting on the shelf in the open, an ornament
in itself.
But I will open it. Real soon now.
Monday, 10 June 2013
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2 comments:
Yeah, I recently rediscovered Charteris. For my tuppence worth, he was a better prose stylist than Fleming, and you can see shades of the Templar character in Lee Child's books too. The big guy with his vital statistics on the tip-in page of the paperbacks . . .
Anyway, I found a bunch of the books Charteris helped out into the world, the ones based on the 60s TV show, in an Oxfam store in Huddersfield the other month. A quick glance suggested that perhaps they should stay there (though the money wasn't bad: £1.99 a title for half decent old browning paperbacks with reduced spines). No strings attached, though -- you got what you paid for.
And a quick search online reveals some of the Saint books and new anthologies have been put into print (traditional and e-book) recently, which is nice to see.
H&S-owned Mulholland are issuing the reprints; I contributed an introduction to The Saint Goes On, which is published on June 20th.
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