Yeoman's in the Fork Blog

As some of you know, I was out of the shop and on a vacation/book-buying jaunt around New England last week. The trip was originally slated as a total and complete vacation, but book hunting is in my blood and I simply cannot pass by a shop or flea market without at least a glance. Two or three days into vacation, the first of a series of rare book hunting glorious moments took place when my wife and I happened upon a library book sale in Falmouth, MASS. It was "Fill Your Bag for $1.00 Day"!!!!!!!!!!!!! My bag was filled with books on southern culture that I suppose nobody else cared about along with a few Clancy, Grisham and King First Edition books. I must say that this stop was very special to me as I have to tell you that I was suffering from book withdrawal... As most find it hard to put down a great book, I feel that same feeling for the hunt - THE THRILL OF THE HUNT!!

My greatest find of the trip has to be a RARE First Edition copy of 'The House of Seven Gables' by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The book itself was published in 1851 by Ticknor and I spotted it on a shelf from at least ten feet away. I made my way past a few stacks of new books and gently pulled the copy (IN THE ORIGINAL BINDING) from the shelf. After a quick call to confirm a few issue points, the book was in my hand and I was set to pay hundreds of dollars for it! In all fairness, the book is a second state copy, but is still part of the original 1,690 First Edition copies. The big issue is that one of the many errors had been corrected in this copy. This does not detract from the importance of the find and I could not have been more excited. This book is WHY still go out and hit the roads in our age of internet overload. A nice addition is that the book has a small previous owner inscription that looks to be from a very early owner of the book from the city in MASS where I found it. This Hawthorne had probably never been farther than 10 miles from Sandwich, MASS since 1851!!! The book enjoyed its first plane ride and now resides in Leiper's Fork, TN.

Mike Cotter, Director of Operations