Ooh, I must go write about Bird's.
I ended up going back to the book fair - I just had one of those funny feelings I get sometimes. And boy did it pay off. There was a dealer there - mainly autographs with just a handful of uninteresting books. No one was perusing anything at his booth, yesterday or today. I happened to wander over to the handful of books, to check out a Brit edition of Devil Of A State by Anthony Burgess, just to see how it compared to mine own and to see the price. My eye happened to go to the shelf next to said books and there was a small sign that said "proofs". I reached over and looked at the first one on the pile. It was from 1935 and the front said that the book was by Humphrey Cobb and it was untitled. They'd done up some of these proof copies and were going to award $50 to whomever came up with the perfect title. I turned to the title page and sure enough it said "A Novel by Humphrey Cobb - As Yet Untitled".
Now, Mr. Cobb only wrote one novel and it was turned into a very well known film, both novel and film being titled Paths of Glory. The book, for whatever reasons, has never gone for much money - primo copies can be had for between $100-200, and signed copies for a bit more. I put the proof down and went and discussed it with a couple of dealer friends - I didn't tell them I'd found it, just asked if they'd seen it. Both these guys are very knowledgeable dealers in that sort of book and neither of them had ever seen an advance proof in this early untitled state. One of them had seen an Advance Readers Copy with a jacket laid over the paper cover. They were both basically salivating over even the thought of it. I went back and bought it (the dealer gave me twenty percent off, and it wasn't too much money). I then showed it to the two dealers, who were just drooling. They weren't crass enough to offer me more than I paid, but I know I'll be hearing from at least one of them about it. As I was wandering around, the story got passed on to several dealers and suddenly this book was the talk of the show, and I was showing it to everyone and everyone was oohing and aahing. One dealer told me that this rather well-known Internet dealer would put no less than $2,500 on it. Since I didn't even pay ten percent of that figure, you can imagine how proud of myself I was for that little discovery. The guy had other terrific proofs of some pricey books, but I didn't get greedy - he had the proof of A Fan's Notes and The Sterile Cuckoo, both very rare books.
