Email
Correspondence with a kindly Californian gentleman
22
January 2017
Dear Mr Hoffman
I am a writer and historian in the UK,
doing research for a biography of John Collier of Hastings.
You have a two volume collection of his
letters, edited by Charles Lane Sayer, for sale on Abe books.
Since I already own volume 2, and do not
have any sort of budget for research, sadly I can’t afford to purchase them
from you. However I am a bit desperate to be able to study the letters in
volume 1. They are around in reference libraries in the UK, but are
not available for loan and are all some distance from my home.
So, I was just wondering if there might be
any possibility of scanning the book you have? I know it would be a big
task, but thought you might know some likely teenagers who could undertake the
job for pocket-money?
I would, of course, pay their costs as well
as you a fee for you for doing this, and the advantage to you is that you
would then be able to offer the volume for sale as an e-book which might gain
you some ongoing revenue.
Perhaps you might be good enough to let me
know if you would consider the idea?
With thanks for you time and consideration.
Kent Barker.
On
22 Jan 2017, at 16:38, Frank Hofmann wrote:
OMG! You mean, scan every page in vol.
1?!!!!
From:
"Kent Barker"
To: Frank Hoffman
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 9:09:18 AM
Subject: Re: Letters of John Collier
Hmmm. Well, volume 2 has 500 pages.
Let’s say 2 minutes per page, that’s 1000 minutes or 16 hours or two
days.
But if we scanned them as double pages
that’s half the time!
It’s why I thought that an enthusiastic but
impoverished teenager might be cajoled into doing it….
What’s the minimum wage for young people in
the States?
I suppose the alternative might be to see
if you'd sell me volume 1 alone at a knock down price!
I know it’s all a bit of an ask. But
as they say if you don’t ask …
Best Kent
On
22 Jan 2017, at 17:31, Frank Hofmann wrote:
I have profound admiration for those who
undertake to write history, and/or a biography of someone dead for 200 years. I
have in my life set pins at bowling alleys, delivered newspapers door to door
in blizzards, lugged 200-pound objects around as a shipping clerk, carried
sheets of metal roofing while walking on 4-inch beams in the construction of a
Westinghouse factory, written two disappearing novels, flown airplanes, and so
on, but none of that equals the hard work involved in writing a good biography.
I quail (I believe that's a good word) at just the thought of the effort
involved. Consequently I will search out volume 1 of the letters and see if I
somehow can accommodate you. Selling it alone is of course out of the question.
Impoverished teenagers in my neighborhood ride $1,000 bicycles or horses while
conversing on their phones in obscene language. If they notice me out mowing my
own lawn, usually done only by hired Mexicans and Japanese in this area, they
often throw me a few dollars with grinning pity. I wouldn't let any of them
into the house for fear they'd make off with my Byron first editions. If one
wanted to hire a teenager in this neck of the woods one would have to offer
$100 per hour, two pounds of marijuana and a few various Apple game gadgets.
And what our teenagers are enthusiastic about we don't even want to
contemplate. Possibly one could scan books using the public library computers.
My wife is advanced in the use of computers so let me put the question to her,
when she wakes up a few hours from now. She normally gets to bed around 4 a.m.,
after a hard day and half a night of computer skimming. I have also an
unpleasant image of breaking the spine of a book in order for it to be scanned
on a flat bed scanner. But then, most of my ordinary fears go back to embryonic
days and are thus harmless. Let me look into it.
Frank
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