The Amenities of Book-Collecting and Kindred Affections
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Title: The Amenities of Book-Collecting and Kindred Affections
Author: A. Edward Newton
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMENITIES OF BOOK-COLLECTING AND KINDRED AFFECTIONS ***
THE AMENITIES OF BOOK-COLLECTING
AND
KINDRED AFFECTIONS
[Illustration: CARICATURE OF TWO GREAT VICTORIANS W. M. THACKERAY AND
CHARLES DICKENS]
THE AMENITIES
OF BOOK-COLLECTING
AND
KINDRED AFFECTIONS
BY
A. EDWARD NEWTON
[Illustration: colophon]
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON MCMXX
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
_If, as Eugene Field suggests, womenfolk are few in that part of
paradise especially reserved for book-lovers I do not care. One woman
will be there, for I shall insist that eight and twenty years probation
entitles her to share my biblio-bliss above as she has shared it here
below. That woman is my wife._
A. EDWARD NEWTON
OCTOBER, 1918
ESSAY INTRODUCTORY
A man (or a woman) is the most interesting thing in the world; and next
is a book, which enables one to get at the heart of the mystery; and
although not many men can say why they are or what they are, any man who
publishes a book can, if he is on good terms with his publisher, secure
the use of a little space to tell how the book came to be what it is.
Some years ago a very learned friend of mine published a book, and in
the introduction warned the "gentle reader" to skip the first chapter,
and, as I have always maintained, by inference suggested that the rest
was easy reading, which was not the case. In point of fact, the book was
not intended for the "gentle reader" at all: it was a book written by a
scholar for the scholar.
Now, I have worked on a different plan. My book is written for the
"tired business man" (there are a goodly number of us), who flatters
himself that he is fond of reading; and as it is my first book, I may be
permitted to tell how it came to be published.
One day in the autumn of 1913, a friend, my partner, with whom it has
been my privilege to be associated for so many years, remarked that it
was time for me to take a holiday, and handed me a copy of the
"Geographical Magazine." The number was devoted to Egypt; and, seduced
by the charm of the illustrations, on the spur of the moment I decided
on a trip up the Nile.
Things moved rapidly. In a few weeks my wife and I were in the
Mediterranean, on a steamer headed for Alexandria. We had touched at
Genoa and were soon to reach Naples, when I discovered a feeling of
homesickness stealing over me. I have spent my happiest holidays in
London. Already I had tired of Egypt. The Nile has been flowing for
centuries and would continue to flow. There were books to be had in
London, books which would not wait. Somewhat shamefacedly I put the
matter up to my wife; and when I discovered that she had no insuperable
objection to a change of plan, we left the steamer at Naples, and after
a few weeks with friends in Rome, started _en grande vitesse_ toward
London.
By this time it will have been discovered that I am not much of a
traveler; but I have always loved London--London with its wealth of
literary and historic association, with its countless miles of streets
lined with inessential shops overflowing with things that I don't want,
and its grimy old book-shops overflowing with things that I do.
One gloomy day I picked up in the Charing Cross Road, for a shilling, a
delightful book by Richard Le Gallienne, "Travels in England." Like
myself, Le Gallienne seems not to have been a great traveler--he seldom
reached the place he started for; and losing his way or changing his
mind, may be said to have arrived at his destination when he has
reached a comfortable inn, where, after a simple meal, he lights his
pipe and proceeds to read a book.
Exactly my idea of travel! The last time I read "Pickwick" was while
making a tour in Northern Italy. It is wonderful how conducive to
reading I found the stuffy smoking-rooms of the little steamers that
dart like water-spiders from one landing to another on the Italian
Lakes.
It was while I was poking about among the old book-shops that it
occurred to me to write a little story about my books--when and where I
had bought them, the prices I had paid, and the men I had bought them
from, many of whom I knew well; and so, when my holiday was done, I
lived over again its pleasant associations in writing a paper that I
called "Book-Collecting Abroad." Subsequently I wrote
another,--"Book-Collecting at Home,"--it being my purpose to print these
papers in a little volume to be called "The Amenities of
Book-Collecting." I intended this for distribution among my friends, who
are very patient with me; and I sent my manuscript to a printer in the
closing days of July, 1914. A few days later something happened in
Europe, the end of which is not yet, and we all became panic-stricken.
