Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scarce

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sixret
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Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scarce

Post by sixret »

£495 although I paid waaayyyy less than that for my first edition copy in January 2017. Not from Ebay but bought from an independent merchant seller from South Africa who has his own online shop.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ENID-BLYTON-A ... SwTM5Y3-Rn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Tony Summerfield
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by Tony Summerfield »

The book is certainly not all that common, but it is the wrapper that's very scarce! My copy of that book is in slightly better condition as the boards are clean and it cost me £4.
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by Courtenay »

And this one ain't got no wrapper. I would love to have it (don't care about the wrapper in this case), but I don't have that kind of money to throw around — and if I bought a book that was that expensive, I'd be almost too scared to breathe on it, let alone touch it! :lol:

Could anyone possibly lend me a time machine so I can go back to the days when you could indeed pick up a first edition like this for £4?? :D
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sixret
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by sixret »

I have never seen one with dj. First edition with dj.
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Tony Summerfield
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by Tony Summerfield »

I have never seen a copy in a wrapper for sale, the wrapper on my own copy is a photocopy.
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by Courtenay »

The listing has ended and it looks like it didn't sell. I was a bit surprised they were asking £8.55 postage on top of the price — I suppose it must be tracked and insured etc. for a valuable item. Maybe the seller figured that anyone who could afford nearly 500 quid for one book wouldn't have a problem with forking out so much for the postage as well...

Anyway, I doubt I'll ever see this one at a price I can afford, but there's no harm in dreaming! :wink:
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by Courtenay »

This one's listed again and has come down 50 quid to £449.95. I notice too (as with the earlier listing) the seller is offering it "From £22.00 per month for 24 months" — which by my calculation would make it £528.00. Hmmm, very clever. :roll:

I could stretch to paying £450.00 as a lump sum (plus £8.55 tracked postage) if I really wanted to — and I would LOVE to have a first edition of this book (dust jacket not important), as it's the only one that was ever published with all the original chapters — but I'm not made of money and I do have more important things to do with it! :( Also the cover of this one is pretty awful, even though it seems the pages are all pretty much intact and in reasonable condition. Like I said, I wish I could go back in time just a few decades to when old Blyton books like this weren't considered "the Holy Grail for collectors" and you could pick them up for a song, so to speak!!
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by IceMaiden »

Is it really not possible to get a copy of those missing chapters for less than that? £450 is a lot for a book that you only really want a few chapters of, the rest of it would be like a very expensive duplicate :( .
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by sixret »

Buy the omnibus edition. You can get ALL the stories for great value £0.99. The book is everywhere.

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book ... Collection" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by Courtenay »

Yeah, with edits like the stupidly lopped-off ending of Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (in all editions since the early 1960s), plus the removal of Mr Blackie the courageous golliwog soldier in The Wishing-Chair Again. :roll: Sorry, but I don't do modern editions of Blyton. And no, don't worry, I'm not actually intending to fork out £450 for a first edition of this or any other book — as I said, I could afford it if I really wanted to (at a stretch), but I'm not THAT desperate!! :P
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by IceMaiden »

sixret wrote:Buy the omnibus edition. You can get ALL the stories for great value £0.99. The book is everywhere.

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book ... Collection" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I was just about to buy a copy of that then I saw it was a modern edition . I'm afraid that's no use as it will have been tampered with and altered :( . Thank you for putting the link in though Sixret, I'd have had it in an instant were it not a modern copy :) .
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I want an old fashioned house, with an old fashioned fence
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sixret
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by sixret »

Yes, Ice Maiden. It's a modern copy and the complete Wishing Chair stories in the collection have been tampered in some ways or another. But from my understanding from previous discussions in this forum, the alterations was not so severe, merely the currency i.e. shillings to pence/pounds? I am not too sure as I haven't read the modern copy yet. But this is the only other way to have complete Wishing Chair stories without breaking the bank account. Alternatively, you could buy:

1) Adventures of the Wishing-Chair - 1952 with Dj (posted by Rob) for £11.99. This edition has all stories bar 5 stories as being confirmed by Rob. Below is the link:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... =10&t=7633" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2) The Wishing Chair Again. All editions, vintage or modern have all the complete stories like first edition. The vintage edition is easy to find online even with dust jacket. So easy to find.

