Sight Unseen: Lore's Copy of Edward Koren's Do You Want to Talk About It?

The idea behind Sight Unseen posts is pretty simple: I select a book that sounds visually appealing even though I actually cannot see what it looks like. In the case of Edward Koren's cartoon collection Do You Want to Talk About It? (1976), there was only a stock photo in the AbeBooks listing I found on September 21, but no image of the actual book being offered. Instead, there was the enticing description "with a drawing by the author on the ffep [front free endpaper]" provided by Dave's Books of Brooklyn. Although there were some condition issues, the price seemed reasonable enough, $45.44 plus $5.50 shipping. Should I buy it without asking to see the Koren drawing? Of course I should.

Edward Koren
AbeBooks listing accessed September 21, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Want-Talk-Koren-Edward-Pantheon/32305436960/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=readmore

Edward Koren
AbeBooks item description

Now, one month later, we have the information we need. The transaction can be reassessed in light of the drawing. Me, I'm going to call this one a win.

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Edward Koren: Creature Appreciation

Enterprise Books of Chicago offers a copy of New Yorker cartoonist Edward Koren's (1935-2023) first collection, Do You Want to Talk About It? This 1976 book is signed with an original drawing of a bird-like creature with fangs.

Edward Koren
AbeBooks listing accessed October 13, 2023

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Want-Talk-Koren-Edward-Calvin-Trillin/31624218156/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=viewbook

A quick search through the blog archives reveals a comparable Koren drawing appearing in this same cartoon collection that sold in 2015 for $50.

And the blog has another one facing the other way that sold for $100 in 2012.

Such bird-like creatures were evidently fairly standard go-to presentation drawings for the artist, circa 1976. The current $175 asking price may reflect a premium that has been added since the artist's passing in April of this year.

Note:  Got a book with an original Edward Koren sketch? Please send photos or scans and your drawing could be added to the blog archive as well.

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Edward Koren: The Breadwinner Comes Home

Contributor David from Manhattan writes about an original 1970 New Yorker cartoon by the one and only Edward Koren:

This captionless drawing, fairly large at 17 ¼ x 23" (inside the matte) and framed, turned up at an Aston, PA Modern Design Auction by Uniques & Antiques on Dec. 12, 2017, estimated at $200-300, and where it sold for $175. The buyer must have been passing through  Aston as the item was on eBay only a few days later and sold on Dec. 19th to me for $414.02 including shipping. On Dec. 28 it was in hand from Minnesota, via USPS. For the holiday season, that's pretty impressive. The hard part was sitting with it on the bus at 5:30 p.m. for an hour and a half. I haven't examined that many original Korens, so I wonder if all the collage work visible here is typical. I remember reading somewhere that a George Booth cartoon, as part of a traveling New Yorker exhibit, now and then shed a piece of art and had to be glued back. Despite the travel involved, and my own moves in deciding where it should hang, that hasn't happened. I've included some close ups of his "repair" work; the running dog (?) in two pieces seems the most extreme. Still, there's a lot going on here: children, parents, posters, furniture, and plenty of living room crapola. He could have started over, but he managed to keep his image of what it should look like alive in his head. Certainly the cartoon that appeared in the magazine on July 4, 1970 gives no hint of difficulties.

Edward Koren
Original art
The New Yorker, July 4, 1970, p. 35

By the way, the original auction description, after calling it "Comical Political Illustration," adds "Women's movement. Pen & ink illustration sketches in progress," the latter presumably a reference to Koren's collage work. Politically it has held up fairly well, and outlived the Playboy Clubs, though the image of bunny ears on the central poster may one day require some further information. For now though, Koren fans know where to find it: on the unnumbered pages of Do You Want to Talk About It? (1976).

David provides more of the eBay photos of the original art:

The eBay photos are clearer than the Pennsylvania Modern Design Auction by Uniques & Antiques:

Edward Koren's signature

Edward Koren
Uniques & Antiques auction of December 12, 2017

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/edward-koren-comical-political-illustration-wome-228-c-e3f478f9eb#

Edward Koren
Uniques & Antiques auction item description

Here's how the cartoon first appeared in The New Yorker alongside the original art:

Edward Koren
Original art
The New Yorker, July 4, 1970, p. 35

A spot drawing by Raymond Davidson and a cartoon by Edward Koren, one of two of his from the issue

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1970-07-04/flipbook/034/

   

Note:  My thanks to David from Manhattan for this, his fifty-fourth contribution to Attempted Bloggery. Above, David inquires whether other art by Edward Koren has as many patches as this one. So I ask on his behalf, does anyone else have access to similarly patched Koren art for comparison?

