Author Inscriptions
A discussion broke out in the comments under one of my posts about whether it is acceptable to write on the pages of a book.
Like many of you, I was taught from childhood to treat books with respect: don’t get them dirty, don’t damage them, don’t draw in them, and don’t eat or drink over them…
I believe we should treat not only books, but all things with respect.
However, while working on the digital transformation of libraries, I learned that if a book contains notes made by a sufficiently well-known person or by the book’s author, that particular copy automatically becomes a rarity. If a library acquires such a copy, it is required to preserve it forever. And if a book has several authors, the more of them who have signed it, the more valuable the copy becomes.
Copies bearing inscriptions from their authors are highly sought after on the antiquarian book market—people are prepared to pay serious money for them!
Knowing all this, whenever an author gives me a copy of their book, I ask them to add a personal inscription. If the author says they don’t like doing that or don’t know how, it’s a jackpot: it means there cannot be many books with an inscription from that author. In that case, I practically force them to sign my copy.
At home, I have several shelves set aside for books signed by their authors. One of the gems of the collection is a book that has been to space and was signed by cosmonauts.
In 2023, the Library for Natural Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences turned 50. To mark the occasion, we produced a magnificent anniversary volume about the library’s history. We hired a historian especially for the project, researched the archives, conducted several hundred interviews, and so on. The result was a book valuable in its own right.
Taking advantage of my position, I made sure that two copies of the volume received author inscriptions. And the inscriptions came not only from the principal author but from the ENTIRE editorial board (see the photo of one of the inscribed pages).
One of those two copies is kept at LNS RAS. And it will remain there forever, because the library has no right to dispose of it.
The second one, however, is mine!!!
I can only imagine how rare-book dealers will fight over this copy a hundred years from now. One of my great-great-great-great-…-grandchildren could make a very tidy sum from it. An Easter egg I planted centuries in advance.
Do you have any books with personal inscriptions from their authors in your collection?
