It was F. Scott Fitzgerald himself who said, “There are no second acts in American lives.”  Apparently, he never met the book Basic Electronics by Mac Elwyn Van Valkenburgh.  After sitting on the shelf of the Brown Book Shop for more than 59 years, Vol. 4 of the book was finally sold on Thursday.  Take that F. Scott!

Originally published in 1955, the book was the fourth in a series of six.  Volume 1 was originally a release of courses taught in Navy specialty schools.  Although later editions of the book are still available today, it is rare to find the actual first edition from 1955.

Born in Utah in 1921, Van Valkenburgh received his Masters in electrical engineering from MIT in 1946 and his PhD from Stanford University in 1952.   He was the author of seven textbooks and many more scientific publications.  He even has an award named after him: the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Mac Van Valkenburgh Award.

Van Valkenberg passed away in 1997 at the age of 75.