I am needing some help with a book that I have. It is a book called "Sporting Rifles and Rifle Shooting" by John Caswell. This book appears to me to be a proof copy. This book is twice as thick as the printed version because it has blank pages in between each of the pages with print on them. The hard cover on the book is just plain. This book has several pages that notes are jotted on in pencil and they are only in the chapters where Pope is mentioned. This book appears to be sent to Harry Pope by John Caswell to proofread and Pope wrote several notes and then sent it back for John to make the changes before the final copy was printed. I am not sure this is how it worked back then. If anyone has any information on this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Wow indeed! That's got to be a very cool book to own!

You thinking it would be worthwhile to have published?

Rich

To have it re-published it would probably be very costly to say the very least. The pressure for asking this gentleman to do it on his own is probably not even doable and not something we should be asking of him to do on his own. But if he is actually willing to get a price and to pass it on to us then he should also receive pre-paid monetary commitments from those interested in this group. But one also needs to realize that it might also severely deminish the worth of what he might be the only one to actually have what he maybe the one to now personally own in existence.

I currently do not have a copy of this book in the way it was printed in my possession. All I have is this, what I believe to be proof copy. I have ordered a copy and I am waiting for it to arrive. I am curious to see if the pencil notes that I have in my book were changes that actually made it in the 1st printed version that was printed. I was in hopes that someone may have a similar book with notes from Pope or notes from Caswell to use as a comparison.

There are companies that specialize in printing books in small quantities, and at reasonable prices IF the covers are soft covers. Hard bound books change the prices by a fair amount.
Mt wife's sister wrote a book about her husband's escape from East Germany when he was a teen, and paid for the printer to have the book done. Cost was surprisingly reasonable, and she's not a rich lady who could fund it otherwise. Cost her less than $10 per book, with colorized shiny covers. That was for the first 100 of a 300 page book. More than that the price went down lower per book.