1 : We will be able to start this interview with the traditional question :
Can you introduce yourself to our readers pls ?
Thank you for having me. My name’s Tom and i’m an antiquarian bookseller who, through my company "Tom W. Ayling Rare Books & Manuscripts" : sources, researches and offers for sale unique and interesting items. I started bookselling while i was at university, and my first job after university was working for an antiquarian bookseller. I founded my own company earlier this year...
2 : Where does this passion for books come from and above all why ?
I have loved reading from a really early age and my parents were thankfully very encouraging in this regard. But I first learnt about the phenomenon that two copies of the same book can be wildly different objects when one of my favourite authors came to visit my school. Her name was Caroline Lawrence and she wrote a wonderful series of books for children called the Roman mysteries. I had brought along a great pile of books for her to sign for me. As it happens one of these was a hardback and all the rest were paperbacks. She took the hardback out first and told me it was a first edition. And no only that, but that this first printing contained a mistake that she wanted to correct for me. So after signing the book, she turned to the relevant page and made the correction by hand right before my eyes. I remember standing then in awe of the whole situation. In the first instance it had never occurred to me that books could be in different formats with different contents, let alone have mistakes in and in the second instance, the book she had just signed and annotated felt a thousand times more important than when i had picked it up earlier that morning.
3 : What is the process of researching and studying a book ? His value ? Its origin ?
The first thing I do when I’m working on a book is ‘collate’ it. Collation is the process of checking every single book I sell page-by-page to make sure that it is complete and everything is there, but also to note any copy-specific details that might be of interest to collectors or that otherwise need flagging. These could be good or bad things - so might include annotations by an early reader, or even the author themselves, but also whether there are tears or damage to any of the pages.
Once the inside of the book is fully accounted for, I’ll turn my attention to its outside. What is the binding like and when was it bound, is it original to the publisher or bookseller, if it was published with a dustwrapper, is that still present, are there any markings or details to the binding that can tell us more about the book we are looking at...
Now, we should hopefully have a very good picture of all of the book’s characteristics it is time to catalogue the book - which is to say produce a written description noting all of the elements we have singled out, and help present the story of the book to collectors and readers. Once this is done, the book can be priced according to how it compares to other examples in the current market (if there are any) and also to copies previously offered for sale throughout history !
4 : Overall, what are the things/details that determine the value of a book ?
This is probably best answered in three parts, as there is one set of factors that can lead to a work becoming valuable and highly thought of, a second set of factors that can lead to a printing or edition of that work becoming collectable, and then a third set of factors that might commend a specific copy of that edition or printing.
A work might become valuable for any number of reasons - it might be extraordinarily popular and read by a large number of people, or might make an important contribution to a given field, or announce the arrival or a writer or thinker onto the world stage.
If a work becomes highly thought of or considered important, then whichever form it originally appeared in will become valuable. For most books this will be it being published in book form, and so the first edition of that work will be valuable as being the entry point for it and its stories and ideas into the world. In other cases the form this might take couple be the publication of an article in a journal, or the serialisation of a story in a magazine. If a book becomes popular then subsequent editions can also become valuable and collectable - this might include textual changes that were made by the author or publishers, or the furnishing of the work with new illustrations.
The third set of factors, assuming those first two have been met in some way, are what makes individual copies of specific printings stand out. There really is an endless list of possibilities here, since so much can happen to books after they are published, but things that might be of interest to collectors include completeness, condition, provenance, whether an authors has signed the book, and then with this and so many other possible factors, how rare is the book in light of all this...
5 : So far, without going into details, of course, what are your best “finds” in terms of books ? And how did you achieve this result ?
A quite nice recent find was a copy of Tolkien’s essay Middle English “Losenger”, a lecture he gave in Paris in 1951. Copies of this separate printing of the lecture do crop up from time to time and are nice things, but the copy I laid my hands on was actually from Tolkien’s own library, being a copy he will have been sent by the publisher and to which his posthumous library label was added to the cover.
6 : Let’s talk a little about Tolkien if you want! Is this an author you like ? If yes, why ? And if not why ? And have you already made any interesting discoveries (books or other) concerning him ?
I’m a great lover of Tolkien and his work. It is such fertile ground for both readers and collectors due to its seemingly endless complexities. Simply a surface level interaction with his work through reading The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings is a delight, but the opportunity to drill deeper through The Silmarillion, The History Of Middle-earth, other separately published stories and poems, and his academic writing of career makes him unique among authors of imaginative literature...
Here we are at the end of this interview.I would like to sincerely thank Tom for accepting this interview, for his availability and his kindness ! A true enthusiast who deserves you to take a look at his different social networks and who knows, i hope you find your "happiness" on his website ! See you soon and THANK YOU Tom
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