As book collectors know all too well, we only regret our economies, never our extravagances.
~  Michael Dirda

In 1986, I had just moved to St. Paul, was sleeping on a friend’s floor, and looking for work. One day after a job interview in downtown Minneapolis, I wandered into a used bookstore that has been gone now for a few decades.

Browsing the shelves that day I came across A Concordance to the Poems of W.B. Yeats by Stephen Maxfield,  James Painter, and Allan Parrish. It was a red/burgundy hardcover book published in 1966 by Cornell University Press. It was a revelation. And just what someone as obsessed with W.B. Yeats’s poetry needed.

Unfortunately it was $25.00. On that day, I hardly had enough for bus fare. I consoled myself with the fact that once I was gainfully employed I would purchase the book.

Looking for work in 1986 was not easy. And by the time I got back to the bookstore the volume was, of course, gone.

For the next 20 years I looked for that book. In every bookstore I went into. I finally found another copy (the same one?) at another used bookstore (also gone now) in a different part of Minneapolis. It was also $25.00. It would have been a bargain at any price.

For 20 years I kicked myself and promised that I would never make the same mistake with a book again. But, of course, I have. More often than I care to admit.

My current most painful regret is a set of Alexandre Dumas’s Celebrated Crimes that I came across 15 years ago at Magers & Quinn bookstore in Minneapolis. The set was $35.00! The bindings were good and tight, the pages clean and unmarked. It was beautiful.

But for some reason that I cannot remember now, I hesitated purchasing it. A week later, when I found that I could not get it out of my mind, I went back to get it. Of course, it was gone.

And now for 15 years in bookstores from Ireland to Oregon, from Chicago to Vermont, I have looked for that set. But have not found it yet.

I realize that I could always just go online (to ABE Books or Biblio.com) and find dozens and dozens  of options of Celebrated Crimes. But somehow that seems like cheating to me.