Act One: The Object of Desire
There's a particular subgenre of fantasy, primarily British in origin*, in which teenagers and tweenagers find themselves unexpectedly involved in mystical events of enormous importance while on vacation. Examples would be the Narnia books, Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series, and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner. (Not Harry Potter - I think that J. K. Rowling was painting a far more complex canvas than the sort of story that I'm talking about here.)
I own a very early example of the genre: What Happened At Garry-Eustace, by Dorothea Townshend, with illustrations by Alan Wright, detailing the adventures of the four Eustace children with leprechauns, the Sidhe, Tirna'an Og, enchanted princesses, magical swords, hidden treasures and the like. My copy is undated, but was probably published in 1927.* Sadly, it is in such horrible condition that it is only by courtesy that I can call it a book - the covers still enclose the pages, but that's about it. In my defense, I haven't abused it (okay, maybe a little when I was ten or eleven) it's just an old book that wasn't taken care of.Act Two: Fulfillment
I was flipping through this poor battered book recently, and thought to myself, "Wait a minute, Sid, this has to be available someplace on line - you can't possibly own the only copy in the world." So, I sat down with Google™, and to my extreme pleasure instantly found a copy for sale by a third-party seller on Amazon.co.uk for a mere £5.99 and an additional £6.94 for shipping and handling. A different edition, admittedly, but under the circumstances, I considered finding a copy at all to be a win.
I was a bit concerned that the British branch of Amazon might not want to sell to someone in Canada, but all of my regular Amazon.ca account information worked - bang, done, and then it was just a question of waiting a couple of weeks for delivery.
Act Three: Disappointment
Imagine my surprise to then receive an e-mail announcing that the seller had cancelled my order because the item was out of stock. This was followed by a very polite letter of apology from the seller, explaining that the book had been sold recently and that she had neglected to delete the listing immediately.
As I commented in my reply to the seller, I was of course disappointed, but more than anything else I was surprised that someone else - in fact, ANYONE else - had been looking for the same book at the same time!
So, ultimately I was left with my original timeworn tome. I couldn't find another copy for sale at that point in time, but it's not as if I am in desperate need of a copy in better condition, and at least I know that there are other copies out there. Hmmm...perhaps I should do another search now, you never know...
- Sid
* I'm open to debate on this, but personally I think of it as a British thing.
** The online WorldCat Book Catalogue says that there were only 1927 and 1930 editions of this book, and based on the publisher, mine is from 1927.
This is by no means as impressive or retro, but it would give me a certain sense of childlike glee to get my hands on some FIRST generation TRX's. Now they just make the third generation variety.
ReplyDeleteAnd so it begins...
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, it would probably be a lot easier to find first generation TRXs than 87 year old books - the time span is shorter, and there were probably a LOT more 1st Gen TRXs manufactured than copies of that book.
- Sid
My mother received a copy of this book as a primary school award (N.Z.). It wasn't all that well taken care of over the years; several illustrations had a young artist take to them with purple and pink crayon, for example. Nevertheless I loved it as a child and still do. A few years ago I purchased a better copy on line - I set up a google alert and eventually found what I was looking for.
ReplyDeleteMy copies are both Thomas Nelson & Sons, so presumably that's the 1930 edition, which would make sense concerning the copy my mother had.
Oh, and I got mine more than a couple of years ago, so I was not the person who did you out of a copy! Good luck hunting.