For a moment it seemed unlikely that one would care ever to open a book
again. Acting upon impulse, I withdrew the order from my printer, put my
manuscript aside, and devoted myself to my usual task--that of making a
living.
Byron says, "The end of all scribblement is to amuse." For some years I
have been possessed of an itch for "scribblement"; gradually this
feeling reasserted itself, and I came to see that we must become
accustomed to working in a world at war, and to realizing that life must
be permitted to resume, at least to some extent, its regular course; and
the idea of my little book recurred to me.
It had frequently been suggested by friends that my papers be published
in the "Atlantic." What grudge they bore this excellent magazine I do
not know, but they always said the "Atlantic"; and so, when one day I
came across my manuscript, it occurred to me that it would cost only a
few cents to lay it before the editor. At that time I did not know the
editor of the "Atlantic" even by name. My pleasure then can be imagined
when, a week or so later, I received the following letter:--
_Oct. 30, 1914._
DEAR MR. NEWTON:--
The enthusiasm of your pleasant paper is contagious, and I find
myself in odd moments looking at the gaps in my own library with a
feeling of dismay. I believe that very many readers of the
"Atlantic" will feel as I do, and it gives me great pleasure to
accept your paper.
Yours sincerely,
ELLERY SEDGWICK.
Shortly afterward, a check for a substantial sum fluttered down upon my
desk, and it was impossible that I should not remember how much Milton
had received for his "Paradise Lost,"--the receipt for which is in the
British Museum,--and draw conclusions therefrom entirely satisfactory to
my self-esteem. My paper was published, and the magazine, having a hardy
constitution, survived; I even received some praise. There was nothing
important enough to justify criticism, and as a result of this chance
publication I made a number of delightful acquaintances among readers
and collectors, many of whom I might almost call friends although we
have never met.
Not wishing to strain the rather precarious friendship with Mr. Sedgwick
which was the outcome of my first venture, it was several years before I
ventured to try him with another paper. This I called "A Ridiculous
Philosopher." I enjoyed writing this paper immensely, and although it
was the reverse of timely, I felt that it might pass editorial scrutiny.
Again I received a letter from Mr. Sedgwick, in which he said:--
Two days ago I took your paper home with me and spent a delightful
half-hour with it. Now, as any editor would tell you, there is no
valid reason for a paper on Godwin at this time, but your essay is
so capitally seasoned that I cannot find it in my heart to part
with it. Indeed I have been gradually making the editorial
discovery that, if a paper is sufficiently readable, it has some
claim upon the public, regardless of what the plans of the editor
are. And so the upshot of my deliberation is that we shall accept
your paper with great pleasure and publish it when the opportunity
occurs.
The paper appeared in due course, and several more followed. The favor
with which these papers were received led the "Atlantic" editors to the
consideration of their reprint in permanent form, together with several
which now appear for the first time. All the illustrations have been
made from items in my own collection. I am thus tying a string, as it
were, around a parcel which contains the result of thirty-six years of
collecting. It may not be much, but, as the Irishman said of his dog,
"It's mine own." My volume might, with propriety, be called "Newton's
Complete Recreations."
I have referred to my enjoyment in writing my "Ridiculous Philosopher."
I might say the same of all my papers. I am aware that my friend, Dr.
Johnson, once remarked that no man but a block-head writes a book except
for money. At some risk, then, I admit that I have done so. I have
written for fun, and my papers should be read, if read at all, for the
same purpose, not that the reader will or is expected to laugh loud. The
loud laugh, in Goldsmith's phrase, it may be remembered, bespeaks the
vacant mind. But I venture to hope that the judicious will pass a not
unpleasant hour in turning my pages.
One final word: I buy, I collect "Presentation Books"; and I trust my
friends will not think me churlish when I say that it is not my
intention to turn a single copy of this, my book, into a presentation
volume. Whatever circulation it may have must be upon its own merits.
