You hear a lot of people today say, “Where would we be without the internet?”. This is a great question, but an even greater question would be, “Where would we be without books?” I doubt you’d be reading this on the internet if books were never invented. Especially if the printing press hadn’t made the invention of books cheaply available to the public.
The spread of knowledge was first verbal and then scrawled on walls, both of these were never, and still are not as effective as books. These bit of trees preserve our history and our fantasy, our past, present an future. They don’t disappear when they get wet, and they require no electricity to turn on. Their portals to other worlds that don’t require the user to buy a video game console or go to the movies.
Because of this, they need to be protected. Not doing so can cause them to disappear. Granted, it won’t be as fast as a wet computer, but give or take a 100 years out in the open, they can and sadly do fall apart.
Take this first edition of Aldous Huxley’s Ape And Essence for example:
It was printed in 1948 by Harper & Brothers Publishers in New York. This book is nearly 70 years old, and although it’s a bit worse for wear, it’s still readable. Which is all fine and good, but the cover has lost its dust jacket and the spine is losing its paint.
There are visible scratches on the surface of the cover and back cover, and the entire thing is loose to the touch. This book has never been protected and it shows. Now, take a look at this:
An identical first edition of Ape And Essence, but can you spot the differences? Right off the bat you noticed the original dust jacket which has been protected by a covering. The cover art with it’s beautiful blues and golds looks like the day it was purchased in the store. The back cover photograph of Aldous Huxley is still crisp and clean. There is some minor paint chipping on the spine, but nary a scratch or blemish can be found on its front and back covers.
It’s more than a first edition, it’s a beautiful first edition. It’s a piece of literary history, preserved as it was originally meant to be seen by its author and original publishers. That means something. That’s important, and can clearly be seen when we look at both books side-by-side:
In this day and age of easily accessible, digital content we often forget about the tangible. We neglect it and as a result, it withers and decays. Eventually the digital will take over everything and there will be no more physical books published. Eventually something will happen and the lights will go out and they may not come back on. What then?
You know what then, you’ll find a light source and open a well protected book from the past. You will hold words in your hands and feel the warmth of the page, that connection only reached thru ink and you’ll feel a deeper kinship to the human race than you have in years.
This was part of a series on protecting your collecting, brought to you by the BU Blog. For all of your book protecting needs, please visit BagsUnlimited.com to pick up what you need. You can also learn how to protect your books by watching one of the videos below:
Do you have any tips on protecting your collectibles? Send us an email!