A week ago, I went to a book auction in New London, Connecticut. It was
of the type they call a "pick auction". There were thousands of books,
divided up onto separate tables for each source (estate, dealer, etc.)
and the potential buyers put together lots of up to ten items per lot on
which everyone can bid. After the lots are formed (the first round had
215 lots), the buyers examine the lots to decide what they want to bid
on. Then the bidding commences as usual. After the first round, there
is a second round (which had about 150 lots). Then the remaining books
still on the tables are sold by auction where each table is a lot.

Well, I bought six lots of books. But I also bought two of the tables
at the end. It was a very good thing that I took my Jeep Grand Cherokee
to the auction, because I needed every inch of space in it to bring the
books home - and that includes the passenger seat and foot well. I am
guessing that I bought about 700 books.

I have now had a chance to get through them all at least once. One of
the tables, by the way, was mystery and related novels. Among the books
from that table were a number of signed books, including a first of
Peter Benchley's _The Island_ , one by Donald Westlake, and three by
science fiction writer Frederick Pohl.

I still have a lot of work to do and it is clear I simply cannot keep
all the books. Nor would I want to. There are, for instance, a
considerable number of late 19th C. romances. Most of them are by
unknowns, but there are two or three by Marie Corelli, a British writer
whose real name was Mary Mackay. Though she is virtually unknown today,
apparently at the time she wrote her sales were more than the combined
contemporaneous sales of books by Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells and Kipling.
Sic transit gloria mundis. In 2007, by the way, the British film
_Angel_ was a fictionalized biography of Marie Corelli.


Francis A. Miniter