Any one who sees this book in the hands of a reader, on the library
table, or on the shelves of the collector, may be sure that some one,
either wise or foolish as the event may prove, has paid a substantial
sum for it, either in the current coin of the realm, or perchance in
thrift stamps. It may, indeed, be that it has been secured from a
lending library, in which case I would suggest that the book be returned
instantly. "Go ye rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves." And
having separated yourself from your money, in the event that you should
feel vexed with your bargain, you are at liberty to communicate your
grievance to the publisher, securing from him what redress you may; and
in the event of failure there yet remains your inalienable right, which
should afford some satisfaction, that of damning
THE AUTHOR.
"OAK KNOLL," DAYLESFORD, PENNSYLVANIA, _April 7, 1918_.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. BOOK-COLLECTING ABROAD 1
II. BOOK-COLLECTING AT HOME 36
III. OLD CATALOGUES AND NEW PRICES 65
IV. "ASSOCIATION" BOOKS AND FIRST EDITIONS 107
V. "WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN" 129
VI. JAMES BOSWELL--HIS BOOK 145
VII. A LIGHT-BLUE STOCKING 186
VIII. A RIDICULOUS PHILOSOPHER 226
IX. A GREAT VICTORIAN 249
X. TEMPLE BAR THEN AND NOW 267
XI. A MACARONI PARSON 292
XII. OSCAR WILDE 318
XIII. A WORD IN MEMORY 343
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CARICATURE OF TWO GREAT VICTORIANS _Frontispiece in Color_
W. M. Thackeray and Charles Dickens
TITLE OF "PARADISE LOST." First Edition 6
TITLE OF FRANKLIN'S EDITION OF CICERO'S "CATO MAJOR" 9
LETTER OF THOMAS HARDY TO HIS FIRST PUBLISHER,
"OLD TINSLEY" 12
PAGE OF ORIGINAL MS. OF HARDY'S "FAR FROM THE
MADDING CROWD" 14
BERNARD QUARITCH 14
TITLE OF MS. OF "LYFORD REDIVIVUS" 16
BERNARD ALFRED QUARITCH 16
SAMUEL JOHNSON 20
Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds about 1770, for Johnson's Step-Daughter,
Lucy Porter. Engraved by Watson
PAGE OF PRAYER IN DR. JOHNSON'S AUTOGRAPH 23
TITLE OF KEATS'S COPY OF SPENSER'S WORKS 24
PORTRAIT OF TENNYSON READING "MAUD" TO THE BROWNINGS,
BY ROSSETTI 26
DR. JOHNSON'S CHURCH, ST. CLEMENT DANES 31
From a pen-and-ink sketch by Charles G. Osgood
INSCRIPTION TO MRS. THRALE IN DR. JOHNSON'S HAND 32
INSCRIPTION TO GENERAL SIR A. GORDON IN QUEEN VICTORIA'S
HAND 35
GEORGE D. SMITH 36
Photographed by Genthe
AUTOGRAPH MS. OF LAMB'S POEM, "ELEGY ON A QUID OF
TOBACCO" 40
DR. A. S. W. ROSENBACH 42
Photographed by Genthe
TITLE OF "ROBINSON CRUSOE." First Edition 45
TITLE OF "OLIVER TWIST" 47
Presentation Copy to W. C. Macready
ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATION FOR "VANITY FAIR" 48
Becky Sharp throwing Dr. Johnson's "Dixonary" out of the
carriage window, as she leaves Miss Pinkerton's School
From the first pen-and-ink sketch, by Thackeray, afterwards
elaborated
SPECIMEN PROOF-SHEET OF GEORGE MOORE'S "MEMOIRS
OF MY DEAD LIFE" 50
TITLE OF GEORGE MOORE'S "PAGAN POEMS" 51
Presentation Copy to Oscar Wilde
