Anthony Powell’s Manuscripts to go to British Library

The manuscripts of the novels of Anthony Powell, including the Dance to the Music of Time series are to go to the British Library. The author had wanted them to go to his old school, Eton College, but because of death tax duties on his £1.6m estate, a deal was done in a deal whereby the Inland Revenue agreed to forego duties of £420,000.

The collection will shortly be open to the public and some of it will be lent to the Wallace Collection who next year will be staging an exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of the author’s birth. The decision to place the manuscripts in the British Museum’s custody, rather than let them remain at Eton, where they originally went to after the author’s death, was taken by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell.

Happens to the best of us

Louis de Bernières, the author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, has had a computer containing the first four chapters of his third novel stolen from his garden shed in his home in Harleston, Norfolk. How many times do we have to say it - 'back up your hard disk, Louis!'.

Ibooknet Booksellers Welcome Role for Charity Shop Booksellers
from Catherine Hawley

There are occasional complaints in the press from small retail businesses about charity shops. These complaints range across many types of merchandise but bookselling has come under closer focus because of the burgeoning number of specialist charity book shops. In the light of this debate Ibooknet booksellers would like to make their position clear.

Situation: you have books you no longer require. What should you do?
Answer: it depends on the book and on whether you wish to benefit financially from the sale yourself or whether you wish to benefit a charity.

For obviously low re-sale value books/common titles/book club editions

If you have a Penguin Classic of Wuthering Heights for example, or a GCSE revision book then the charity shop plays an important role here for students and other readers to exchange high volume titles that are needed for study and needed cheaply. The charity shop will sell your book quickly, especially in a university town, and will benefit from the sale and quick turnover. Many charity shops are reporting difficulty in keeping enough of these classics in stock and really do benefit from you having a clear out. If you buy a book then take it back when you’ve finished so charity shop and next year’s students can benefit all over again. For books and all kinds of goods, charity shops are excellent recyclers and are an import aspect of the environmental economy in any town.

For other books it pays to see a specialist Bookseller

If you're looking to dispose of a book collection and feel some of them might be of value consider talking to a professional bookseller (check your local business directory or websites, such as Ibooknet, listing lots of booksellers, to find the right one) before donating to a charity shop. You might just find you get more money to give directly to the charity of your choice. Most professional booksellers pay between 30 and 50% of their retail price for saleable items, sometimes even more if there are some valuable items in a collection.

A charity shop, on the other hand, will only realise such a sum from the sale if the charity shop in question recognises the value of the donated items which, as most employees have only had a few weeks training, is unlikely. Often such valuations are not straight forward: questions such as whether a book is a true first printing (i.e. a collector’s ‘first edition’) and how much a missing dust wrapper, or damage, or ex-library status can affect value in wildly differing degrees depending on exactly what the book is and the purpose for which it is being sold.

The problems of non-professionals deciding whether a book is worth keeping is well illustrated by this incident which happened to Stephen Foster who specializes in antiquarian books. At the last minute a valuable book was saved because of Stephen’s knowledge.

He recalls: ‘I did pay a charity shop a three-figure sum for a book on horses hooves. It had been thrown in the recycled paper bin, because it had 'no covers'. A volunteer retrieved it from the bin, because they thought that I should have a look at it. For 'no covers', read 'original wraps'. 1790's large 4to with aquatint plates - it was a taller copy than the one in the Mellon collection, probably one of the best collections of horse books in the world, making it not only rare, but probably the best available copy!’ Not only was the book saved but the charity benefited from a large sum from Stephen which, left to the volunteer who threw the book out, they would never have received.

Chris Tomaszewski, of Stella & Rose's Books, one of the largest children’s bookshops in the UK, comments, ‘This experience demonstrates that it would have been better for the donor to have taken the book to a specialist such as Stephen in the first instance. They would have received a proper price which could then have been given directly to the charity, rather than risk their donation ending up in the recycling bin!’

So exactly what do you get if you take a book to a professional Bookseller?

Professional booksellers will tend to have a particular area of expertise and quite a close subject focus. You can find professional sellers who specialise in antiquarian volumes who can value your books for insurance, help you decide whether a book is worth rebinding, or help you find replacements for missing or damaged volumes. You can find sellers specialising in academic books who have post-graduate experience in your subject and can give well informed bibliographical advice. You can find sellers with an expertise in a subject such as children’s books, or crime fiction whose knowledge is such they can help identify a title just from a character’s name or a partly remembered plot, and can advise on building or disposing of a collection. Most importantly a professional bookseller knows they don’t have all the answers and will have a collection of reference books and connections with a wide range of colleagues and other experts to back them up. Most professionals will tell you if a title or a question is out of their area and be able to recommend someone else in the trade who can help you instead.

So consult a specialist bookseller and get the best advice and the best price for old, rare, collectable or unusual books. If you want to, you can then donate the profit to a charity of your choice, or spend it in a charity shop. Take your other books to the charity shops and support them by buying there too. Ibooknet booksellers donate books to charity shops too. You can support both your local professional and the amateur charity shop, and you should support them both if you don’t want your town to lose either.