Sunday, January 4, 2009

A visit to my library

Since I can't bring you to my home to personally see my collection, i figured I'd do the second best thing- bring it to you. So here is a cyber tour of my library, one that's thirty years in the making and still growing.
Lets start from the earliest. Every volume in this bookcase is an american magazine published before 1800, including complete runs of Columbian, American Museum, Pennsylvania and Boston Magazine, most of Royal American and many other very rare and unique volumes. I doubt if I could replace more than a handful.

Downstairs is two large rooms chock full of bookcases containing thousands of volumes and first issues of the most important american periodicals from 1800 to the present.





Lately, I've been focusing on pulp magazines. The universe of pulps is about 1000 titles.
Since pblication of the first good checklist by Adventure House, I have been trying to obtain the first issue of each and every one of them. Currently I'm about 165 short of completing the collection, an almost impossible task but a lot of fun trying. I guess I'll have to settle for a type issue of the ones I can't get.


And to think- this all started with some positive reinforcement in second grade "show and tell"!

2 comments:

martyweil said...

Magazines are a highly specialized area of ephemera that I'd like to introduce to my readers. In an interview format, I would like to profile you and your collection on my blog. If you're interested,
contact me through my blog at www.ephemera.typepad.com

Anonymous said...

I am absolutely speechless. This is one of the most incredible blogs/collections/body of work I have seen. Absolutely amazing.