Wuthering twice

Back in April, I discovered a really interesting edition of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre with illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg. It was our first introduction to Eichenberg's wood engravings -- they are beautiful and haunting and we love them. The Jane Eyre we found was apparently part of a box set with Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and so we've been on the lookout for Jane's companion ever since. We imagined it would be a long time before we found it to complete the set -- especially on its own.

We're in Cooperstown, NY, this week, visiting family and doing a bit of book hunting, and Tuesday we made a trip to Oneonta, NY, and stumbled upon Rose and Laurel Bookshop when we stopped on Main Street to have some lunch. When we walked in I noticed a section of large books in sleeves, and I made a beeline for them to scan for the Wuthering Heights.

On first glance it seemed they were all of the newer sort, so I moved down the shelves. For some reason my eye darted upward once more, and there, resting on its side on the top shelf, I saw that green spine with gold letters that looked so much like the Jane Eyre spine... only much thinner. I snatched it and gasped, then ran over to Kristian with it behind my back and said, "Guess what I found?!" I was practically jumping up and down. He was as shocked as I was that we actually found it -- we were both a bit open-mouthed. But as we calmed down, we realized that the front cover did not have an engraving the way the Jane Eyre did -- otherwise they seemed the same. Same size, Eichenberg illustrations all throughout. (We had previously found a mini-version of the Eichenberg-illustrated Wuthering.) Though we wondered why and if it was truly the match, there was no way we were walking out of the shop without that book. We might never come across it again... we were so excited! We did find more at the Rose and Laurel, but Kristian will tell you more about that.

With that now checked off our list, we made a quick visit to Willis Monie Books, the used bookshop in Cooperstown. Sadly on this day, our daughter was due for a nap when we had an opportunity to sneak down there, so we were sort of pushing our luck with the visit and had to rush through it.

We split up, and I was one aisle over from where Kristian was looking. We weren't there 10 minutes when I heard a groan and then Kristian called me over. He had a book behind his back and a sort of rueful grimace on his face. "What did you find?!" I asked. From behind his back he produced Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Eichenberg illustrated, with a brooding Heathcliff engraving on the cover. Unbelievable! This was the one! For a book we thought we might never find, it took less than 24 hours to find two! We discovered that the one without a cover illustration was actually the older version, by two years, published in 1943. The one with the cover illustration, the one that also has the matching Jane Eyre, was published in 1945. Tag, you're it, 1943 version of Jane Eyre...

Book added: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (x2!)

Publisher: Random House

Years: 1945; 1943

Where obtained: Willis Monie Books; Rose and Laurel Bookshop

Price: $5.00; $6.00

It may be hot, but we need a second jacket

We've settled back into work and home life after our time off at the end of June, and while we were unloading our finds from our trip to Cincinnati, we noticed something was awry.

At one of our stops in Cincy, we found a really cool edition of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights that contained wood engravings by the famous engraver/illustrator Fritz Eichenberg. The thing that made it interesting was its dust jacket, which had the title, author's name, illustrator's name and publisher all printed directly onto the clear plastic dust jacket (you can feel each raised letter), so that if you removed the dust jacket, you remove all of that info from your book's cover.

It is definitely unique. Sadly, it also appears to be very fragile. Here's a pic of what it looked like when we bought it (left) and what it looks like now (right), after having it with other books in a shopping bag for the trip home. 

The "G" in "Wuthering" is now almost completely gone, the "N" isn't far behind, and other letters on that right-hand side are a little less full than they used to be.

Needless to say, this was alarming, especially since a big reason we added this book was because of the dust jacket. So we had to go to work to save it, or at least try to save it.

Our first stop was Random Row here in Charlottesville. In addition to being the place where we acquired the Eichenberg-illustrated Jane Eyre, we had learned a few weeks earlier in passing conversation with Ryan, Random Row's owner, that he personally covers many of his store's acquisitions with a clear plastic dust jacket. So we thought Ryan would be the perfect man for this job.

