The plunder of precious things
A long time couple in our ward is going through a major transition. The husband was recently put in fulltime care as, after a lifetime of love and service, his mind is broken. The wife is now alone with the mental burden that her beloved is in the hands of others. The house, well used for two and a half decades, will soon be on the market. One of the things that must go is the books.
They owned the local Deseret Book franchise. It used to be the Beehive Bookstore when I was young. I can remember my parents going to purchase their priestly vestments. It has been sold for some time, but decades of books line their walls. And I greedily hoarded them.
I have certain genres that I hunt for. I finally got my copy of Words of Joseph Smith. Some other out of print primary resources and histories. My favorites, the ones that push me to call her back and dig deeper into the piles, are the bits of true history. A missionary guide from 1946, a Melchizedek Priesthood Handbook from the 1950’s, a series of home teaching manuals from the 1960’s and 1970’s.
I am still quick. My shelves are still filling at a rapid pace. As I handled their property I fought my delight with anguish. When my mind is no longer keen and my life’s work is forgotten, who will greedily plunder my pages?
I was ready to leave with my piles. I opened my checkbook. “How much?”
“You decide.”
And I thought, “How, can you ask me to put a price on this?”
J,
I just hope that I have as much to offer the bibliophile of pure heart when I pass on. It sounds as if the wife may have recognized the true value of the texts as much as you. Those who value such things would want someone to do good things with the “plunder.” Books are not meant to be memorials. I hate leather bindings that beg not to be read. I hope I would leave something that would let the buyer be generous in coming up with a price for my wife without resorting to condescension. (I trust you weren’t cheap.)
Comment by Steve H — 6/21/2006 @ 2:47 am
Wow. That would be a tough one. I’m sure you value these things more than money, but one has to be practical a well. Very tough call, particularly when you are dealing with someone who sold books for a living.
Comment by Eric — 6/21/2006 @ 7:46 am
I think I wasn’t cheap. I really like the “bibliophile of pure in heart.” What could be better?
Comment by J. Stapley — 6/21/2006 @ 9:09 am
Nice post J.
So why is it that it is so hard to get a copy a The Words of Joseph Smith anyway?? It’s not like there is no demand for it.
Comment by Geoff J — 6/21/2006 @ 10:06 am
That is the problem, Geoff. It went out of print while the demand was still there. I’m not sure why it wasn’t reissued. I spoke with Deseret Book several weeks ago as I had heard a rumor that it was going to be republished and they denied knowing anything.
Comment by J. Stapley — 6/21/2006 @ 10:16 am
Well by the time we blogs are done maybe the whole thing will be on the Web in pieces…
Comment by Geoff J — 6/21/2006 @ 10:35 am
Didn’t the finally put Ehat and Cook on one of those CD libraries? I think that’s my only hope for getting one.
Comment by Johnna — 6/21/2006 @ 11:47 am
Yep, it is on GospeLink and LDS Library. I have an e-version, which is great for searching and copying. But, I find digital media inferior to print when it comes to simply reading.
Comment by J. Stapley — 6/21/2006 @ 4:58 pm
During the middle 1990s, shortly after I started hanging out with other saints on the Internet, I was teaching early morning seminary here in Alaska. My “pay” for teaching seminary was a round trip ticket to attend the annual CES Symposium in Provo one August. There I met a fellow who had spent some time on my email discussion list, Zion. It was Thomas Valletta who is now the Curriculum Manager of the Church. At the time, he was a one of the instructors at the Institute in Ogden. And he was in Provo as one of the presenters in Symposium, so I attended one of his classes and afterwards went up and introduced myself as the fellow he had been besting in theological debate online. In the course of our conversation I asked him if he could get me to read one book of all that he might recommend, which one would he suggest? Without hesitation he told me to go get a copy of
Comment by John W. Redelfs — 6/21/2006 @ 8:57 pm
That’s odd, somehow I posted my last comment unintentionally. Well, to carry on from where I was so rudely interrupted…
THE WORDS OF JOSEPH SMITH edited by Ehat and Cook. So I walked over to the BYU Bookstore and bought a new copy for $25.00. What a treasure! What a find! I was astounded by some of the stuff I read. It is absolutely invaluable. Unfortunately, I took it with me to a stake high council meeting in Juneau 180 miles to the north by commercial jet. And I lost it in the stake center. I never was able to find it again.
