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What’s the rarest/weirdest book you own?
(lemmy.world)
I have volume 1 of Kim Il Sung’s works in English - printed in North Korea in the 70’s. I don’t know if the Foreign Languages Publishing House survived long enough for a Volume 2. They did put out some of Jong’s thoughts on film, if I recall correctly.
This is probably the prize of my collection. I have a first American printing of Lolita, which unfortunately has a bit of cat vomit stain on it or might be in that spot.
My partner and I stumbled across first edition Ticknor & Fields printings (1867) of Henry Longfellow's translations of Inferno and Purgatorio at a used bookstore a couple years back. Got them for a song since they were missing the Paradiso to complete the set.
The owner said that they had been sitting in his storage for 15 years as part of an estate donation he got and he finally had the chance to go through it. When he found them he tore apart the rest of the boxes looking for the Paradiso but it just wasn't there.
Now its our white whale. Every used bookstore we go in we scour the classics/oldest/rare book section looking to complete the set.