It is so strange that books like this cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars to buy.

You might think the publisher would ........ publish some to sell.

There might not be that much demand. My understanding is that a good printing of a book will only make money back in pretty large amounts; if there's only a thousand weirdos in the world who want to buy it (and I'm one of those thousand), it'll only barely break even, if that.

Actually, I'm wrong, there is a newly published version that costs under a hundred bucks.

The first edition is expensive. The current edition is ~$90 for a full color hardcover (expensive but not ruinius if you really want it)