Vintage & Collectible

I've always found the below introduction amusing and am loathe to get rid of it, but it doesn't really tell you our goal of this category. You'll notice many of these books are not in-stock. It's unlikely we'll ever have very many at a time, but we're building it with the intention of helping you find the information you need to collect these series and volumes. We plan to continue adding more titles primarily from the 1960s and before, pictures, copyright dates, illustrators, ISBNs (if they exist), and more, to help you track down these awesome books from the past. If you like this section and want more, we'd like to commend the Facebook group Reshelving Alexandria, where you'll find a community of people passionate about books like these!

To see ONLY books that are actually available, use the filter below to look for in-stock books!

For some, book collecting is like African big game hunting—taking down the animal is pretty satisfying, but the real excitement is in tracking the beast, following it for hours or even days, picking up sign as it melts into the horizon until finally you get it in your sights. Eli is that kind of book collector. It's the thrill of the chase that drives him; once he completes a set or finds a particular volume it's a bit of a letdown.

That's not to say Eli doesn't love books (he owns a bookstore, after all). It's just that collecting them is something different altogether from owning or reading them, something almost primitive and instinctual, drawing on skills that lie dormant in most of us. The book collector's skills are the same that help a man on safari smell his prey in an old footprint or see a clump of fur caught in the bark of a palm tree or simply see the animal in the distance.

These aren't just any kind of books we're talking about collecting. Anyone can procure each volume of their favorite new fiction, or each year's New York Times bestsellers. They're everywhere, and they don't take much effort to find. The kind of books collectors go for (especially collectors like Eli) are hard or next to impossible to find, typically old, and just plain cool.

Exactly the kind of books we've put in this category, in fact. "Vintage & Collectible" isn't just some goofy title we came up with to generate interest; although most of these books are not technically "rare," and only occasionally expensive, they aren't at every street corner bookshop and they're typically titles appealing to a very specific readership (or ownership, if we're going to be entirely accurate). There's plenty here that the more average library compilers among us will find interesting.

