5 ms·
I'm astonished that this "collection" exists at all, apparently as a 25-copy print run, which no one anywhere seems to have known about previously. But even mo
by quesera 13y ago
I'm astonished that this "collection" exists at all, apparently as a 25-copy print run, which no one anywhere seems to have known about previously.
But even more surprising is that the eBay UK seller who sold this copy, presumably to the file-sharer, has sold at least two other copies of the same collection over the past 8 months.
Most astonishing of all: each of them sold for ~$100.
That's about the usual naïf price for obviously-fake art on eBay, and I suspect that when it all comes out, we will learn that these are fakes -- phonies, if you will -- rough cuts or early versions, or at best scribed copies out of Texas and Princeton.
Still, I'm surprised that Salinger fans wouldn't pay more for even the most cloudy-provenanced versions of these stories.
- sciguy77 13y agoI would have ponied up quite a bit for a copy, but I didn't know about the ebay sale. I wonder how the bidders found it, probably not by searching for it I would imagine. Who would search for a book that basically doesn't exist?
- mackal 13y agoAccording to Salinger scholars that DO have access to the real prints, these are the real deal. The 'no one anywhere seems to have known about previously' is a false claim because there was a bounty on said file sharing site for these to be uploaded.
- glomph 13y agoThe bounty setter believed at the time of setting the copies at princeton to be the only ones.
- quesera 13y agoThe bounty on the file sharing site was for a different collection, with a slightly different set of stories. For what it's worth... But being "the real deal" isn't always simple when you're talking about a print run of a short story collection. It's not like validating authenticity of a painting, where the criteria (generally) involve being executed by the hand of the artist. Authors rarely print their own stuff anyway. But if the author never intended the stories for collection together, or licensed them to a publisher at all...that can make the collection a "fake" even if the stories are perfect matches for the author's finished versions. Somewhere along the line between drafts and manuscripts and galleys and first run publishing, the collection becomes real. Salinger scholars and fans knew the stories existed, and knew where to go to read them, but no one seems to have known of a 25-copy print run of these three as a collection. This is surprising, bordering on incredible, given Salinger's prominence.
- rtpg 13y agomaybe they were just not looking on eBay (seriously).