3) To find those five missing stories from the Adventures of The Wishing Chair(refer to link given in no.1), you can buy More Wishing Chair stories published in 2000. This book contains all 5 missing stories. I bought the Dean 2005 edition because it was a hardcover. The one published in 2000 is paperback.

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book ... ir+Stories" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This way too, you can have all and complete Wishing Chairs stories without breaking your bank account if you insist to have/read all of them in your collection.

Hope this help.
I stand with justice and the truth. Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.

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sixret
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by sixret »

After reading Ice Maiden's comment, I searched the online market(not ebay) and found a first edition 1937 copy with the price of £175.00 and free postage to UK. The seller is a respectable online seller and I believe Tony knows him and had borrowed the first 4 copies of Sunny Stories from this seller. Below is the description of the book so that you can make the decision to buy it or not.

London: Newnes, 1937 undated, but first published in 1937, a well-loved copy, covers marked/scribbled, spine edges and corners worn, front endpaper 2/3rds torn away, inner hinges exposed, several pages detached but all present, a Fair-Poor copy in need of TLC, or a nice leather re-bind, an extremely scarce first edition, sold with all faults. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fair-Poor. Illus. by Hilda McGavin.

Bookseller Inventory #: 003127
Title: Adventures of the Wishing-Chair
Author: Blyton, Enid
Illustrator:Hilda McGavin
Format/binding:Hardcover
Book condition: Used - Fair-Poor
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Newnes
Place: London
Date published: 1937
Bookseller catalogs: Children;

You can always ask for photos to see the book's condition. Sometimes, "fair-poor" does not describe the book in justice. I don't see the physical book myself so I can't say and judge.
I stand with justice and the truth. Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.

Learn the history. Do research.

The hypocrisy, double standard, prejudice and bigotry own by some people is so obvious.Shame on them!
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by Courtenay »

As I've already mentioned, there was at least one golliwog character whitewashed out of The Wishing-Chair Again (turned into a teddy bear), plus the fact that since the 1960s the final chapters of Adventures of the Wishing-Chair have been missing and apparently no-one noticed. I'm guessing that the omnibus edition doesn't reinstate them where they should be, but includes them as part of More Wishing-Chair Stories. But to be fair, I haven't seen it. I'd still rather have original editions where at all possible.

Besides, from an earlier discussion I learned there was an incongruity left in Adventures of the Wishing-Chair — in all editions after the first, there's a reference somewhere to Mollie and Peter wanting to see "the Prince and Princess they rescued" or something like that, where the rescue was in the other batch of chapters removed after the first edition! I'm not a serious collector, but I'm a completist and would love to have an edition with all the chapters where they should be so that part makes sense. :)

£175 plus free postage is more reasonable for a first edition than £450 - £500, but I'm afraid it sounds in dreadful condition from the description! :( Even without seeing the actual book, I wouldn't go paying £175 for something with scribbles on the cover, inner hinges exposed (read: covers almost falling off) and several pages falling out. But thanks for your sleuthing, Sixret. I'd love to find one for a price I can justify one day, but I'm not holding my breath waiting... :wink:
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sixret
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Re: Adventures of The Wishing Chair first edition. Very scar

Post by sixret »

I agree, Courtenay. Judging from the description alone, the book does sound in a bad condition. And thank you for let us know about the modern copy. :D
Last edited by sixret on 02 Jun 2017, 16:10, edited 1 time in total.
I stand with justice and the truth. Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.

Learn the history. Do research.

The hypocrisy, double standard, prejudice and bigotry own by some people is so obvious.Shame on them!
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