One Way a Book Can Mean More

Joyce and I are long-time subscribers to the Library of America, buying each month's volume as it comes out--and buying most of their special volumes, as well. We did not join right away, so some of our volumes are not first printings, and when I discover one that is not, I hop online and find a replacement. Usually not too expensive.

This past week, for example, I decided to re-read Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady (1881) because I so much enjoyed John Banville's recent sequel--Mrs. Osmond (2017). But when I removed the relevant James volume* from its slipcover and looked inside, I discovered it was a later printing--not the original from 1985. Sigh.

I got online and looked for a nice copy--and found one for about $30 that offered a special surprise. It bore a book stamp on an inside page:

That's right--Gore Vidal (1925-2012), one of the writers I have most enjoyed reading throughout my life.

I've read almost all of Vidal's books--novels, essays, memoirs, plays. I say "almost" because he wrote so many things that I'm not positive I've read everything. But it's not for lack of trying.

One of the things that amuses me about him is that we shared a fascination with (obsession over?) Billy the Kid. Vidal wrote a TV script, "The Death of Billy the Kid," which aired on The Philco Television Playhouse on NBC, July 24, 1955. The Kid was Paul Newman, who would reprise his role as the Kid in a film I've long loved, The Left Handed Gun (1958), a film directed by Arthur Penn, who would go on to fame when he did Bonnie and Clyde (1967). The film was based (loosely) on Vidal's play, and he does get a modest screen credit in the film. I showed it in my middle-school classes a few times. (Link to film trailer.)

Later, in 1989, Vidal would return to the Kid, writing a TV movie, Billy the Kid, which starred Val Kilmer and appeared on TNT. It isn't all that good, but--hey!--it's about the Kid! That's good enough for me! (Full film is now on YouTube.)

I own a few other books with some secondary as well as primary interest. One of the most interesting is David S. Reynolds' biography Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. In the copy I have now, Reynolds has inscribed the book to poet Mary Oliver (from the Cleveland area), and the book features Oliver's marginalia and marks.

Well, Reynolds came to the Hudson Library on October 13, 2011, to talk about his new book about Harriet Beecher Stowe. Afterward, he graciously signed some books for us--and when I told him about the copy I had of Whitman, he was (says my journal) "delighted." So ... I now have his signature on his book about Whitman, a book he'd given to Mary Oliver, who'd read and marked in it, then, apparently sold it!

Books like these--Vidal's copy of James, Mary Oliver's copy of Reynolds--have a special significance. They almost glow on the shelf, inviting me, each time I pass by, to return to them. And so--today--I have.


*The Lib of America has published more than a dozen different collections of James’ work.