And your favorite book in your collection?
The jewel in my collection has to be the first edition of Petros Pikros’ bizzare cultural mashup Mickey Mouse and Karagiozis (1938). Written for children, the novel follows Mickey and Minnie Mouse as they disembark in the port of Piraeus and join forces with characters from traditional Greek shadow theatre. The extremely scarce first edition features full-page and in-text illustrations by an uncredited artist. My copy is clean and unmarked and retains the original pictorial wrappers.
How do you organize your collection?
As my collection doesn’t number thousands of titles, I currently house all my Greek books in a large bookcase with glass doors, organised by author or in loose thematic order. Before, I had items scattered amongst my English books and had a hard time finding titles when I needed them, especially if the spines were very thin! Most of my periodicals are stored in two archival boxes in manilla folders.
Best bargain you’ve found?
Most of what I collect is so obscure (and the market for such books so small) that I don’t pay very much when they come up for sale. What I consider a “bargain” is the first (and only) edition of outsider author Itala Avgoustinou Fravasili’s book The Monstrous Crime of Antioch Street (1931). The book details her “false” confinement in an Athens psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with persecutory delusions. My copy features copious handwritten notes in ink by the author on the cover, in the margins and even on a piece of blank paper pinned to the internal pages. I paid 20 euros for this book.
How about The One that Got Away?
I’m really kicking myself that I missed out on bidding for a book that recently came up for auction. By the time I found out that it had been listed the auction had already ended. I didn’t actively look for this book because I thought that if the first edition came up for sale I would have to pay something obscene. Turns out it didn’t sell for very much. The book is entitled Poetic Tracts on the Solar Majesty of France and was published in Athens in 1842 by the eccentric Georgios Exarchopoulos.
What would be the Holy Grail for your collection?
Definitely the book of obscene poetry The Prick (1878) published in “Hardonopolis” and written by “Penis Priapus”. It was republished in 1984 when the easing of censorship laws meant that it could be printed in Greece without the publisher going to jail! What seems to be the only surviving copy of the first edition is held in a library in Athens.
Where do you most often find books for your collection?
Mainly through rare bookshops in Athens, as well as the secondhand book selling website metabook. I’ve bought very few items at auction, simply because what I collect aren’t from “big names” that are in demand or command high prices. As I’m often in Athens for limited periods, I don’t have the time or energy to hunt for books in flea markets. Interesting things do turn up in those places, and often dirt cheap, but I don’t want to fall into the trap of accumulating books that don’t serve a clear value or purpose in my collection. As I said, I try to be selective.
What would you collect if you didn’t collect books?
I already collect other things! Well, mainly 78s and vinyl records. I don’t tell many people this but I do have a small collection of Gameboy and Wii console video games, some of which my parents bought me as a child. Other than that, I have movie posters, paintings and prints that I bought purely to display on my walls. I wouldn’t call them serious collections.