TITLE OF BLAKE'S "MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL" 52
CHARLES LAMB'S HOUSE AT ENFIELD 54
INSCRIPTION BY JOSEPH CONRAD IN A COPY OF "THE NIGGER
OF THE 'NARCISSUS'" 56
THE AUTHOR'S BOOK-PLATE 60
HENRY E. HUNTINGTON 72
STOKE POGES CHURCH 74
A fine example of fore-edge painting
TITLE OF BLAKE'S "SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE" 80
"A LEAF FROM AN UNOPENED VOLUME" 82
Specimen page of an unpublished manuscript of Charlotte Brontë
TITLE OF THE KILMARNOCK EDITION OF BURNS'S POEMS 85
FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH MS. ON VELLUM:
BOËTHIUS'S "DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIÆ" 90
TITLE OF GEORGE HERBERT'S "THE TEMPLE." First Edition 97
FIRST PAGE OF A RARE EDITION OF "ROBINSON CRUSOE" 102
AUTOGRAPH MS. OF A POEM BY KEATS--"TO THE MISSES
M---- AT HASTINGS" 105
INSCRIPTION TO SWINBURNE FROM DANTE ROSSETTI 106
AUTOGRAPH INSCRIPTION BY STEVENSON, IN A COPY OF HIS
"INLAND VOYAGE" 109
TITLE OF A UNIQUE COPY OF STEVENSON'S "CHILD'S GARDEN
OF VERSES" 110
NEW BUILDING OF THE GROLIER CLUB 114
INSCRIPTION TO CHARLES DICKENS, JUNIOR, FROM CHARLES
DICKENS 116
ILLUSTRATION, "THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS," BY JOHN LEECH
FOR DICKENS'S "CHRISTMAS CAROL" 116
From the original water-color drawing
AUTOGRAPH DEDICATION TO DICKENS'S "THE VILLAGE
COQUETTES" 118
TITLE OF MEREDITH'S "MODERN LOVE," WITH AUTOGRAPH
INSCRIPTION TO SWINBURNE 121
INSCRIPTION BY DR. JOHNSON IN A COPY OF "RASSELAS" 125
INSCRIPTION BY WOODROW WILSON, IN A COPY OF HIS "CONSTITUTIONAL
GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES" 126
INSCRIPTION BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 128
CHARLES LAMB 130
FRANCES MARIA KELLY 132
MISS KELLY IN VARIOUS CHARACTERS 136
MS. DEDICATION OF LAMB'S WORKS TO MISS KELLY 137
AUTOGRAPH LETTER OF LAMB TO MISS KELLY 139
CHARLES AND MARY LAMB 144
JAMES BOSWELL OF AUCHINLECK, ESQR. 146
Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Engraved by John Jones
SAMUEL JOHNSON IN A TIE-WIG 150
Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Engraved by Zobel
INSCRIPTION TO REV. WILLIAM J. TEMPLE, FROM JAMES
BOSWELL 159
TITLE OF MASON'S "ELFRIDA." First Edition 163
MS. OF BOSWELL'S AGREEMENT WITH MR. DILLY, RECITING
THE TERMS AGREED ON FOR THE PUBLICATION OF
"CORSICA" 167
MS. INDORSEMENT BY BOSWELL ON THE FIRST PAPER DRAWN
BY HIM AS AN ADVOCATE 168
DR. JOHNSON IN TRAVELING DRESS, AS DESCRIBED IN
BOSWELL'S "TOUR" 174
Engraved by Trotter
INSCRIPTION TO JAMES BOSWELL, JUNIOR, FROM JAMES
BOSWELL 176
SAMUEL JOHNSON 184
Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Engraved by Heath
INSCRIPTION TO EDMUND BURKE, BY JAMES BOSWELL 185
MRS. PIOZZI 186
Engraved by Ridley from a miniature
EXTRACT FROM MS. LETTER OF MRS. THRALE 191
TITLE OF MISS BURNEY'S "EVELINA." First Edition 199
MRS. THRALE'S BREAKFAST-TABLE 200
SAMUEL JOHNSON. THE "STREATHAM PORTRAIT" 204
Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Engraved by Doughty
MS. INSCRIPTIONS BY MRS. THRALE 206
TITLE OF "THE PRINCE OF ABISSINIA" ("RASSELAS").
