My Intimate Relationship With Books III 

“At that moment a man entered the cabin.

‘Trouble Mr. Swift! He reported.

‘What kind?’ Asked Tom.

“Our propellers are tangled with a mass of serpent weed,’ was the answer.

“They’re both fouled, and we can’t budge.’

‘Bless my anchor chain!’ ejaculated Mr. Damon. ‘Stuck again!’”

~Victor Appleton,

Tom Swift and his undersea search; or, The treasure on the floor of the Atlantic ,

1920, p. 164

New or used, that is the question. Once more into the breach dear books, once more.

New . Untouched, unadulterated by human hands, just waiting for someone to grasp the cover and to open it, spine crackling in anticipation.

Used . Marked up, dog-eared, smudged. Trod upon, perhaps by a number of people, maybe thousands, even millions – who could ever know! Each well-worn page a step down the road more taken. Alas, poor highlight, I knew ye well.

There should be an easy, foreseeable, inevitable answer. New, without question.

Yet…I have an affinity for used books. When I was young, fifty or so years ago, our family lived in Kansas and my folks had little money, so our Christmas present—for me, my two sisters, and my brother—was always around $2.00 each and a trip to the used book store. There we would load up on books–I remember sacks full of them but it may have been only one sack each. We always regarded these books, and they could include comic books, as a treasure trove.

These were like annual pilgrimages to a Wichita-style Mecca. Travelers preparing for the Camino de Santiago have never been readier for their trek than we.

We would spend all Christmas vacation reading—Nancy Drew, Robert Heinlein, mysteries, westerns, science fiction, Superman, Archie and Veronica—on and on. From these experiences we developed a love of books and used book stores.

Today on my desk I am looking at my copy of Tom Swift and the Triphibian Atomicar , written by Victor Appleton II, which I am pretty sure I bought at one of those holiday buying sprees, with a 1962 copyright date. Next to it is Tom Swift and His Undersea Search , by Victor Appleton, with a 1920 copyright date, which I believe was either my grandpa’s or my dad’s, possibly passed down from one to the other, and then to me.

Reading these books, from a series that began in 1910, represented, I had always imagined, intergenerational father-to-son authors and their father-to-son intergenerational readers, a bond in our family in this case of nearly a century, and symbolically meaningful.

It was a big surprise to discover that “Victor Appleton” was really just a pseudonym for Tom Swift series ghostwriters used by the company that published them.

At least the books themselves and the experience of reading them were passed from generation to generation to generation of my family, even if responsibility for writing them did not pass from father to son.

New, or used. That is the question.

My answer:

Pre-owned, with plenty of mileage and a classic interior.

References:

Appleton, V. (1920). Tom Swift and his undersea search; or, The treasure on the floor of the Atlantic . New York: Grosset & Dunlap.