As you scan the titles below, imagine you're in some mahogany-lined old bookstore in an old city and that a whispy-haired old man can tell you the history of each volume in his collection. Or just look for the book you're after, it might be there. Whatever you do, give these books a good home and help us perpetuate one of the most exciting and underappreciated sports in the world.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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Parent Categories
Vintage & Collectible
Subcategories
137 Items found Print
Active Filters: Biographies, 12th grade (Ages 17-18)
Abe Lincoln
by Hilah Paulmier (compiled and edited by), illustrated by Lee Ames
First Edition from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 3rd-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$11.00 (1 in stock)
Admiral of the Ocean Sea
by Samuel E. Morison
from Atlantic Monthly Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Davy Crockett
by David Crockett, illustrated by John W. Thomason
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$18.00 (1 in stock)
Aku-Aku
by Thor Heyerdahl
from Rand McNally
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
All Hands Aloft!
by Lou A. Schmitt
from Howell-North
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Amazing Mr. Doolittle
by Quentin Reynolds
from Appleton-Century-Crofts
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Amelia Earhart
Lives to Remember
by Burke Davis
from G.P. Putnam's Sons
for 7th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin, illustrated by William Sharp, with an introduction by Carl Van Doren
from Easton Press
for 10th-Adult
in Leather Bound Collectible Books (Location: VIN-LEA)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
by Benjamin Franklin
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
World's Greatest Literature
by Benjamin Franklin
from Spencer Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Benjamin Franklin
by Carl Van Doren
from Library of America
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Bombs and Blessings
by Retha Hazel Eldridge
from Review and Herald Publishing Association
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Boswell's London Journal 1762-1763
by Frederick A. Pottle
1st edition from McGraw-Hill
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Buffalo Bill's Life Story
by William F. Cody, Illustrated by N.C. Wyeth
1966 printing from Holt, Rinehart and Winston
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Cheer the Lonesome Traveller
by Leslie Alexander Lacy, illustrated by James Barkley
from Dial Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Chord of Steel
by Thomas B. Costain
from Doubleday & Company
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Comes the Comrade!
by Alexandra Orme, translated from the Polish by M.A. Michael and L. Meyer
from William Morrow & Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Cross Creek
by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Earth is the Lord's
by Taylor Caldwell
from Literary Guild of America
for 11th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Edith Wharton
by Olivia Coolidge
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Biography for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Elizabeth the Great
by Elizabeth Jenkins
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Escape from Corregidor
by Edward D. Whitcomb
from Regnery Publishing, Inc.
for 6th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Ferdinand and Isabella
by William Hickling Prescott
from Heritage Press
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Fighting the Flying Circus
by Captain Eddie V. Rickenbacker
1965 Edition from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Frederic Chopin
by Victor Seroff
from Macmillan
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
From Scotland to Silverado
by Robert Louis Stevenson
from Harvard University Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Geoffrey Chaucer of England
by Marchette Chute
from Dutton Adult
for 12th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
George Bernard Shaw
by Olivia Coolidge
from Houghton Mifflin
Biography for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
George Washington
by M. D. Holmes
from John C. Winston
for 6th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
George Washington Carver: An American Biography
by Rackham Holt
from Doubleday, Doran & Company Inc.
for 9th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
George Washington: Man and Monument
by Frank Freidel and Lonnelle Aikman
from Washington National Monument Assoc.
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
George Whitefield: Wayfaring Witness
by Stuart C. Henry
from Abingdon Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Golden Calm
by Lady Emily Bayley, edited by M. M. Kaye
First Edition from Viking Press
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Great Captain
by Honore Morrow
from William Morrow & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Great Lion of God
by Taylor Caldwell
Book Club from Doubleday & Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Great Men of Science
by Grove Wilson
1942 Printing from New Home Library
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Science & Math (Location: VIN-SCI)
Hall of Fame Series for Boys and Girls Louis Pasteur / Florence Nightingale
by Laura N. Wood and Jeanette Covert Nolan
from Julian Messner
for 9th-Adult
in Biography Anthologies (Location: BIO-ANTH)
Here Is Your War
by Ernie Pyle; illustrated by Carol Johnson
1943 Printing from World Publishing Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Indian Boyhood
by Charles A. Eastman, illustrated by E.L. Blumenschein
from E.M. Hale and Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Ishi: Last of His Tribe
by Theodora Kroeber
from California State Department of Education
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
John Charles Ryle
by Peter Toon, Michael Smout
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Johnny Appleseed
by Robert Price
from Indiana University Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Kate Greenaway Book
by Bryan Holme, with illustrations by Kate Greenaway
from Gallery Press
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Kon-Tiki
by Thor Heyerdahl, Translated by F. H. Lyon
from Rand McNally
Non-fiction/Adventure for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Lady of Arlington
by Harnett T. Kane
from Doubleday & Company
for 6th-12th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Lewis and Clark Expedition - 3-volume Set
by Meriwether Lewis
from J.B. Lippincott Co.
Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$32.00 (1 in stock)
Life & Times of Chopin
by Adelaide Murgia
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Life & Times of Dante
