Reddit mentions of To Have and to Hold

I think your question made sense the first time. Here are some (I haven't read them):

The Psychology of Collecting: Everybody Collects Something, YES You Do https://www.amazon.com/dp/0936760370/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_A6YwDbRJKWPYZ

To Have and to Hold https://www.amazon.com/dp/158567561X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_J8YwDbEPB2DXH

Collecting in a Consumer Society (Collecting Cultures) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415258480/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_l9YwDb9X62M0W

I can't find any good marketing or trend ones, though. That would be awesome.

> The value of a book is in the words within it... But to value an edition of a book merely because it is the first edition of that work published? Why?

You might as well be asking why people have hobbies in the first place. Collecting is an ancient human mania, and book collecting is one of its oldest incarnations.

If you are using a definition of "value" that leaves you asking questions like this, then it is your definition that is at fault. To take a quote from Phillip Blom in his book To Have and To Hold: for a collector, "money is no object, and objects are everything".

I've been collecting J. G. Ballard novels for about a couple of years (have a look through these to see what I'm talking about). I have some first editions, but some of my favourite copies aren't remotely expensive. This 1974 box set of Ballard's early disaster novellas is just about the coolest thing that I own. They they are really just cheap Penguin paper-back editions of some of Ballard's less brilliant works, but I could go on for quite a while about why I love these editions so much. Have a read of this 4000 word essay on them, which does them better justice than I could do.

There is also a misconception regarding first editions in your question. First editions aren't always more valuable, and, at least, they are not valuable for merely being the first edition. They have a tendency to be collector's items because they are typically quite limited in number, and are often significant as historical objects because they represent a state of affairs prior to the book's, and the author's, later notoriety. However, a later edition with good binding and few copies, and perhaps illustrated by a famous name, will often attract a much higher price.

This is the difference between bibliophilia and mere love of reading or love of knowledge. It is the love of a tactile object; a package of its shape, art-work, typography and the world represented by its text. This is the reason why, for example, one reprint of Concrete Island has become particularly essential to collectors, despite it not being particularly expensive or rare.

I completely acknowledge that collecting is obsessive and irrational, but that doesn't stop me from having enormous respect for people like this guy.