Powell’s City of Books recently added this oddity to the Pearl Room on its fourth floor: a section marked, “From the Library of Anne Rice.” You may read about it in detail here, but in a nutshell it offers several shelf-loads of books from that author’s personal collection, all for sale. The books have her personal ex libris sticker affixed inside (a simple gold rectangle the size of your thumb featuring the words “From the Library of Anne Rice” and a facsimile of her signature) and many even have call letters taped to their spines. Interestingly, most of what Powell’s offers are books which seem to be related to Rice’s recent forays into historical fiction, since almost all of them are concerned with Judaism and Christianity: theological works, historical investigations, Biblical commentaries, surveys of religious art, etc. Many of the books have her own marginalia in them, and, not surprisingly, those volumes have been priced more highly than others. All in all, it’s an impressive collection and, if Rice did in fact read them, an indication that she is a very careful, diligent, and comprehensive researcher.
When I first encountered this collection, I was bemused by it, I suppose, but didn’t buy anything—I didn’t much see the point in owning what I've since learned is called an “association copy,” that is, a book a famous author once owned and, presumably, read. After all, I wasn’t even much of a Rice fan, although I did enjoy the first two vampire novels (the others I couldn’t finish). But after a while the idea grew on me. After about a week’s worth of hemming and hawing, I eventually picked out a 1983 paperback copy of that classic of bogus history Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent et al. for $6.95. The purchase was largely a lark; it was about the least expensive book in the collection (no signature, marginalia, or underlined passages) and my intention was to send it to a friend who is a fan of Rice and Dan Brown (though she admits the latter is rubbish). Even so, when I made the purchase I couldn’t help but feel a bit self-conscious and silly. I couldn’t look the cashier in the eye, and I exited quickly, as if I were a 16 year-old buying his first Playboy. I felt a little dirty. Why?
Aside from the fact that Holy Blood, Holy Grail is a monument of stupidity and that my buying it was a mark of conspicuous consumption (I'm sure the homeless fellow outside could have put that $6.95 to a better use), I guess I didn't want that cashier to think I was some dimwit fanboy who would buy such a thing solely for the reason Anne Rice once owned it! I have a number of association copies in my own library, but all of them were incidental purchases--meaning I wanted the book itself foremost, and the fact that it had been owned by a famous person, another author, or a person who was integrally associated with the book was only a secondary consideration. For, indeed, isn't the whole notion that a book is somehow more valuable because Anne Rice owned it or read it or fondled it really rather asinine? But wait--what if the book had been owned by, say, William Faulkner, bore his ex libris inside the front cover, and was a copy of, oh, Ernest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon? Might I feel the same way? If I could easily afford it, would I buy it?
At the end of the day, this question reminds me of those dilemmas so common in the art world: We don't really know if that is an authentic Leonardo or a copy, but by consensus the art historians believe it most likely is; therefore, the same painting that drew little attention two years ago is now hailed a masterpiece and its value has increased a thousand fold. Value is always relative; seeing is perceiving. Hamlet said it best: "For there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."
The same could be said of acquiring a book that once belonged to Anne Rice or just about any other famous person. As one shopper on the Powell's website put it: "[They] are a treat to read just because I know where they came from."