First Edition 207
MS. OF THE LAST PAGE OF MRS. THRALE'S "JOURNAL OF A
TOUR IN WALES" 219
MISS AMY LOWELL, OF BOSTON 222
SAMUEL JOHNSON 225
WILLIAM GODWIN, THE RIDICULOUS PHILOSOPHER 227
CHARLES LAMB'S PLAY-BILL OF GODWIN'S "ANTONIO" 236
MS. LETTER FROM WILLIAM GODWIN 241
ANTHONY TROLLOPE 250
From a photograph by Elliot and Fry
TEMPLE BAR AS IT IS TO-DAY 268
OLD TEMPLE BAR: DEMOLISHED IN 1666 276
TEMPLE BAR IN DR. JOHNSON'S TIME 280
TEMPLE BAR 291
FIRST PAGE OF DR. JOHNSON'S PETITION TO THE KING ON
BEHALF OF DR. DODD 306
MR. ALLEN'S COPY OF THE LAST LETTER DR. DODD SENT
DR. JOHNSON 312
CARICATURE OF OSCAR WILDE 319
From an original drawing by Aubrey Beardsley
"OUR OSCAR" AS HE WAS WHEN WE LOANED HIM TO
AMERICA 326
From a contemporary English caricature
MS. INSCRIPTION TO J. E. DICKINSON, FROM OSCAR WILDE 342
HARRY ELKINS WIDENER 344
TITLE OF STEVENSON'S "MEMOIRS OF HIMSELF" 349
Printed for private distribution only, by Mr. Widener
BEVERLY CHEW 350
HENRY E. HUNTINGTON AMONG HIS BOOKS 352
Photographed by Genthe
HARRY ELKINS WIDENER'S BOOK-PLATE 355
THE AMENITIES OF BOOK-COLLECTING
AND
KINDRED AFFECTIONS
I
BOOK-COLLECTING ABROAD
If my early training has been correct, which I am much inclined to
doubt, we were not designed to be happy in this world. We were simply
placed here to be tried, and doubtless we are--it is a trying place. It
is, however, the only world we are sure of; so, in spite of our
training, we endeavor to make the best of it, and have invented a lot of
little tricks with which to beguile the time.
The approved time-killer is work, and we do a lot of it. When it is
quite unnecessary, we say it is in the interest of civilization; and
occasionally work is done on so high a plane that it becomes sport, and
we call these sportsmen, "Captains of Industry." One of them once told
me that making money was the finest sport in the world. This was before
the rules of the game were changed.
But for the relaxation of those whose life is spent in a persistent
effort to make ends meet, games of skill, games of chance, and kissing
games have been invented, and indoor and outdoor sports. These are all
very well for those who can play them; but I am like the little boy who
declined to play Old Maid because he was always "it." Having early
discovered that I was always "it" in every game, I decided to take my
recreation in another way. I read occasionally and have always been a
collector.
Many years ago, in an effort to make conversation on a train,--a foolish
thing to do,--I asked a man what he did with his leisure, and his reply
was, "I play cards. I used to read a good deal but I wanted something to
occupy my mind, so I took to cards." It was a disconcerting answer.
It may be admitted that not all of us can read all the time. For those
who cannot and for those to whom sport in any form is a burden not to be
endured, there is one remaining form of exercise, the riding of a
hobby--collecting, it is called; and the world is so full of such
wonderful things that we collectors should be as happy as kings. Horace
Greeley once said, "Young man, go West." I give advice as valuable and
more easily followed: I say, Young man, get a hobby; preferably get two,
one for indoors and one for out; get a pair of hobby-horses that can
safely be ridden in opposite directions.
We collectors strive to make converts; we want others to enjoy what we
enjoy; and I may as well confess that the envy shown by our fellow
collectors when we display our treasures is not annoying to us. But,
speaking generally, we are a bearable lot, our hobbies are usually
harmless, and if we loathe the subject of automobiles, and especially
discussion relative to parts thereof, we try to show an intelligent
interest in another's hobby, even if it happen to be a collection of
postage-stamps. Our own hobby may be, probably is, ridiculous to some
one else, but in all the wide range of human interest, from
postage-stamps to paintings,--the sport of the millionaire,--there is
nothing that begins so easily and takes us so far as the collecting of
books.
And hear me. If you would know the delight of book-collecting, begin
with something else, I care not what. Book-collecting has all the
advantages of other hobbies without their drawbacks. The pleasure of
acquisition is common to all--that's where the sport lies; but the
strain of the possession of books is almost nothing; a tight, dry closet
will serve to house them, if need be.
It is not so with flowers. They are a constant care. Some one once wrote
a poem about "old books and fresh flowers." It lilted along very nicely;
but I remark that books stay old, indeed get older, and flowers do not
stay fresh: a little too much rain, a little too much sun, and it is all
over.
