As recently as last night, I had assumed that the third edition of S.W. Erdnase: Another View would appear before my reissuing of Rethinking S.W. Erdnase. As I write this, it is now 12:27 a.m. on Friday, which to me is basically Thursday. And it was Wednesday (I would guess less than 28 hours ago) that I posted this:
I am also hoping to issue a reprint of my Rethinking S.W. Erdnase in the very near future. For that one, there was another batch of “rejected” cover ideas, and I’ll probably post a few of those soon.
Anyway, Amazon approved everything with no hitches and no delays, and the book was available less than twelve hours after I uploaded it.
All right then, my task is now to convince you that you should purchase a copy. Here are the basic stats:
- Glossy hardcover, with full-color image on front.
- Trim size: 6 inches by 9 inches.
- The Amazon listing says 164 pages—that includes preliminaries and assorted blank pages.
- Price: $36 per copy, plus shipping and tax.
- Currently I am not selling copies myself—the book is available on Amazon.
- Amazon link: Rethinking S.W. Erdnase, by Thomas A. Sawyer
First, here is what the front cover looks like on this book:
I have to thank my daughter, Elizabeth, for the image, which she put together with a program called Midjourney. (In this case, I beliieve she did a significant amount of modifying in Photoshop.)
Here are some reasons for you to consider obtaining a copy, adapted from a list of reasons I wrote when I was pushing the first edition, back in 2015:
For those of you who may be on the fence, here are some reasons you might want to consider buying a copy of my book Rethinking S.W. Erdnase:
1. This book has what I think is the most in-depth discussion of different approaches that might be considered in attempting to figure out who S.W. Erdnase was. Many people probably tend to “shoot from the hip,” and to use intuition and common sense. Those are not necessarily the best tools out there.
2. The book has a fair amount of information relating to Frederic J. Drake & Co., including images relating to the 1912 Drake catalog (as found in the 1912 Publishers’ Trade List Annual).
3. The frontispiece is basically a portrait of Frederick J. Drake based on his image in the 1912 catalog referred to.
4. My book has information about tenants of 73 Plymouth Place in addition to James McKinney (the apparent printer of the first edition of The Expert at the Card Table).
5. One of the things this book does is to attempt to place the Whaley-Gardner-Busby book (The Man Who Was Erdnase) into context. In the course of this new book, the Whaley-Gardner-Busby book is the subject of criticism relating to Whaley’s general approach in writing the book and the weaknesses of the main conclusions of the book.
6. Rethinking S.W Erdnase looks at the cases of three of the main candidates (Edwin Sumner Andrews, Milton Franklin Andrews, and Wilbur Edgerton Sanders), to demonstrate some of their main strengths and weaknesses. I hope that discussion will be considered helpful in the evaluation of other candidates.
7. Did Marshall D. Smith really illustrate The Expert at the Card Table? Was he really the “M.D. Smith” of the title page? I’m sure he was—well, pretty sure—but are there any reasons for doubting that? I explore this issue in much greater depth than I have seen elsewhere.
8. Above all, this book is a fairly cool Erdnase-related item, dealing largely with the authorship issues. I know there is a lot of Erdnase stuff out there, but there is relatively little in the way of hardcover books dealing mainly with that topic.
Here are images of a few pages. (The gray borders do not appear on the actual pages.) You can see more pages on the “Look inside” feature on Amazon:
Oh, no! I just noticed that the table of contents indicates that there is a colophon on page 145. That’s not so, since that colophon only applied to the first printing. I mention this in an author’s note.
You may wonder, “Does the text differ from that of the first printing?” The short answer to this is: “No.” A longer answer is that I made changes to only five pages, and those changes were mainly those that seemed essential. Examples: change of date on title page; change in copyright notice; change in website; deletion of colophon (a very brief note which contained information about the quantity and printer of the first edition, and similar information). There are also two notes by me that seemed necessary (or at least desirable).
That’s all for the moment! It’s now 2:31 a.m.!
—Tom Sawyer
July 21, 2023
The Armchair Bibliographer 