And we were right. Ryan said he hadn't seen a dust jacket like this one before, and he would certainly help us out. At first, it was determined that the plastic on our Wuthering Heights was too brittle and fragile to be flattened out and covered in the normal way Ryan would cover a book. In fact, we noticed that the dust jacket is already missing pieces, notably on the spine, from being chipped away as a result of nothing more than being opened and closed.

So we regrouped, and after being unable to find a suitable alternative to Ryan's plastic cover, we decided to make it work for us in a different way.

Rather than use a full dust jacket, we essentially cut a piece to the size of the cover, and just used it as an overlay for the front only, taping to on a couple of edges and to the inside of the cover.

It's not necessarily pretty, but it's a solution that will hopefully do the trick, for now anyway. If not, we're open to any further suggestions on the best way to preserve this unique edition.

A find that makes sense, given where we were

Our last stop of Thursday (after this one and this one) was at The Dust Jacket in Cincinnati's very nice "Mt. Lookout" section of town.

It was easy to see from our first step into The Dust Jacket that this was a place for us. Wall to wall hardcovers of all ages, many of which we would have gladly taken home. But as one of our goals is to stay reasonably well budgeted in our collecting, a $475 first-edition of a lesser-known Hemingway novel wasn't going to be in our sights for very long, nor (though it was close) an N.C. Wyeth-illustrated edition of James Fenimore Cooper's The Pathfinder for $55. That one was tough to leave behind.

We immediately struck up a conversation with The Dust Jacket co-owner Sam Jenike, who was extremely friendly and very welcoming. We told him who we were and what we were doing with Get a Spine, and proceeded to spend about an hour or so talking and perusing the store.

Sam and his business partner, Phil Metz, have been in business at The Dust Jacket for over 30 years, and they seem to still be going strong, which was great to see. It really is a terrific store, one of our favorites, for sure.

We learned a little about the history of the store and the books for sale at The Dust Jacket from Sam, and told some stories of our own, all the while making sure our little girl wasn't terrorizing the collection (we think we did OK, sorry, Sam, if we didn't!).

When it got down to the buying, we ended up settling on two books -- though we wanted more. The first adds another copy of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage to our collection. I am fairly certain that the copy I have is a high school paperback, and it's pretty lame, so this 1942 Modern Library edition (for $4) is a welcome upgrade to our shelves.

The more exciting find at The Dust Jacket, however, was one on Deborah's list -- sort of.

Back in April, Deborah found one half of a two-volume Brontë sisters set, a Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights oversized combo box, with both books illustrated by the famous engraver Fritz Eichenberg. With Jane Eyre already in our possession, the companion volume is always a goal whenever we visit a book store.

Deborah inquired with Sam about whether they had what we were looking for -- of all the book stores we've visited, The Dust Jacket has easily had the most oversized-book, sleeved editions -- and Sam said he thought they might... but a search came up empty.

It wasn't until later in our visit that Deborah spotted the "Mini-me" version of what she'd been looking for. Wuthering Heights, illustrated/engraved by Eichenberg, but in a normal-sized book (published in 1946), not the oversized one we're after. But that's not even the best part about this $20 find. The dust jacket on this book -- found at The Dust Jacket -- was the most unique we've seen.

It was clear plastic like many others, and you could see through to the cloth binding and Eichenberg engraving on the cover. But the title, author's name, illustrator's name and publisher were all printed directly onto the clear plastic dust jacket (you can feel each raised letter), so that if you removed the dust jacket, you remove all of that info from your book's cover.

It may not be best way to describe it, but you'll have to trust us: it's pretty awesome.

Oh, and Sam was nice enough to give us the store's dealer discount of 10%. Thanks, Sam!

Books added: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane; Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Publishers:  Random House, Modern Library

Years: 1942; 1946

Where obtained: The Dust Jacket, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Price: $21.60 for both