We've had a few instances of ABE orders being canceled because the book was previously sold, but in all those cases, the seller also had a web presence or an open shop, or also sold by printed catalogue. None of which made us any less disappointed or annoyed, but we understood. We too looked up Strawberry Hill Books and couldn't find that they sell anywhere but on ABE. There certainly doesn't seem to be any way to make a "reservation" through ABE's automated system. Like Stu, we suspect that someone wrote to the seller, having found the book already sold, and made a private offer; or it could be that the seller, having seen the "unprecedented response", realized that he had seriously underpriced the book and canceled the sale in order to re-list or sell otherwise at a higher price. Although ABE's sellers policy doesn't expressly forbid this sort of behavior, it does require prompt responses to sales, frequent updates of the database to remove sold books, and maintaining a high standard of sales completions in order to be a seller in good standing.

Wayne & Christina

The wants notice from ABE showed up in our e-mail sometime around 8:30 pm Eastern Time last night, though it's time-stamped 6:03 pm. I jumped at it, but it had already sold. Apparently there are a lot of factors that affect when these notices reach an individual's in-box, and delay can be significant.

We already have A Spring Harvest, just not in the dust-jacket. I paid 7 pounds and postage for the copy many years ago, having found it in the catalogue of a bookseller specializing in World War I poetry (those were the days!). For the Bibliography I described a fragmentary jacket from the Bodleian copy.

Wayne

The final issue was no. 328, dated Christmas 2010 (following after 327 for December 2010). We subscribed, and were sorry to see it end.

Wayne & Christina

In July 2010 (see the previous post in this thread), we reported on a copy of The Hobbit about to be offered at auction by PBA Galleries, San Francisco, the American edition, 14th impression (according to the jacket), with the colour frontispiece signed by Tolkien. We noted that the signature was questionable, and Trotter observed both that the copy had been offered earlier by a questionable source on eBay, and that it had been withdrawn from the PBA sale. Well, it's back, once again at PBA Galleries, in their sale of March 15th, lot 201, now with a house estimate of $4,000-6,000. The auction listing is here.

Wayne & Christina

I had a visitor to the library the other day with a family Bible, wanting advice on binding repair. It was a nice Bible, late 18th-century, but laid inside (and not known to the owner) was an unrecorded leaflet, in mint condition, from (I think) the early 19th century, offering a special prayer to relieve the people of Kent, England from some terrible disease then afflicting them. You never know what you'll find.

Wayne