For the purposes of this website, “Modern First Editions” refers to books from the early part of the Twentieth Century to today that are “First Edition” (all of our “Modern First Editions” are also “First Printings” unless otherwise noted). First Edition books are the first versions of a book made available for general sale to a particular geographic market. Cornellbooksellers.com offers primarily American, British or Canadian editions of Modern First Editions (again, exceptions will be noted). For the most part, these are standard size (Octavo) hardbacks, with a pictorial dust jacket (depending on age and other factors, which will also be noted). First Editions can occasionally be paperbacks—particularly in the case of early Science Fiction—but most of our Firsts are standard hard backed volumes.

The reason “First Edition” and “First Printing” matter to the collector is quite simple: these books are the closest to the author’s original inspiration and intentions that were available for sale. There is a certain elegance to that logic isn't there?

It is fitting too that we talk about “inspiration” in terms of Modern First Editions, as the author’s who are traditionally thought of as having launched “modernist” literature as a movement or category—James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, Virginia Woolf, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Franz Kafka to name a few—were passionate artists who sought to overturn previous literary traditions through new and exciting methods and styles. The “Moderns” attempted to find news ways of expressing the passionate truth of human existence.

They were followed closely by a second-wave of writers, inspired by their efforts, which included Gore Vidal, Paul Bowles, Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Heller, Ayn Rand, Kurt Vonnegut, Saul Bellow, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, James Jones and many more. The work of these great artists of the Twentieth Century continues to inspire today’s writers.

Cornellbooksellers.com will also occasionally offer earlier versions of books—Advance Reader’s Copies or Advance Review Copies (ARCs) and manuscripts or holographs—as, following the same logic, these are even closer to an author’s original inspiration. ARCs and manuscripts are generally more expensive than the more widely available First Editions. Although, occasionally, an ARC for a very recent book will be worth less than the actual First Edition due to the value inherent in a hardback versus a paperback (also known as “in wrappers”); as most ARCs tend to be.

Browse through the archives of the Paris Review and look at some of the manuscript pages they reproduce from people like William Burroughs or Paul Bowles and you will immediately see the validity of the cost of collectible manuscripts. The author’s struggle to express some intangible inspiration is obvious in every scribbled note or line.

Modern First Editions are a thriving and dynamic part of the current book collecting environment. The books of the 20th and 21st Centuries are more accessible to contemporary readers, and often more affordable to new collectors.

Many book collectors, including ourselves, began by collecting the First Editions of authors we had long admired. My own collection includes First Editions of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neil Stephenson, Stanislaw Lem, Harlan Ellison—the cyberpunks and their influences. None of these books are especially valuable as such, but I love them unreservedly. These authors speak directly to my personal proclivities and interests. My collection is thematic (and possibly psychological) as opposed to completist or focussed on “high spots”—both of which are certainly valid ways to collect books.

The method of collecting is only as important as the collector thinks it is. In this way, Modern First Edition collecting is as often about the contents of the book itself, as it is about the object.