I've always had collections--cigar bands, stamps, lead pennies--what kid doesn't? I collected basketball cards when that was my son's interest. I collected photography and art but quickly ran out of wall space. Then I realized I could collect something I really treasured and which occupied only bookshelf space: Modern Firsts, which are defined as first edition books starting with the desk jacket era (aprox 1920). The jackets, because of their fragility, are in fact more valuable than the books themselves. So I sit in my nook surrounded by treasured old friends. These are not reading copies--God forbid--these are objects d'art.
