That this has been a great month for book collectors is probably something to which most people will be yawningly indifferent, I imagine. But for those who have a thirst for books, April has been like an oasis in the middle of a dry desert. Plum private collections were auctioned at Sotheby?s and Christie?s in New York, Swann Galleries held its annual Rare Books auction and a sale of early printed works, and the 44th Annual Antiquarian Book Fair was held in the Park Avenue Armory.

For those who see nothing interesting in that, perhaps these facts will pique a little curiosity: a copy of the 1926 first edition of Ernest Hemingway?s The Sun Also Rises sold for $366,400. A copy of Hemingway?s In Our Time sold for $321,600, and a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald?s The Great Gatsby fetched $153,600. Books these days are pulling down what even bankers would describe as serious money.

All three of the books I mention were particularly collectable because they were inscribed by their authors. Hemingway inscribed the first to the obstetrician who delivered his two sons, and the second to Sylvia Beach, the woman who founded Shakespeare and Company in Paris, the book shop that first published James Joyce?s Ulysses. Fitzgerald inscribed his Gatsby to a book collector, Tatnall Brown.

But don?t get the impression that only rare, signed books are fetching big sums. The man who bought In Our Time was Peter Harrington, who is a London book dealer. At the time he issued his Christmas, 2003, catalogue, he had a couple of Scott Fitzgeralds in stock ? plain, simple first editions of the play, The Vegetable, and The Great Gatsby. The first he was selling for ?3,850 and the second for ?2,750. He was selling a plain first edition of Ian Fleming?s Casino Royale, which would have sold here in the 1950s for a few shillings, for ?25,000. An ordinary first edition copy of The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett, was going for ?50,000.

Although high prices are the focus of the public?s attention, collectors generally focus on the price of a book only when they buy it. They don?t sit around in some kind of counting house, totting up the market price of their libraries every couple of days. Price comes up if a collector wants to sell for some reason, or in connection with an insurance appraisal, or simply by accident. Some specially rare books have always been breath-catchingly expensive. But the sudden and dramatic rise in the price of many comparatively new and less arcane books is quite recent. It has probably had a big boost from the influence of the Internet, which has been a tremendous boon for book collectors.

Once, if you wanted a particular book, you had no specific idea of where to look for it. You wrote to book dealers you thought were likely to have it, and if they didn?t, you asked them to look out for it. Or, if you were lucky enough to be in a place where there lots of book dealers, you could go looking for it.

That?s a pretty iffy process, though. I can remember only a single occasion on which I was able to find a particular book that way. I have, however, bought many I didn?t know I was looking for during the search ? the telltale sign of a hopeless book addict. Now, though, you can go to a website which has access to the inventories of hundreds of booksellers and be quoted prices for a copy of your heart?s desire, in seconds, in a variety of conditions and in a variety of geographical locations. You can pay for it online in a minute or two, and it can be in your mailbox in a matter of days. That?s nothing short of miraculous by comparison to the way it once was.

There?s something about a book, you know? All of them are objects that use art of some kind, to varying degrees, to show off words, so they are themselves pieces of art. As with a lot of art, the proportions are important. I have a four-volume 1896 edition of Gil Blas of Santillana that seems perfectly sized to me, 4? inches by seven inches by one inch ? perfect for holding in your hand, or carrying around in a coat pocket. It?s a grubby, not-at-all rare little set that I bought on impulse in a bookshop many, many years ago for almost nothing, but I pull one or another of the volumes out of the bookcase often, the way one seeks out old friends in gatherings of people.

It was designed by someone who knew very well what he was doing. The type is small and slightly ornate, matching both the size of the book and the nature of the story. There are illustrations by a rather syrupy French engraver of the period, Adolphe Lalauze, who makes Gil Blas look, not Spanish as he was meant to be, but rather more like a flashily turned-out Musketeer. Flourishes and elegant little devices make this a little gem of a production, something I?m especially fond of, even though it is not what you would describe as a ?collectible? book.

Their look is not all that is attractive about books ? they have something else going for them. Charles Lamb, the English 18th Century writer who called himself Elia, put it like this, in an article called Oxford in the Vacation: ?What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of the writers, that have bequeathed their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle, to profane the leaves, their winding sheets. I could as soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.? (Isn?t that a nicely-used semi-colon?)

That combination of art and erudition, wrapped up in a neat little dust-jacketed package, is for me as irresistible as drugs must be to an addict. I said my copy of Gil Blas wasn?t collectible. People collect books for different reasons. Some collect them because of their excellence as objects ? that is, because of the quality of their binding, or their printing, or their design. Others collect books for their rarity value. Many, and I am of this number, collect books because of their authors.

Obviously, not every author?s book is going to become valuable. Only a small percentage of those that are published reach the stage at which demand outstrips supply, and rarity is achieved. It is a good bet that any critically-acclaimed author will produce books that will increase in value at least a little bit as time goes on. The trick is being able to judge quickly which ones stand out from the rest of the pack, and who therefore are among those whose books will increase dramatically in value. Even harder is judging which of those authors who are not critically acclaimed are likely to emerge later as influential and important.

In a sense, it is the perfect hobby, because you can fit it to the size of your budget, no matter how small that might be. Going down to the Bookmart and buying a copy of the first edition of a book by a modern author you particularly like, is just as valid a way to build a collection as going to the most expensive book dealer and paying him a lot of money for a book considered important by the book community.

Tom Clancy?s The Hunt for Red October cannot be considered an important book from a literary standpoint. It?s a good thriller, but that?s all. Yet if you had managed to pick up a copy of the Naval Institute Press 1984 first edition 20 years ago, it would be worth somewhere between $200 and $2,400 today. What spells the difference between those two figures is the condition your copy is in. Where that is concerned, book dealers assign one of four grades to books. Very Fine is a pristine copy, one without even the slightest blemish. That would be the condition of the $2,400 version of the Clancy book. It will almost certainly be a copy that has not been read. Some people describe books in this grade as Mint, or As New. Whatever the description, this is the grade of book that attracts the big bucks. If you do decide to collect by buying new books at your favourite bookstore, and you want to read them as well, the best thing to do is to buy two copies ? one to collect, one to read. Store the collection copy away in a safe place and don?t even let people to touch it.

Fine is the grade given to a book that is without visible flaws, but which lacks the snap or the crispness of a Very Fine copy. Very Fine books kept without air conditioning through a humid Bermuda summer can drop down a grade to Fine as a result.

Very Good is the lowest grade at which I think of a book as collectible. A Very Good book has wear, but hasn?t lost its appeal. It might have a bookplate stuck to one of the pages, or a remainder mark, or a thoughtless owner?s signature, or the price might have been clipped off, or the jacket might have been rubbed, or chipped or torn. In a first class collection, a Very Good book is generally thought of as a place keeper, to be replaced with a better grade as soon as practicable.

Good, as collectors say, ain?t good. Some seem unable to resist buying even at this low grade, but my advice would be that you should not. Unless the book happens to be particularly rare, you?re far better off waiting until you?ve got a little more money to spend, and buying something that will repay you for taking that trouble. But having said all that, allowances have to be made for age. You can?t expect to find first editions of Shakespeare?s plays, unread in their dust wrappers! So consider those remarks about grade valid for collecting books, let?s say, that have been published in your lifetime. More on collecting books next week.

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