Genres, Themes, and Interests
There are millions of books, so collectors necessarily specialize in one or more genres or sub-genres of literature. A reader of fiction, who enjoys Westerns, might decide to collect first editions of Zane Grey's novels. A lover of modern English poetry might collect the works of Dylan Thomas. A Californian who prefers non-fiction might look for books about the history of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Individual interests may include:
- A particular author or genre or field of study (science, medicine, history, etc.)
- A particular illustrator
- Award winning books
- Books as Art
- Bindings and/or Book design. The Grolier Club has since 1884 been interested in the "... study of the arts pertaining to the production of books...".
- Comic books and Graphic novels
- Cover or dust jacket art
- First editions
- Fore-edge paintings
- Illustrated books
- Incunabula: books printed before 1501
- Limited editions
- Local/Regional interests
- Marginalia
- Miniature books
- The publisher and/or printer
- Fine press books
- Private press books
- Small presses
- Paper, parchment, or vellum
- Series
- Photoplay editions
- Signed books: inscribed/signed by an author or illustrator
- Special editions, similar but not always the same as limited editions.
- Stages of publication: advance review copies, galley proofs
Related collecting interests include collecting bookplates, autographs, and ephemera.
Read more about this topic: Book Collecting
Famous quotes containing the word interests:
“The essence of the modern state is that the universal be bound up with the complete freedom of its particular members and with private well-being, that thus the interests of family and civil society must concentrate themselves on the state.... It is only when both these moments subsist in their strength that the state can be regarded as articulated and genuinely organized.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)