Book collecting - the ones that got away...
I suspect that every book collector, especially those on a budget as I am, has memories of books that got away. Mine (the ones I kick myself over even today) are below:
The 1964 Benziger Roman Breviary, the classic final form of the traditional Roman Breviary in English translation - £30 from a bookseller in America, and normally sells for up to five times more - but I mithered about it and, as we all know, he who hesitates is lost...
The 1963 Collegeville Monastic Diurnal, the day hours of the Monastic breviary office in translation, as published by the good monks of the Liturgical Press - £4 from a reduced-price bookshelf in Hay. Could anything good have come out of the postwar period, I asked myself? Yes, it could, and I am still searching for an inexpensive copy to this day.
The classic Purchas/Lee ceremonial directory of the Anglican Ritualists, the Directorium Anglicanum - £18 on eBay, before I got seriously into collecting, so I suppose I can be excused, but it would have saved me four years of searching, and two-and-a bit times the money...
The full Anglican 1922 Lectionary - £2 from Oxfam in Richmond and officially as rare as Bishop's Buskins (well, according to the now sadly defunct rare books room of the SPCK.) Why, I ask myself? What better things did I have to spend the price of an ice-cream on? (although I think a college acquaintance of mine who was in town at roughly the same time as me may have picked it up, which makes me feel better about it. But only slightly.)
If you have copies to pass on to an impecunious bibliophile, you know who to call...
The 1964 Benziger Roman Breviary, the classic final form of the traditional Roman Breviary in English translation - £30 from a bookseller in America, and normally sells for up to five times more - but I mithered about it and, as we all know, he who hesitates is lost...
The 1963 Collegeville Monastic Diurnal, the day hours of the Monastic breviary office in translation, as published by the good monks of the Liturgical Press - £4 from a reduced-price bookshelf in Hay. Could anything good have come out of the postwar period, I asked myself? Yes, it could, and I am still searching for an inexpensive copy to this day.
The classic Purchas/Lee ceremonial directory of the Anglican Ritualists, the Directorium Anglicanum - £18 on eBay, before I got seriously into collecting, so I suppose I can be excused, but it would have saved me four years of searching, and two-and-a bit times the money...
The full Anglican 1922 Lectionary - £2 from Oxfam in Richmond and officially as rare as Bishop's Buskins (well, according to the now sadly defunct rare books room of the SPCK.) Why, I ask myself? What better things did I have to spend the price of an ice-cream on? (although I think a college acquaintance of mine who was in town at roughly the same time as me may have picked it up, which makes me feel better about it. But only slightly.)
If you have copies to pass on to an impecunious bibliophile, you know who to call...
Labels: Book collecting, Breviaries, Catholic and Anglo-Catholic Books, Ones That Got Away
posted by AHJ | 3:00 AM
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