Author's Copies

THE check-on-publication and the author’s copies came the same day. Mechanically I endorsed the check to my account and addressed it to my bank. Then I untied the package and piled the new volumes on the bookcase, dreading to open the book on that inevitable, foolish, and inexcusable typographical error which, like sortes Vergilianœ, stares out on the author as a forcible reminder of his fallibility.

The well-boxed and numbered large-paper edition copies stood as a challenge to distribution, after proper inscription. Then came the consideration of names of persons to be honored — the intimate friends with whom I had talked over the problems of composition. The first name was rejected. I had given him a copy of a previous book, and a year later, on extracting the volume from the rack on his library table, I discovered that the leaves were still uncut. After the same thing happened a second time I restrained my curiosity for the sake of undimmed friendships. Now I never open one of my own books in the house of a friend.

It is a quarter-century since my first book was published. In due time it went out of print and the publishers declined to issue a second edition. But the title had got into the ‘documentation’ of historical writers of the meticulous school, and flattering requests for the book came. By chance I ran across an uncut copy in a bookstore in Seattle — and paid twice the original price, because the storeman knew it was out of print. The other copies were obtained from secondhand shops, whither they had drifted from the libraries of dead and gone recipients. With what offended majesty my own words of inscription came back to me from the dust!

Recently I was visiting a house lately made vacant by the death of an illustrious statesman, who drew books from authors as the sun draws water. The appraiser had just departed. The widow told the tale. ‘Here,’ said the sagacious appraiser to her, ‘here is a book that sells at two dollars. But the author has inscribed it, and that makes it worth double the price!’ And he put it in the inventory at four dollars.

The mere thought of inflicting such an injury on the estates of my friends is so appalling that my row of author’s copies is still intact.