I came to this site thinking it would have some publication information on the books. I have found precious little, and that which I have found is incorrect. There is nothing wrong (and a lot right) with having a site devoted to EL fans, aspiring writers, and published writers that admire EL. But as the “official EL site” it would attract more traffic if it also included comprehensive bibliographical information on EL’s books.
I am not a bibliographer - not even a collector, fan or reader of EL’s books - so cannot provide much information on this score. I came here only because I found (by research elsewhere) what I discovered to be a first edition of The Law at Randado.
Having found this site, I would like to see it survive, and grow. Accurate and complete bibliographic information would do that.
Who knows, I might even read an EL book some time.
Huh? What are you talking about? You go to the homepage, hit “Novels,” and get all the bibliographical info anyone but an OCD victim you could reasonably want.
If Gregg has that same attitude then this site will never attract serious collectors or book dealers looking for accurate information.
Or worse, will mislead them by giving inaccurate information.
But maybe I am wrong in thinking this site is intended for anyone but fans.
The fact that you never questioned my allegation that the information is incorrect suggests that you don’t care whether it is or not. And that pretty much answers who this site is for, and what its purpose is.
(FYI The Bounty Hunters was not published in 1953 as the Novels page states, but in 1954.)
But maybe I am wrong in thinking this site is intended for anyone but fans.
Speaking for myself, the site is fine. It’s for fans. I’m a fan. I only care about what’s in the book. I read them in paperback or hardcover, trade or mass market. I don’t collect first editions (like someone else mentioned, I’ve been buying them in hardcover only because I want to read them right away - I don’t collect anything). I don’t care if a book was first published in 1953 or ‘54. I only care about the contents of the book and I like to talk to other people about what’s in the books.
Often, I think, collectors and bibliophiles, whatever you want to call them, have interests that are quite different and specialized and for them a different site would be required.
John, that’s fine with me. And if that is the sole purpose of this site, that’s fine with me, too (in fact, it’s really none of my business what this site wants to be about).
And if Gregg just wants to list a little bibliographical information about EL’s books, for the benefit of fans, ditto.
I think it would be nice if that information were accurate, but if this site is for the benefit of fans and readers only, I guess it doesn’t matter whether it is or not.
The “Novels” section is not incorrect. The Bounty Hunters was copyrighted in 1953, published in 1954. Back a few days ago, before I had reason to see your tendency to whine, I went to the trouble of posting the following:
<< I pulled my copies. Here’s the deal:
1st edition paperback: copyright 1953, then “in association with Ballantine Books, Inc, Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, 1954,” presumably referring to the publication date. Then on a separate page: “A hardbound edition of this book, priced at $2.00, may be obtained at your local bookstore.”
1st edition hardcover: copyright 1953, then “1954 Houghton Mifflin Company Boston,” presumably referring to the publication date. Then also there’s a blurb that reads, “This new book published initially in two editions by Houghton Mifflin Company…” Below that, in a second paragraph, it says, “This simultaneous publication makes new books widely available at low prices, and we believe that it is an important development in American publishing.” (emphasis added)
So it looks like the book was finished and copyrighted in ‘53, but not published until the following year. And when that happened, the book came out in paper and hardcover at the same time. >>
Obviously, what Gregg was showing is the first year in which Elmore wrote a book.
BTW, what’s wrong with a site where you can post highly technical questions like the ones you posted about Bounty and Randado and get informed answers right away?
Last, I’m a serious Leonard collector and have scoured the web and elsewhere for Elmore-related info, and found that this site is where it’s at.
Obviously, what Gregg was showing is the first year in which Elmore wrote a book.
BTW, what’s wrong with a site where you can post highly technical questions like the ones you posted about Bounty and Randado and get informed answers right away?
Last, I’m a serious Leonard collector and have scoured the web and elsewhere for Elmore-related info, and found that this site is where it’s at.
The question was not “highly technical”—any book dealer would consider it the most basic of inquiries about a book—but your answer was thorough and I appreciated the information.
Gregg’s listing of information on the book is presumed (by those looking for the information) to be publication information. So The Bounty hunter was first published in hardcover at Boston by Houghton Mifflin in 1954. Unfortunately, they see the date 1953.
Giving the copyright date is fine, but that should be given (if at all) in addition to the publication date. The date of copyright registration really means nothing with respect to when an author finished a book, nor does it say anything about when a book was published.
What a collector, picker or dealer really wants to know is: When he looks at a book, how can he tell if it is a first edition? What information does the book he is holding in his hands give him, and how does that correlate to what a first edition says?
