Pure Luck

The other day, I was browsing the Internet and randomly decided to search for Angeline Crichlow's Let's Tat. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, it is exceedingly rare. Only about 500 copies were made, and each was hand bound by Angeline Crichlow herself. This book is so rare that the last time I saw it for sale was nearly two years ago. That copy was a first edition (#33 of 100) and auctioned for $242.50 on eBay.

With the magic of Bookfinder.com (and A LOT of luck), I found a copy of Let's Tat available on Amazon for $10 plus $3.99 shipping. I have no idea how long it was up there, but I snatched it up right away!

This book was listed as a second edition, published in 1981. I was pleasantly surprised when the book arrived in the mail, and I saw this:

It is actually a first edition (#87 of 100) published in 1979. It is signed by Angeline Crichlow.

Several years ago, I received the second edition of Let's Tat as a birthday gift (and yes, it was rather expensive). The second edition was published in 1981 and has extra content as well as fixes for several typographical errors seen in the first book.

I've been having fun comparing these two books and discovering a whole lot of quirks! I think I will save those for the next post so I can take a little more time with the books. Here are the two editions side by side:

I love how each book is unique. Just from first glance you can see the difference in leather color, book size, and placement of gold lettering. If you look really closely, you may notice that the burgundy book has a red ribbon while the brown book has a burgundy ribbon. (The copy of Let's Tat that I checked out from Interlibrary loan was burgundy with a hot pink ribbon!)

The majority of Angeline's books seem to have a burgundy cover, though Amazon.com has a photo of a green version of the book, and Leigh owns a copy with a bright yellow cover. I wonder how many different colors are out there? Okay, I think I'm having a little too much fun with this! I'll be back later this week to post about all of the quirks I have found in my two copies.