| The Ship That Sailed To Mars, by William Timlin | |
| My short career as a rare
book collector, by Steven Honaker anaiselise@labyrinth.net |
Click on any outlined picture
for a closer view. An on-line version of "The Ship That Sailed to Mars" is here. This page contains all the
information I have on William Timlin. If you would like to ask a
question, or if you have any information, please e-mail me at (anaiselise@labyrinth.net)
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| In June, 2000, I found out
that an estate auction was being held near my house. A local porcelain
manufacturer, George Bowers, had collected thousands of books until his
death in the 1950's. His collection, untouched since then, was to
be auctioned off. Did his heirs decide to sell it in some exclusive auction house in New York, or London? No, they picked Bunners Ridge, West Virginia, exactly one mile from my house. I decided to use this opportunity to start my career as an international book collector. I've read plenty of books, right? I've had a library card since I was five! And I already have that rare first edition of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". I didn't think too many book collectors would come to West Virginia for the sale, so I could probably get some great stuff. |
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The night before the sale there
were a few hours where anyone could examine all the books. The
scene was pretty overwhelming. Mr Bowers really did have
thousands of books, about every subject conceivable (at least,
conceivable in the first half of the 1900's). Apparently, many book
collectors were willing to make the trip to rural West
Virginia. The vehicles outside had licence plates from all over the US.
Mr. Bowers had a first edition of "The Book of Mormon", and a page from a Gutenberg Bible. There were books about travel, business, coin collecting, reference books, old bibles. It was fascinating to see all these books, and get an idea of the things that Mr. Bowers was interested in. |
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One book really stood out to me.
Not too many people were looking at it. But, when I opened the cover, I
could tell it was really special. It was "The Ship That Sailed To Mars", by William M. Timlin. I have always been interested in science fiction and fantasy books, since several early doses of the Oz books. But, I had never heard of this book before. |
| The book was produced in an
interesting way. Each page was a heavy grey paper, and the text and
illustrations were individually pasted onto the grey pages. I found out
later that this was the only way they could reproduce color
illustrations when the book was published.
All the text was done in intricate calligraphy. The illustrations were beautiful watercolors. I spent several minutes looking through them. The story seemed to be about an inventor creating a ship that could sail through space. It described the trip to Mars, with illustrations of the journey. I noticed a man watching over my shoulder. Since he seemed interested, I asked if he knew anything about the book, and if it was anything special. |
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The man said, "Oh,yes!" We talked for a while, and he told me that the book was the only children's book William Timlin produced, and it was very rare. I finally asked him what he thought it might be worth. He hesitated to tell me, so I asked how much he thought it might sell for at the auction. He finally admitted he might bid up to $1000 for it. My hopes for that "intenational book dealer" career started fading quickly. I had hoped a few hundred would be enough, but that didn't seem possible. |
| Since it didn't seem like I
would be taking the book home, I got my camera and took a few pictures
of the book. They were taken under terrible fluorescent light, and
don't really show the original color well.
As I was getting into my truck at
the end of the inspection period, a book dealer from New York called
out to me with a Jamaican accent, "You had better get that book!" He
had seen me looking at it earlier. |
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Well, I planned on coming to the
sale. And, I DO have a checkbook, so I thought, "We'll see who gets
that book!"
I spent the night on the
internet, trying to see if it was REALLY worth $1,000. I did find it
for sale several places, and $1,000 was the lowest price I could find.
But, I really wasn't sure if the book I had seen was in very good
condition. The illustrations and text looked OK, but the pages were
quite brittle, and it seemed like it had been kept in a hot attic. I
hoped that the man I met had told me such a high price just to put me
off. |
| One internet site gave some
guidelines for collecting books. First, just because a book is OLD doesn't mean it is valuable. If a book was originally printed in 1850, a reprint from 1900 really isn't that exciting. So, valuable books are mainly "first editions". Second, most books ARE "first editions", just because they are SO BAD that no one wanted more copies! I was looking for first editions of GOOD BOOKS, right? |
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I don't think anyone at the book
auction saw that internet site. They were buying books that you
couldn't GIVE to the library for $1000 a box! I didn't see anything
sell for less than $100. People were buying these old books by the
truckload. Old books like "Mineral and Gas Resources in Northern West
Virginia - 1941" were selling for $100's!
