A copy of Sylvia Plath's A Winter Ship

Last week, another copy of Sylvia Plath's A Winter Ship (Tragara Press, 1960) sold via eBay for $2507.75. This originated from the stock of 22 sold last June in the Bonhams auction that saw Frieda Hughes sell off the remaining commercial and limited editions of her mother's work.

This week, that very copy of A Winter Ship appeared on eBay (and ABE Books) for more than double at $5,500. (The price on ABE is more, at $5,995.) This is business, but this just feels dirty. This was bound to happen; in fact it has been happening with many titles from that Bonhams sale since it took place.

You can tell it is the same as each of the copies of this poem have different covers. In this instance you can see the same blob of white to the right of the pasted on title.

The new seller appears to have even saved the original listings images and is just re-using them. This is beautifully lazy. I also love---note, please, that is sarcasm---that one can spend more than $5,000 on a book and the sellers are offering to ship it economy for $4.

If you are interested in this edition, please consider reading my article on it in the Spring 2022 issue of The Book Collector. And see this blog post for added information.

All links accessed 19 April 2022.

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