Member: keithmcramer

Keith,

I am only beginning now to catalog my Ellison books and materials. When I was the #2 guy on Library Thing it was from listing just "bank shot' materials that I would come across while cataloging other things. Someone else's book with an Ellison introduction for instance. The 365 tags I have up now represent perhaps 25% of my Ellison collection. Much less if you count some audio and video I'll be folding in with the books and magazines. Eventually I'll probably have a few thousand legitimate Ellison tags plus the ephemera where the connection won't be instantly obvious to the outsiders.

As for the Andrew Porter "Book of Ellison", I have a copy (or two) of the Trade Paperback edition, plus the early issue of ALGOL where about 75% of the materials originally appeared. My copy of that ALGOL is signed by Andrew Porter AND Harlan and may be unique in that regard. Certainly there would only be a handful in the world.

Harlan's animosity over that book was not an overnight thing. In the 1970's and 1980's he was reasonably happy to sign it. Problems arose over things Andrew Porter published in the late eighties and 1990's and "oughts" in Porter's magazine and because he may have been associated in some way with "Enemies of Ellison", although I have never seen a smoking gun in that particular regard.

And in terms of PURE SPECULATION - beyond all that - there is the issue of it NOT being a particularly attractive book - which has come to rankle more over the years. And finally there ***MAY*** have been a bootleg of the limited edition of the HC - although, again, that is a whisper of a rumor and I have never seen one of those mythical unauthorized HC's.

For the record, I don't own the authorized Algol Press signed/lmtd. HC but would buy one for say $50-60.00 if I saw one for sale. I've not seen one in a couple of years and when I do I'm never flush.

Now you know what I know. Cheers - Barney

posted by Dannelke at 4:30 pm (EST) on Aug 17, 2007

Keith you sucker punching bibliophile wannabee. Spoken like a true afishanado of the English language. Your ONLY problem with me stands corrected. At least one of my tags doesn't screw up the spelling of a tricky word like "house" or play fast and loose with upper and lower case conventions. Just sayin' mofo.

- Barney

Yourbetters, PA.

posted by Dannelke at 12:29 am (EST) on Dec 9, 2006