Most of the books were obviously valuable, though. It would have been fascinating to have time to look through all of them. |
| The Timlin book was one of the last to be auctioned. I hoped that no one else had noticed it, that everyone had spent all their money earlier on those "Mineral and Gas Resource" books, that the man I met the night before had gotten ill and couldn't make it to the sale..... |  |
| Actually he did make it
to the sale, and he did bid $1000 for the book. Unfortunately,
another person bid $2,100 for it. So, it went off to a new home to
gather dust for another fifty years, and my book collecting career came
to a pitiful end.
Since then I have seen a listing on the internet for a copy for sale at a book dealer nearby that I THINK is the one I saw. Most copies listed on the internet are from $2000 - $4000. I think the one at the sale was especially valuable because it still had the dust jacket. Some of William Timlin's original watercolors are available for $50,000 to $70,000. So, $2,100 was probably a fair price. I wouldn't have gotten it for that, though. One of my daughters peeked over the shoulder of the succesfull bidder, and saw that he had "$3000" written beside the Timlin entry in the catalogue. So, I imagine he would have gone that high. |
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| I wasn't really interested in
the book as an investment, though. I just thought it was a exciting and
beautiful book, with an interesting history.
I am still looking for a copy,
maybe an old, beat-up one that would be a bit cheaper! (If you know of
one, my e-mail is anaiselise@labyrinth.net!) |
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| Here is a short part from Weinberg's
"Biographical Dictionary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists",
that someone was kind enough to e-mail to me.
"Timlin, William Mitcheson (apr
11, 1892-1943). British artist. The creator of Timlin was born in Ashington, Northumberland, England, the son of colliery foreman Peter Timlin and Margaret (nee Mitcheson). The family migrated to South Africa in the early 1900s. After the First World War, Timlin became a successful practicing architect and also became known for his distinctive style of fantasy painting, which equaled the best work of Arthur Rackham and W. Heath Robinson. His masterpiece, The Ship That Sailed to Mars, was published in a large royal quarto by George Harrap in November 1923 (the book itself was undated). It was finely bound in quarter vellum richly decorated with gilt. It contained forty-eight superb color plates by Timlin, alternated throughout with forty--eight leaves adorned with his fine calligraphic text. These pieces of art were all mounted by hand on grey matte paper. Two thousand copies of the book were produced in Britain, of which two hundred fifty were distributed in America by Stokes of New York (in 1924). The latter copies were sold at twelve dollars each but are now valued in the many hundreds of dollars. The story can be interpreted as a fairy tale with slight mixtures of Tolkien and Burroughs, set on Mars. Among the best of the memorable paintings are The Raising of the Tower, The Celebration, and The Temple. The film rights to the book were sold in America, but the movie, which was to be called Get off The Earth, was never completed. Timlin's later series of pictures, intended as plates for a book to be entitled The Building of a Fairy City, were never published as a collection, but some of these excellent designs, including Fantasy and Triumphal Arch, are available as postcards in South Africa. The artist's pen and ink drawings
for travel boooks, including South Africa: Out of the Crucible and many
others in the same vein, are uninspired compared to his wonderfully
Timlin died at Kimberley in 1943." |
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It is something to think about
how a book by a South African artist, printed in England, found its way
to rural West Virginia.
If you are interested in available copies of this book, go to BIBLIOFIND and search for William Timlin. Since the sale, I have been able
to get a reprint copy of "The Ship That Sailed To Mars". It was
published by Stonewall Publications in 1993. They photographed a copy
of the original book to make the reprint. Some of the illustrations
don't seem to be quite a clear as the original book, but it is still a
good reproduction. It is out of print now, though. |
| South Africa | William Timlin illustrated a few
other books, "South Africa, A Series of Pencil Sketches" (pub 1927),
and "Out of the Crucible: Being the Romantic Story of the Witwatersrand
Goldfields: and of the Great City which arose in their midst" (Pub
1929, written by Heldey A. Chilvers)
The picture to the left is from
"South Africa, A Series of Pencil Sketches" |