Spot artist R. Davidson is better known as New Yorker cover artist Raymond Davidson. A signed, untrimmed proof of one of his covers has previously appeared on the blog here. Remember that one?

Raymond Davidson

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Sight Unseen: Edward Koren In Sloth

Sometimes a stock photo just isn't enough to make the call on a book purchase. A copy of Edward Koren's Do You Want to Talk About It? (1976) boasts "an original drawing by the artist of one of his monsters, the long snouted one with big circle eyes and three protruding teeth, lying in bed, under the covers and with his left hand, writing the following message on a card propped on an easel[:] "For Susan—In Sloth—Ed Koren." There's also a gift inscription above that. Is this book a worthy purchase, sight unseen, for $60? Let's find out.

Edward Koren
AbeBooks listing accessed December 14, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=15235452041&searchurl=kn%3DKoren%2Boriginal%2Bdrawing%26sortby%3D20&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image2

And now, we come to the actual book. Was it indeed worth pursuing? Personally, I have no regrets.

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Vic Streit's Copy of Edward Koren's Do You Want To Talk About It?

Longtime contributor David from Manhattan writes, musing on a distinctive copy of cartoonist Edward Koren's classic collection Do You Want To Talk About It? (1976):

Here's an unusual Edward Koren item that came my way very recently from Riverow Bookshop in Owego, N.Y., and a first for me with any cartoon collection, an "extra-illustrated" copy of Do You Want to Talk About It? The pen & India ink drawing on 13 1/2 x 10 1/4" bond paper has been carefully cut to the page size of the hardcover book, folded, and rather skillfully attached along the extreme left edge of the front free endpaper. If you never held a copy of Koren's book, you might convince yourself that the fold-out feature (minus the artwork) was normal for the book. Inscribed for a father from a very thoughtful son, it seems unlikely that Dan Streit simply went to a bookstore signing with this prepared ahead of time, or hoped that a loose, larger than usual sheet of paper would inspire Koren to go to town. After a request for a backstory, I was informed that it came out of the library of illustrator Al Williamson, who died in 2010, but nothing about Vic and Dan Streit. However it came to be created and preserved, the $125 price tag was more than fair, and the very faint musty odor of the pages not unpleasant.

 

Bookseller image by John Spencer

Bookseller image by John Spencer

Note:  Thanks once again to David from Manhattan for sharing yet another great cartoon book along with its curious story. This is his forty-fourth contribution to this blog.

Book recipient Victor H. Streit's obituary may be found here.

Al Williamson's Wikipedia entry is here.

I hope other Koren connoisseurs with generously embellished or even "extra-illustrated" volumes of works by Edward Koren will photograph or scan these and send them to Attempted Bloggery for inclusion in future posts.

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Mimi Detering's Copy of Edward Koren's Do You Want To Talk About It?

How and where Houston rare bookseller Mimi Detering obtained her copy of Edward Koren's Do You Want To Talk About It? (1976) we can't say with any certainty. The drawing on the front free endpaper shows an artist in winter, ready to paint or draw in scarf and mittens, apparently. That certainly doesn't look like Houston weather. Perhaps Mrs. Detering requested a self-portrait—of sorts—from the cartoonist, who lives and works in New England. The book was sold in September 2016 for $55.

Note:  Have a book like this? Why not share it here on Attempted Bloggery?

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Sight Unseen: An Edward Koren "Creature with Avian Features"

In July of 2015 I found myself tempted by a listing for Edward Koren's Do You Want to Talk About It? Like far too many listings on the AbeBooks site, there was no photograph, but the description alone was intriguing: "Front free end page bears a drawing of a creature with avian features by the author with his signature." A creature with avian features? Might not that be worth $50? I thought I should give it a go.

