Writer of the Ledger
Rufus Margin
Rare-book dealer, amateur economist and professional raiser of one eyebrow.
Rufus Margin was born in New Jersey in 1959, to a librarian and an accountant, which he says explains everything. He came to England to read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, attended the economics lectures, and spent the rest of the time in second-hand bookshops, where he learned more about supply and demand than the lectures ever taught him.
For twenty years he ran a narrow shop off the Charing Cross Road, three steps down and one step behind the times, selling first editions to people who didn’t need them and couldn’t resist them. He once bought a signed first for the price of a sandwich and sold it for the price of a small car. He still talks about the sandwich.
In his fifties he started writing a weekly column on the economics of ordinary things (why umbrellas cost more when it rains, why nobody reads the books they buy at airports, why the second-cheapest wine on a list is the restaurant’s favourite) for a newspaper printed on pink paper, which he declines to name out of modesty, or loyalty, or a clause in his contract.
He judged a literary prize once, and has spent the years since explaining the result. These days he writes the Ledger, where Near Fine supplies the prices and he supplies the opinions.
Latest in the Ledger
At a glance
- In the trade
- “Ruthless Margin”, though never to his face more than once.
- Lives
- Above the shop, in a flat with more bookshelves than walls.
- Carries
- A 10× loupe, for checking first-issue points and restaurant bills.
- Habit
- Pencils his price inside the back cover, lower right corner, softly, so the next owner can rub him out.
- Known for
- The Margin Rule: a first edition is worth exactly what the second printing isn’t.
- Can’t stand
- “Investment-grade book”. Also “unputdownable”.
- Weakness
- Shortlists. Six books, one winner, and a sum he can never resist doing.
In his own words
An asking price is a hope. A sale price is a fact. Everything in between is conversation, and I’ve had most of it.
Collectors don’t buy books. They buy the absence of other copies.
A signature makes a book more desirable. It makes the author’s wrist less so.
Publishers print first novels cautiously because they’re guessing. I’ve made a living out of their guesses.
Rufus is made up. The prices he writes about aren’t.