One of Britain's largest stocks of second-hand books ever amassed

Summary

The classic case is JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Given that it was the first in the sequence, Bloomsbury, with no inkling of the monster the brand would become, published the smallest viable number of copies – 500 – in its first edition. It is thus truly rare, says Richard, much more so than a Jane Austen equivalent. As a consequence: ‘A fine copy is worth, certainly, £50,000.’ Similarly, photograph albums and manuscripts, by definition one-off items, have seen skyrocketing interest in cyberspace – and among a new, younger breed of collector to boot. Indeed, the most expensive item my interlocutor has ever sold was not a book at all, but a scrapbook owned by Cecil Beaton, which included the photographer’s own drawing of Mick Jagger, a personal friend, and sketches by Jean Cocteau.A map of York reflects the rolling dales in a room devoted to leather-bound antiquarian books Richard Axe has deployed every little sliver of real estate to house his 150,000-plus books. A staircase makes the ideal spot for shelving titles about mountaineering and hiking When Richard moved to his property in 2005, consolidating a warehouse, shop and large house in Harrogate, little structural work was required to the sturdily built edifice apart from new guttering, though he had to strip out rows of urinals and a few municipal-style kitchens. Inevitably, however, two men were employed full time for a year just building wooden shelves, which now stretch to a combined length of over a mile. The original plan was to carve out some domestic space in this behemoth of a building, but Richard states that mixing residence and business had potential VAT implications. And then there was the small issue of his ever-encroaching library… So he moved into the two-bedroom modern cottage previously inhabited by the youth-hostel manager. Presumably you had a no-book policy here, I ask Richard. ‘Well, if I did, it didn’t last,’ he replies ruefully. ‘Let’s just say it was restricted....