Pursuing my latest book passion, I have been acquiring a lot of early paperbacks from the 1940s and ’50s, called “vintage” in the trade.

In my experience, most collections begin with a faint interest in certain aspects of a writer or a subject which gradually coalesces into a clearer and often considerably more sophisticated plan. This is a natural progression and the experienced collector learns to spot the signs that they are again being trapped by their imagination into pursuing something new.

I had long been looking in used bookshops, in a desultory fashion, for copies of the paperbacks I remembered reading as a teenager, which I usually bought of the racks at the corner cigar store, attracted by the covers’ promise of sexual content and adventure. My quest reprised a period of my youth through the memories the familiar covers aroused. But now, as an adult and an experienced book scout, I could look past the covers’ fraudulent promises of excitement for what they demonstrated of popular culture: a very sophisticated use of art to further commerce. And now my eyes, unclouded by frustrated lust, could see just how clever they were and just how good most of the art was. Even artists must feed their families and many of the ones hired to paint these covers, probably for slight pay, were very talented artists.

And, as always with collecting, the pace gradually picked up and a few years ago I found myself scouting paperbacks to the exclusion of books I could make money from. Once again collecting was interfering with making a living. In seeking to re-purchase my early reading for sentimental reasons, I had ended up with around a hundred books, mostly the male equivalents of Harlequin romances, but with a sprinkling of real literature which had usually been acquired by accident because of the wildly suggestive cover art on these mass-market paperbacks. I would usually recognise titles I had read by the covers, still familiar after 40 or 50 years although I seldom could remember much of the stories. The exceptions, where the content was still in my memory, would invariably be the real literature I had read by accident. I think this provides a serious clue to the importance of casual reading amongst the young and ignorant. For surely it means that if you expose the young to literature, the good stuff might stick.

Anyway, I’ve been doing this for years now with great pleasure and at some point I found myself also buying expensive first editions of some of these books; that is, those which were true literature and had most influenced my imagination. I often will have an old 25¢ paperback sitting beside a $500 first edition of the same book. Silly as it sounds, it gives me enormous nostalgic pleasure. So, I can see on my shelves my evolution from an ignorant but enthusiastic reader of cheap noir to a mature constant reader (but one who still loves and consumes much noir). And also, one who now knows something about serious literature. And life as well.

And further, one who now knows quite a lot about the physical aspects of books, from the writing of them to the making of them. From design through the printing, and the binding of them, to the research and experience necessary to the valuing and selling of them. And along the way in this evolution, passion and enthusiasm and study instilled a depth of knowledge which, as in any learning process fuelled by passion, confers subtle pleasures commensurate with the sophistication such pursuits give.

Collecting is not static, nor does it usually stay confined to its original intent, especially with books. One thing leads to another and inevitably searching old paperback stacks for the books of my youth I started to notice all the cover art and the design on other early paperbacks was very clever, often ingenious in fact. I started to buy
those whose cover art appealed to me in itself. And I came to realise that while it was designed to attract readers it was important art. Some of it was extraordinary. I bought more of it, focused now, not on the books, but the cover art. Then I began to notice that certain publishers seemed to always have superior cover art and I started collecting every book those publishers issued.

The first to entrance me were the early Dells, already long-collected for their famous “Mapbacks” (maps on the rear covers showing the scene of the crime). Soon I sought the first 100 titles by number—which quickly became 300 or so. After number 350, the Dells became more conventional in design, no doubt reflecting their success with the literary part. The other covers which are extraordinary are Popular Library, and the early Avons, all of which I now seriously pursue. (Note: “seriously pursue” is a codephrase meaning a collector will pay real money for needed additions. It also means that the collector gets that triumphant shock of pleasure when he locates one he needs, which makes book scouting so much like a treasure hunt.)

My collecting of vintage paperbacks has now reached the inevitable stage of such pursuits: lists by numbers to avoid what can be costly duplication, since some early paperbacks are now getting expensive; obscure notations on these lists regarding condition, so defective copies can be upgraded. All defensive strategies that collectors resort to, to obtain order and keep costs down. And still it spread, like any insidious disease.

So, I now have collections of juvenile delinquents, a very popular genre both when I was a kid and apparently now amongst all the grownup delinquents like me. I also have begun several collections of the paperback output of important literary authors I like, mostly ones like Steinbeck, Faulkner, Waugh, and Orwell, all authors who are far too expensive for me to collect in first edition. Or less expensive authors, but still ones more expensive in first edition than I care to spend. So, I have the pleasure of seeking these paper versions which in spite of their having little value provide a collector with real pleasure. For it is not the monetary value of any collection which provides the collector with his satisfaction, it is his accomplishment in seeking and in finding its components. That some books in a collection may be very valuable is irrelevant to the collector. When he views his collection, he is contemplating his creation and the imagination that went into it and in the end cost becomes of no importance. Wives often view it differently, it must be admitted.

I have a paperback collection of Somerset Maugham, who I also collect in first editions, so they are melded. And I have several collections of authors that I started on simply because I kept seeing interesting variants like different editions or covers. And it continues to diversify. I have a collection of paperbacks by authors who were so popular that there are editions done by many different publishers with much different covers (and sometimes different covers on later editions by the same publisher). Often these are literary classics so I have, for instance, several different covers on editions of Dracula and lots of Dickens, Brontë, Balzac, Austen, etc. I have many different Poe covers. And de Maupassant, and other French authors, who also were very popular in the ’50s, probably because their stories were thought to be racy then. All this essentially evolved from ideas which followed seeing one paperback 10 or 15 years ago which seemed to me so clever and beautiful that it caught my attention. A seemingly simple attraction causing me to pay $5 for it then led to the gross excess I describe.

And now I impose my new passion on others.

A friend who asked me to watch out for the only remaining first edition of an author he collects received instead a gift of the first paperback edition of that title. He thanked me but I’m not sure he was very enthusiastic.

My wife, “the renowned Canadian rare book dealer,” Debra Dearlove, as she was recently called in a scholarly journal which neglected to mention me, collects Emile Zola, but only in English first editions of Zola issued up to 1900. But now every birthday and Christmas she is deluged with several new paperback editions of his books (lately even in French). “But I don’t collect paperbacks,” she protests, “And I don’t want to collect them.”

“Of course you do. You’ll thank me one day when you realise you needed them. When I’m gone and you sell them for huge prices, you’ll recognise that I was years ahead of my time and you’ll be sorry you spurned my gifts.”

But it should be noted that while I have had enormous pleasure with these excesses over the years, and while I have spent considerable money in my compulsive search and amassing, it is nothing compared to what I spent every night in my youthful drinking days. And this fact I naturally use as my justification for all my excesses; a wonderful justification for it is impossible to refute, and I can add to the justification by stating that all that I got from all that booze were big hangovers. From my profligate book excesses I get to keep those wonderful books.

-David Mason