by Maria Luisa Rizzatti
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Life & Times of Elizabeth I
by Massimo Rossaro
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Life & Times of Leonardo
by Liana Bortolon
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Life & Times of Louis XIV
by Alfredo Panicucci
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Life & Times of Michelangelo
by Maria Luisa Rizzatti
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Life & Times of Napoleon
by Mario Rivoire
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (2 in stock)
Life & Times of Peter the Great
by Giancarlo Buzzi
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Life & Times of St. Francis
by Agostino Ghilardi
from Curtis Publishing Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (2 in stock)
Life & Times of Washington
by Mario Rivoire
from Curtis Publishing Co.
Biography for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Life & Times of Washington
by Mario Rivoire, translated by C.J. Richards
from Arnoldo Mondadori Editore
Biography for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Life and Diary of David Brainerd
by David Brainerd
from Moody Press
Biography for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$24.00 (1 in stock)
Life with Father and Mother
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Lone Cowboy
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Louis Pasteur
by Laura N. Wood
7th 1959 printing from Julian Messner
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Makers of the Red Revolution
by Olivia Coolidge
from Houghton Mifflin
Non-fiction for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Man Called Cervantes
by Bruno Frank
from Viking Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Man Who Saved Robinson Crusoe
by James Poling
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Marconi: Father of Radio
World in the Making
by David Gunston
from Crowell-Collier
for 6th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Marcus Aurelius and His Times
by Marcus Aurelius
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
Classic Literature for 9th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
Mathew Brady
by James D. Horan
from Bonanza Books
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Minute Sketches of Great Composers
by Eva v B. Hansl, Helen L. Kaufmann, illustrated by Samuel Nisenson
from Grosset & Dunlap
Biographical sketches for 3rd-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Moon and Sixpence
Modern Library
by W. Somerset Maugham
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$25.00 (1 in stock)
More Minute Biographies
by Samuel Nisenson and Alfred Parker
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 3rd-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Mr. Lincoln's Washington
by Stanley Kimmel
from Bramhall House
for 9th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Natural Way to Draw
by Kimon Nicolaides
from Houghton Mifflin
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
Never Dies the Dream
by Margaret Landon
from Doubleday & Company
for 7th-12th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Nickel's Worth of Skim Milk
by Robert J. Hastings, illustrated by Steve Kerr
from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
for 6th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Nun's Story
by Kathryn Hulme
from Little, Brown & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Onions in the Stew
by Betty MacDonald
from J.B. Lippincott Co.
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
People, Places, Things, Ideas - 4 Volume Set
from Hawthorn Books, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
$32.00 (1 in stock)
Personal Life of David Livingstone
Heroes of the Faith
by W Garden Blaikie
from Fleming H Revell Co.
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Ranch under the Rimrock
by Dorothy Lawson McCall
from Binford & Mort Publishing
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Raphael: Painter of the Renaissance
Immortals of Art
by Henry S. Gillette
from Franklin Watts
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Rudyard Kipling
by Lord Birkenhead
from Random House
for 11th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Sam Houston
by Noel Gerson
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Sea Around Us
by Rachel Carlson
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
1952 National Book Award (Non-fiction)
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Second World War: Hinge of Fate
Second World War Volume 4
by Winston S. Churchill
from Houghton Mifflin
for 10th grade-adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Self-Portrait: Trina Schart Hyman
from Harper & Row
for 4th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Shakespeare of London
by Marchette Chute
1st edition from E.P. Dutton & Co.
for 6th-12th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Shorter Life of D. L. Moody
Moody Colportage Library #83
by A. P. Fitt
from Moody Press
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Skipper of the Sentinel
by May Cole Kuhn
from Review and Herald Publishing Association
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Smiling Rebel
by Harnett T. Kane
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
South Sea Shilling
by Eric Swenson
First Edition from Viking Press
for 7th-Adult
in Nautical History (Location: VIN-NAUT)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Spirit of 1776
by Peter Seymour
from Hallmark Publications
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Splendor of God
by Honore Morrow
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 8th-12th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
Stories of Famous Detectives
by Leonard Gribble, illustrated by Edward Pagram
from Hill and Wang
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Story of the Wild West and Camp-Fire Chats
by William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody
Unknown from Historical Publishing Company
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Story-Lives of Great Composers
by Katherine Little Bakeless
3rd edition from J.B. Lippincott Co.
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
Strawberry Point
by Florence Roe Wiggins
from T.S. Denison & Company
for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
These Wonderful People
by Noel Ames
from People's Book Club
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Three Against the Wilderness
by Eric Collier
6th Printing, 1960 from E.P. Dutton & Co.
for 8th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$25.00 (1 in stock)
Three Lives of Joseph Conrad
by Olivia Coolidge
from Houghton Mifflin
Biography for 7th-12th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
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