I recently missed out on a bid for a set of nearly a dozen of Charles de Lint’s Subterranean Press books. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, since I already owned five out of the books in that lot. Still, I’ll admit that it was somewhat disappointing, as the rest were ones that I really wanted.

I always have a hard limit on auctions, which means that I lose out on quite a few of them. I guess that now I need to acquire those books one by one instead. However, looking at de Lint’s bibliography, I doubt that I’ll ever be able to acquire all his books, so I’ll take them as I find them. Then again, I did find a pair recently at decent prices, so here goes…

First up, The Onion Girl. Published in 2009 by Subterranean Press, and limited to 500 signed/numbered copies plus 26 lettered copies. It’s a hefty book, clocking in at just over 500 pages. The cover is gorgeous, yet the story hits at darkness. I recently read another book that featured the same main character, so at some point I know I’ll be drawn into this book.

Next, Seven Sisters Wild. Another Subterranean Press book, this one published in 2002. This is the signed hardcover edition, with signatures from both de Lint and illustrator, Charles Vess. It’s a novella, only 152 pages long, and beautifully illustrated by Vess.

All in all, this still leaves at least 20 of de Lint’s books that I don’t have, compared to the 32 that I have. That first number’s probably fuzzy, based on an old bibliography. Still, 20 seems like a massive number. Many of these books are hard to find, or when listed somewhere, fetch premium prices. A few of the so-called “missing” books I have in beat up paperback editions. I do want better copies, though. Others, I don’t have, and want to read.

Sometimes, though, I think you have to be in the right mindset, or the right age or the right timeframe, to read certain books. I recently re-read Moonheart and liked it, but when I tried to read Eyes Like Leaves, written around the same time as Moonheart, I struggled and gave up—at least, for now. Maybe Eyes was too similar to Moonheart. Maybe it jumped around too much for me to fasten onto the plot and characters. Maybe I’m just a different person from back when this book was published Still, I hope de Lint keep writing fiction, despite his recent personal tragedies. Then again, maybe he’s said all that he wants to say, at least when it comes to fiction. It won’t be the first time that’s happened to an author.