But, thanks to my online friends, especially the few that I had on the now defunct LDS-Bookshelf list run by Keith Irwin, and carried on by Stanley Shepp at Yahoo Groups as the Mormon-Library list, when I started to cry about losing my copy, one of the booksellers offered to sell me a new copy for only $60.00, a little over twice the money I had paid for the copy I lost. Today, it is my most prized book, and I would have a hard time replacing it for less than several hundreds of dollars if I could find one for sale at all. It is truly a wonderful book, and it would be very interesting to know why it has not been reprinted. I have heard it hinted that it is not being reprinted because much of the same material is being prepared for publication in a multivolume set of the papers of Joseph Smith. However, I do not know when that is going to come out.
Parenthetically, I used to have posting privileges on Mormon-Library. I’ve been a member of that list, off and on, almost since its inception during the middle 1990s. But there are some anti-Mormon scholars and ultra erudite book collectors who do not like the way I comment on Mormon books, so they rejoiced when I was put on full moderation and not exactly kicked off the list but am no longer able to participate in the list discussion. After all these years, muzzled on the Mormon-Library list.
Oh well, I’ll console myself with my blog. Nobody has to read it, and I can say whatever I want.
Comment by John W. Redelfs — 6/21/2006 @ 9:14 pm
Email lists are so….eighties.
Comment by Mark Butler — 6/22/2006 @ 12:49 am
Wow. I gotta find this book.
Comment by Eric — 6/22/2006 @ 10:40 am
I hate that sort of thing: “you decide.” But I am also a bargain shopper and used books at DI go for about fifty cents. I’d have paid them a dollar a book.
Comment by annegb — 6/22/2006 @ 7:54 pm
I recently sold some old papers of mine. I was going to throw them away when I got contacted out of the blue. Next they you know, they were sold through a broker and between the two auctions I had made over three thousand dollars.
Since then I’ve thought a lot about treasures and value.
Though I wish I had picked up a copy of The Words of Joseph Smith. I was putting it off, hoping for a multivolume set.
Sigh.
Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — 6/23/2006 @ 5:00 pm
Stephen M,
You mean someone bought papers you had written at auction? I’m sure I could sell quite a few to schoolsucks.com, though I don’t do that sort of thing.
Comment by Steve H — 6/24/2006 @ 3:55 am
I used to work in the game industry, and, to my surprise, my notes, drafts and comments had value. The most amazing thing was the after auction bidding that went on.
Life is sometimes surreal.
I can’t imagine anyone buying my school notes, not this late in the day.
Comment by Stephen M (Ethesis) — 6/25/2006 @ 10:47 am
Heck, I’m going to sell something. Ebay? I have old stuff. I have old books. Crappy ones, but old.
Comment by annegb — 6/25/2006 @ 9:23 pm
Oddest ghins happened this week. First, a colleague is moving to Dubai to take a position there. As part of their move, they sold everything, or nearly everything, they owned (They get a furniture allowance at the new University.) In addition to taking on their rather nice bedroom set, we also acquired, at bargain prices, their library of children’s books, bought over the course of their children’s lives (The last just graduated high school). They were going to keep them for grand children, but didn’t want to ship them to the UAE, so now our child has a huge influx of really great books, and we lose a good family on the street.
Then, today, another colleague asked me to come to his office. It seems that 15 years or so ago, there was a professor at BYUH that was a rising star in 19th century studies. He had only been at the University for a few years when he passed away. My colleague had inherited his library. I was invited, today, to have anything I wanted (I too am a new faculty member in the 18th century.). I was grateful for the material (constituting a history of criticism on certain issues through the 1980s or so), but also a bit sober in the realization that the original owner of the books was walking the path I’m walking in some very similar ways when the books passed into the hands they were in until today.
Comment by Steve H — 6/27/2006 @ 1:48 am
I have a bunch of copies of the old Relief Society magazine and my great grandma kept clippings about the church in a scrapbook. Think they’d sell?
Comment by annegb — 6/27/2006 @ 9:54 am
Steve…that is very cool. Very few are able to tie into a tangible history like that.
Annegb, I don’t know how much they are worth, but I’m sure you could sell them.
Comment by J. Stapley — 6/27/2006 @ 11:49 am
I think I’ll just donate them to the DUP and take a huge deduction.
Comment by annegb — 6/30/2006 @ 11:08 am