Press Release

For immediate release

COIL UP...WITH A SNAKESKIN BOOK

(Victoria, BC – 8 August 2006) They say you cannot judge a book by its cover, but what if your summer read is bound in snakeskin?

Most people would not relish opening a book wrapped in cobra or python skin, especially with the summer’s big movie Snakes On A Plane expected to remind us that snakes are one of the animal kingdom’s least popular critters.

However, snakeskin-bound books have been around since the 1800s when big game hunters looked for novel ways of displaying their prey from Africa and Asia. Although these exotic bindings have not been in vogue for decades, snakeskin covered books can have four-figure prices.

Around 50 books bound either in part or completely in snakeskin can be found for sale at AbeBooks.com - the world’s largest online marketplace for new, used, rare and out-of-print books - from its inventory of more than 80 million listings.

One such eye-catching oddity found online is a two-volume 1861 first edition of Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny by Oliver Wendell Holmes that has been bound in python and is offered for sale at $2,100 by The Antiquarian Shop in Scottsdale, Arizona. The books, an examination of original sin and genetic inheritance, tell the story a snake/human hybrid and her struggle to be accepted, and was bound by master bookbinder Hazel Dreis in the 1930s.

“It’s completely unique,” said Ann Maroe, owner of The Antiquarian Shop. “It’s all the more interesting as a snake is a key element of the story.”

Another example of this almost forgotten genre is a copy of the aptly named Death Valley by David Andrew Hufford – this collection of turn-of-the-century Western Americana stories, published in 1902, has wooden covers with strips of tan snakeskin attached as if the snake is coiled around the book. The title has been branded onto the cover. A true one-off, it costs $1,074 from The Lawbook Exchange in Clark, New Jersey.

“It’s a fascinating book,” said Michael von der Linn, manager of the antiquarian book department at The Lawbook Exchange. “Snakeskin books are extremely rare and it is not used as a binding today because of political correctness.”

A third example is A Field Guide to Snakes of Southern Africa by VFM Fitzsimons – a 1970 edition that has been bound in pale brown snakeskin. The bookseller, K Books from York in the UK, commissioned master bookbinder Stephen Conway to specially bind a series of books in unusual covers including salmon and eel skin. Conway, based in Yorkshire, describes snakeskin as “easy to work with and rather thin.” The book costs $165.29.

Other exotic animal book covers include kangaroo, shark, stingray (known as Shagreen) and ostrich but rare booksellers have even seen elephant and monkey skin bindings. Many date back to the 1800s but Hazel Dreis and Edward McLean, two American master bookbinders who specialized in unusual materials, also used snakeskin in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

For photos and additional details about these and other snakeskin books, visit our Snakeskin Books page.

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About AbeBooks.com
AbeBooks.com is the world’s largest online marketplace for books, with over 80 million new, used, rare, and out-of-print titles listed for sale by more than 13,500 independent booksellers from around the world. AbeBooks has millions of customers who purchase up to 25,000 books a day from its 5 global websites. A true internet success story, AbeBooks has been selling books online since 1996, and is a private company based in Victoria, BC Canada, with offices in Germany, Spain and USA. Internet Retailer magazine ranked AbeBooks at No. 67 among North America’s online retailers in June 2006.

Contact:
Richard Davies, PR & Publicity Mgr., AbeBooks.com
Office Ph: 250-412-3238 / e-mail rdavies@abebooks.com