A first edition of The Bounty Hunter does say what Gregg has listed on the Novels page, but that information (assuming one knows it is the copyright date) does not distinguish it from a later edition. If Gregg had said 1954 instead of the copyright date 1953, then that is the information the searcher needs.
Why do we keep getting these newbies who are such assholes? We had that spammer, trying to push cut-price meds. Then the guy with the long name who, uninvited, posted links to other writers’ sites (& who managed to spin out his thread onto a 2nd page before disappearing). There was even one who posed an innocent question (entitled ‘A Question’ if I remember rightly) that Gregg knifed completely; the person hadn’t taken the trouble to browse the site a little first. Now we have this Bart character. Who has never read an EL book in his life. Who seems to have come across an old title somehow or other (it might be interesting to learn exactly how) & is now looking to make a quick few bucks off it, & can’t understand the raison d’etre of the site, despite having sniffed around various other threads making snide remarks. Well, bibliography, like taxonomy, is a science of minutae, of nit-picking; it would be a sad day for bibliography when all bibliographers agreed about anything, I’m sure Mr Lacrimatty agrees (although I can’t see Gregg agreeing, for some reason). Maybe we’re being too elitist. The figures are telling. Threads like ‘Best Movie’ get nearly 3000 ‘views’ for 40 or so posts. Even counting for narcissism, each poster reading his own stuff maybe 10 times, that means there are literally thousands of people out there reading the Forum but for some reason abstaining from comment. This is unbelievable in this age of blogging & ‘user-generated content’. Maybe we should accept advertising & share the profits, so I can buy a new Porsche. But this is unlikely. What we really need is new posting members. We should somehow winkle them out, tell them not to be afraid of the scorn that gets poured on newbies. It’s only natural, our imaginations are peopled with characters with guns & evil intentions. We enjoy reading about guys being shot in the head. Some of us have alchohol problems. I’m Pisces & I love pretentiousness. Come on, Bart, start with Coyote, get someone to help you with the long words. C’mon, post, people, post. Let’s see your arm. And don’t be afraid of calling a asshole a asshole.
Yes, I have never read an EL book. I probably read only two or three novels a year. I am interested in, and collect, early books on communication. While searching for them, I occasionally come across other interesting-looking books, usually in second-hand shops or at rummage sales.
A few years ago there was the second edition of Alcoholics Anonymous (with the misprint on page xx), near fine, with jacket. I sold it for $20 before finding out its collector value. That “cost me” $300, but the lesson will not be forgotten and was well worth it.
The first edition of The Law at Randado I found with a bunch of other old westerns, all discards from the same library, in a local second-hand shop. I researched each of them, found a couple collectible firsts (including this one). But it’s not easy determining the publishing status of some books, and the search brought me to this site.
Sorry if the above seems drawn out, but djones seemed interested in how I came across the book.
“Now looking to make a quick few buck off it…”? Yes, of course. I don’t collect Leonard. What else should I do with it?
“...can’t understand the reason for being of the site…”? True, I didn’t. I do now.
Elmoreleonard.com is Elmore’s gift to his friends and fans. As his researcher and friend, I lovingly maintain it, all by my lonesome, without financial support or technical help. If you’ve ever run a site such as this one, you know there are a lot of time consuming technical issues along with the editorial.
The site is “official” in the sense that it is Elmore Leonard’s domain and, as such, his personal website.
I repeat, this site is a gift, not an entitlement, as our friend who started this thread suggests. The fact that there are errors on the site is inevitable. It is a work in progress. I wish I had the time to do half the things I have mapped out in my head. I dedicate time to the project when I can. I know I need to work on the Novel sections and it’s high on my list.
However, the suggestion that my listings are inaccurate based on one or two books that a seller (no collector, friend or fan, it appears) has found at a library sale, and wishes to make a buck off of, is not very credible.
I have always used copyright dates in my listings. It is my intention to include exact publication date, whenever possible, including day, month and year. Ironically, the two books that our friend mentions, The Bounty Hunters and The Law at Randado are among a handful that have different copyright dates than their publication dates. There may be others like that, but those two specifically are different. I notice that the Library of Congress actually uses both, for example, here is The Law at Randado:
So I learned something, and will adjust my data field to accomodate both.
If someone finds a mistake, all the have to do is say, “Hey Gregg, you might want to take a look at this.” Blanket condemnation of the site is hardly a constructive strategy, especially with me.
