Out of print

The entire print-run of the first edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species sold out on its very first day. If you are lucky enough to own an original, it's worth an awful lot of money.

But imagine how much more valuable your original copy of On the Origin of Species would be if the print-run had been not of 1,250 books, but of just two? Priceless is the word you're looking for. Utterly priceless!

Which got me thinking. There's money to be made here, if one can lay one's hands on the entire print-run of a future classic book on the day that it first comes out.

But how? How does one purchase an entire print-run?

And then it dawned on me! You disintermediate and publish the book yourself:

The Little Book of Stense

Happy birthday, Stense! Look after your present: it's one of only two copies in existence.

(We'll both be able to retire on this, mark my words.)

Richard Carter

A fat, bearded chap with a Charles Darwin fixation.

11 comments

  1. So do you have a 1st edition of otOoS to put this first-edition next to on the bookshelf?

  2. I just found a web site called The Darwin Awards....anything to do with you, sir?

  3. You had better hope Stense doesn't change her name between now and the second edition - the re-writes would be ex-Stense-ive!

    I'll get my coat.

  4. Her very frowns are fairer far
    Than smiles of other maidens are.
    ~Hartley Coleridge

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