Edward Koren
Do You Want to Talk About It?
New York: Pantheon Books, 1976

The verdict? You could knock me over with a feather.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Edward Koren

Signed Books with Original Drawings

Sight Unseen

Attempted Bloggery's Index with Avian Features

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Edward Koren: Ed Koren?

In a copy of his cartoon collection Do You Want to Talk About It? (1976), Edward Koren has added a drawing that comments directly and personally on the phenomenon of the celebrity cartoonist. Now who on earth wouldn't know better than to consider a cartoonist a celebrity?—Present company excepted, of course.

"Ed Koren?"
"No!"

Edward Koren
Do You Want to Talk About It?
New York: Pantheon Books, 1976

Edward Koren
AbeBooks Listing Retrieved September 30, 2018

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=22628987796&searchurl=bi%3D0%26ds%3D30%26bx%3Doff%26sortby%3D1%26kn%3DEdward%2BKoren%26recentlyadded%3Dall%26sgnd%3Don&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title10

Note:  Books with original drawings by Edward Koren and by other New Yorker cartoonists, celebrity or not, are of enduring interest to me and to my readers. Cartoon fans in possession of such books with original drawings may send scans or photos of these drawings here to Attempted Bloggery for inclusion in future blog posts.



Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Edward Koren

Signed Books with Original Drawings

Attempted Bloggery's Celebrity-Strewn Index

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Edward Koren's First Book

Do You Want To Talk About It?, published in 1976, was certainly not Edward Koren's first book, but it may have been his first cartoon collection. At any rate, the drawing he made in Dr. David Pearce's copy of the book betrays a real affection for the volume—something which is totally justified.

Edward Koren
Drawing inscribed "My first book" and "For David [Pearce]/Ed Koren"

in a copy of Do You Want To Talk About It? (1976)

Scan courtesy of David from Manhattan

Note:  Where would I be without David from Manhattan? Once again he has scoured the bookstalls of New York and uncovered an absolutely unique copy of a book by Edward Koren with an original drawing. I invite other dedicated bibliophiles in other cities to do the same and send what you've scoured and scanned to me for possible inclusion in a future blog post.

Quick links:

Edward Koren as seen on Attempted Bloggery

Books with original drawings

George Booth posts

Peter Arno posts

Attempted Bloggery's index

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Edward Koren: Do You Want To Talk About It? Personalized Review Copy

In his preface to Edward Koren's first cartoon collection, Do You Want To Talk About It? (1976), Calvin Trillin wrote, "I knew Ed Koren before his pen broke. I only wish I could remember precisely how he drew then." It is surprising to find both cartoonist and preface writer each providing an original drawing to a personally-dedicated review copy. Such advance copies are provided to publishers free of charge in the hopes of garnering publicity in the form of a positive book review. It seems unlikely though that such elaborate presentations were ever a standard industry practice.

Edward Koren, Do You Want To Talk About It?, 1976
Signed and inscribed with drawings by Edward Koren and Calvin Trillin

Edward Koren, Do You Want To Talk About It?, 1976

Review copy from Pantheon Books

"One lyrical landscape--heavy on the Wyeth, light on the Expressionism." [The New Yorker, 1971]

"Do you want to talk about it?" [The New Yorker, 1974]

"Paul's got an article in the magazine section, Ann's book is reviewed by Dick, Buddy has a short
piece on the Op-Ed page, Roy has something in the travel section, there's an essay by Norman on
Matthew's new movie, and a letter on endangered species by your mother." [The New Yorker, 1974]

"What we'd like is a four-hundred-thousand-word novel that oversteps the bounds of decency." [The New Yorker, 1970]

Edward Koren, Do You Want To Talk About It?, 1976
Signed and inscribed with drawings by Edward Koren and Calvin Trillin

March 26, 2015 Update:  I met Calvin Trillin this evening and took the opportunity to ask him about this book and how many similar volumes there were decorated by both him and Edward Koren. While he had all but forgotten it, he thought this copy might be unique.

Note:  Is this the first blog to publish a drawing by Calvin Trillin? Could be. Send all your Calvin Trillin drawings right here. Look, he draws better than George Plimpton.

Books with original drawings are a proud feature of Attempted Bloggery.

There are many posts here about the talented Edward Koren too.

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