The suggestion that putting publication dates in the Novels listings will start a stampede of traffic from booksellers is ludicrous. My traffic is up on average over 100% since last year at this time. I attribute that to good, steady content and lively discussion in The Dutch Forum. Book sellers are too busy trying to keep their shops open to launch a crusade over my so-called bibliography errors.
I accept criticisms of the site and will do my best to address every one of them.
So in conclusion, let me telegraph this message to our friend: I do not accept denunciation, especially from a guy who has never even read one Elmore Leonard book.
Yeah, but he does read 2 or 3 novels a year, a hell of a lot more than most other human beings. A good start, as Aerosmith’s drummer said. Let’s hope one of this year’s will be an Elmore Leonard.
While we’re on the subject, I have a friend involved in the 1st edition racket. He doesn’t usually have anything to do with Crime, but at the moment he’s involved in brokering a near-perfect Maltese Falcon. A hundred thousand dollars. And it’s not even the 1st appearence of the story, which ran in a pulp magazine beforehand; which also leads to confusion about the publication date. I can’t find out the value ot the 4 relevant issues of Black Mask. Presumably Elmore’s stuff will start being worth this kind of money in 50 years - factoring in inflation - at the same time that U of M starts offering its Master’s in EL studies.
Barton’s contribution to the Forum seemed to show that its point isn’t - unlike the right to life, liberty & property - self evident, as we might have supposed. This perhaps reveals another suppostition: that many writers have such things.
So I spent a half-hour looking round the net. First off, I only found 2 like ours; Ian McEwen & Cormac McCarthy. I deem ‘like the DF’ to mean a well-known writer, whose name figures prominently on the URL (so it’s not a publisher or eng. lit. faculty sponsored thing); that is moderated rather than just a post-a-comment blog, so that certain standards are encouraged & a certain level of discussion - perhaps, even, argument - emerges.
Scott Turow & - notoriously - Michael Connelly have forums similar in structure, but they seem to attract mainly grade-schoolers. This might be encouraging for the future of literacy, but makes for tedium in a discussion forum.
The number of important writers who have no such thing surprised me. Of course, there is no particular reason a writer should give thought - even less, time - to such an enterprise. It’s not as if they owe it to anybody. We should certainly count ourselves - with Elmore - lucky to have Gregg Sutter.
Hence there is nothing for Vonnegut, Doctorow, Delillo, Updike, William Kennedy, George V. Higgins, Iain Banks or Martin Amis. Saul Bellow joins Margaret Atwood in having a ‘resource for scholars’. Robert B. Parker has a blog where you can leave a comment that no-one’ll read. Harlan Coben has a MySpace page of all things. You can’t really leave comments there because it’s blocked up with spam. Patricia Cornwell has an extraordinary construct, including games & short films where Ms Cornwell plays the William Petersen role in her own CSI shows. Alas, there is nowhere you can leave the opinion, for example, that she’s not as good-looking as William Petersen & still would’t be even if she grew a beard. Most sinister (if you can get more sinister than a middle-aged man having a MySpace page) is John Grisham’s site. Grisham proposes a ‘discussion guide’ that you’re supposed to download & refer to if you ever discuss his books with your friends.
Finally, a site called ‘Online Literature Forums’ caught my eye. I must admit I didn’t spend much time evaluating its level of discussion because the 1st thing I came across was this depressing & defeatist comment from the forum admin:
Well this site gets as much as 60,000 page views a day and yet the forums remain relatively dull. I figure that this is because the average student doesn’t care much about discussing literature, they just want to get their assignment done, and this site caters more towards students than to literature enthusiasts.
I did have the time to cull this gem, though, on the thread ‘Books that have changed my life’: (It might be thought at 1st sight that no context is provided to indicate the posteur’s state of mind - sincere, ironic or certifiable - but grammar & location indicate a continental European origin, where such a fine sense of irony is unlikely)
The book that changed my life is American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I was recommended it at a bookstore in Switzerland and rolled my eyes at the recommendation. I bought and read it anyway. The book, though it has strongly anticapitalist themes, made me want to go to become a yuppie. Because of that book I forced myself to do better in school, which led to my acceptance (less than a week ago) to one of the best undergraduate business programs in the world.
The number of important writers who have no such thing surprised me. Of course, there is no particular reason a writer should give thought - even less, time - to such an enterprise. It’s not as if they owe it to anybody. We should certainly count ourselves - with Elmore - lucky to have Gregg Sutter.
I went through that exercise looking for discussion forums for Carl Hiaasen and Tim Dorsey. They both have websites, Dorsey even has a separate website for his recurring hero/serial killer, but neither have discussion groups.
