I managed to find a copy of McElligot’s Pool, one of the not-banned Dr. Seuss works that the publisher has shredded and that is forbidden to sell on eBay:
Avert your eyes from the hateful language (“Eskimo”) and note from the stamp that this book was preserved in the library of the Cairo American College. Although PDFs are being preserved by the Russian-created Library Genesis, perhaps libraries in Islamic nations will be instrumental in preserving hardcopies. As noted in “Who preserved Greek literature?”, Islamic libraries were important for preserving some analogously specialized ancient texts:
- The history of medicine and mathematics. For these areas, Syriac and Arabic versions can be very important. In some cases — though still a minority — they are the only surviving versions of ancient texts.
- Some non-canonical Jewish and Christian writings. Many were written originally in Hebrew or Aramaic, but some like the Ladder of Jacob appear to have been written originally in Greek, and now survive only in translations into Slavonic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, or Georgian.
- Some individual literary and historiographical texts…
- Ancient scholarly commentaries on scientific works, and fragments of certain lost authors.
(The same article notes that the typical Greek text was preserved in Greek by monasteries in what we call the Byzantine Empire.)
I fully support your action and would echo it were it not for the cost.
The Japanese retain an affinity for the printed text and lack progressive scruples.
That was before woke Arab “spring” and ISIS that destroyed historic sites and buildings.
It is not just eBay, someone who wants is required to pay – up, sure that people buying football game tickets can pay few hundreds bucks for the rarity
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394800834/
https://www.alibris.com/search/books/isbn/9780394800837
https://poshmark.com/listing/McElligots-Pool-604fa7d8a7729d0af351f016?l
If I did not consider Dr Seuss body of work as a whole as lowering IQ garbage I would create my own publishing company, buy an office printer an publish old books for which royalties are expired. After all nobody asks permission to publish Shakespeare or Jules Vern any longer. Is 1947 book really copyrightable? Even it is I am sure that someone prolific as Philip can easily create Dr. Seuss knock-off a-la Sandra Boynton books. I know I could even though English is not my first or second language. It is amazing that Philip finds this as a worthy topic among on-going collapse of the world in progress.
No topic is too trivial for this forum! It IS the age of Facebook after all.
Lost intellectual treasure of ancient long gone Western civilization is resurrected!