Why and how i started to collect books on Spain and Latin America

An interest in Spain as a country came from picking up a copy of Laurie Lee’s, ‘ As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’.

At first, It was not the content but the dust jacket which caught my attention. In the foreground a man in a tweed suit and a hat carrying a walking stick and in the background a village in the cool greens of England next to a village in Spain on a dusty, brown and hot landscape. Ten years after reading the book I walked through Spain in a desperate search for what Laurie Lee had seen in 1936. Of course it was completely different but I never forgot the book and its dust jacket. It was my first First Edition and signed by Laurie Lee.

Many years later it was suggested to me that I should put my knowledge and experience of living in Spain to some effect. I decided to buy interesting and valuable books on Spain by Spanish, American and British authors, not just as a hobby but as a collection which might help me financially down the road. An alternative and better pension.

In the beginning I made the rookie error of buying everything and anything in an effort to have a collection without thinking of the consequences. With some a hundred or so books bought online, at auction and in bookshops, I had something nice to look at and interesting to read but a collection of little value. It was made clear to me that a collection requires considerably more thought and consideration. To begin with I had to reduce the collection to what was a small but significant choice. In other words, which books mattered.

Gerald Brenan, Norman Lewis, V.S.Pritchett, E.Hemingway and Laurie Lee have all written well known books on Spain. In which order I place them in terms of enjoyment and cultural significance is irrelevant. Hemingway knew how to sell himself and even though that was his undoing, his books are of more value. Condition is paramount but his signature in one of his books will double the value. A First edition, first impression copy of ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, a novel he wrote about the Spanish Civil War, with a first issue dust jacket will vary in price from £700 to £1000 but signed will not sell for less than £4000. An interesting aspect to buying this particular Hemingway novel is the dust jacket. On the spine of the jacket are some village houses with red roofs.

One of the first visible defects of a book is the fading on the spine, years on a bookshelf. In the case of Hemingway’s novel the clarity of the red roofs is of immense value to the book and thus a collector.

Realising the error of my ‘collecting ways’ I managed to sell most of the hundred books I had bought on Spain for a rare and valuable first edition of Miguel Hernandez’s ‘Viento del Pueblo’.  My collection reduced to almost nothing, I set about looking for books to make a proper collection. The rules were and are simple.  I trawled the Net investigating established and renowned bookshops, understanding the relevance of condition, dust jackets, provenance, inscriptions and signatures, author’s first books, print runs and where the book was published. All part of the learning curve and saving myself from disasters. Luckily for me the Spanish influence includes Latin America.

It adds arrows to my bow. Lowry,Marquez,Borges ,Neruda, Rulfo, Greene and many more are some of the finest writers to be found.

I have come to learn about the pitfalls of buying on the Internet and at Auction. The Internet has changed the market for ever, making books a global market but therein lies the problem. Buying online, unless from a well known dealer or bookshop, offers many choices and varying prices for the same book. Better not to guess or assume you have made the right choice.

I go to a preferred bookshop and find the book there. At auction, however taken you are by what is on offer, remember the 20 per cent or more commission on top of the hammer price and be sure to get a full report on the condition of the book.. Sometimes bargains are there irrespective of the 20 plus percent going on top. Happy days.

Whether trawling the net or being unable to pass a bookshop or miss a Book Fair, might be considered as an obsession, It is neither here nor there to someone like me who enjoys the hunt and the odd moment just to sit and gaze at a small but well chosen collection.

Good hunting!