Pets die too, in spite of constant care--perhaps by reason of it. To
quiet a teething dog I once took him, her, it, to my room for the night
and slept soundly. Next morning I found that the dog had committed
suicide by jumping out of the window.
The joys of rugs are a delusion and a snare. They cannot be picked up
here and there, tucked in a traveling-bag, and smuggled into the house;
they are hard to transport, there are no auction records against them,
and the rug market knows no bottom. I never yet heard a man admit paying
a fair price for a rug, much less a high one. "Look at this Scherazak,"
a friend remarks; "I paid only nine dollars for it and it's worth five
hundred if it's worth a penny." When he is compelled to sell his
collection, owing to an unlucky turn in the market, it brings
seventeen-fifty. And rugs are ever a loafing place for moths--But that's
a chapter by itself.
Worst of all, there is no literature about them. I know very well that
there are books about rugs; I own some. But as all books are not
literature, so all literature is not in books. Can a rug-collector enjoy
a catalogue? I sometimes think that for the over-worked business man a
book-catalogue is the best reading there is. Did you ever see a
rug-collector, pencil in hand, poring over a rug-catalogue?
Print-catalogues there are; and now I warm a little. They give
descriptions that mean something; a scene may have a reminiscent value,
a portrait suggests a study in biography. Then there are dimensions for
those who are fond of figures and states and margins, and the most
ignorant banker will tell you that a wide margin is always better than a
narrow one. Prices, too, can be looked up and compared, and results,
satisfactory or otherwise, recorded. Prints, too, can be snugly housed
in portfolios. But for a lasting hobby give me books.
Book-collectors are constantly being ridiculed by scholars for the pains
they take and the money they spend on first editions of their favorite
authors; and it must be that they smart under the criticism, for they
are always explaining, and attempting rather foolishly to justify their
position. Would it not be better to say, as Leslie Stephen did of Dr.
Johnson's rough sayings, that "it is quite useless to defend them to any
one who cannot enjoy them without defense"?
I am not partial to the "books which no gentleman's library should be
without," fashionable a generation or two ago. The works of Thomas
Frognall Dibdin do not greatly interest me, and where will one find room
to-day for Audubon's "Birds" or Roberts's "Holy Land" except on a
billiard-table or under a bed?
The very great books of the past have become so rare, so high-priced,
that it is almost useless for the ordinary collector to hope ever to own
them, and fashion changes in book-collecting as in everything else.
Aldines and Elzevirs are no longer sought. Our interest in the Classics
being somewhat abated, we pass them over in favor of books which, we
tell ourselves, we expect some day to read, the books written by men of
whose lives we know something. I would rather have a "Paradise Lost"
with the first title-page,[1] in contemporary binding, or an "Angler,"
than all the Aldines and Elzevirs ever printed.
[Illustration:
Paradise lost.
A
POEM
Written in
TEN BOOKS
By _JOHN MILTON_.
Licensed and Entred according
to Order.
_LONDON_
Printed, and are to be sold by _Peter Parker_
under _Creed,_ Church neer _Aldgate_; And by
_Robert Boulter_ at the _Turks Head_ in _Bishopsgate-Street_;
And _Matthias Walker_, under _St. Dunstons_ Church
in _Fleet-Street_, 1667.
]
That this feeling is general, accounts, I take it, for the excessively
high prices now being paid for first editions of modern authors like
Shelley, Keats, Lamb, and, to come right down to our own day, Stevenson.
Would not these authors be amazed could they know in what esteem they
are held, and what fabulous prices are paid for volumes which, when they
were published, fell almost stillborn from the press? We all know the
story of Fitzgerald's "Rubaiyat": how a "remainder" was sold by Quaritch
at a penny the copy. It is now worth its weight in gold, and Keats's
"Endymion," once a "remainder" bought by a London bookseller at
fourpence, now commands several hundred dollars. I paid three hundred
and sixty dollars for mine--but it was once Wordsworth's and has his
name on the title-page.
But it is well in book-collecting, while not omitting the present, never
to neglect the past. "Old books are best," says Beverly Chew, beloved of
all collectors; and I recall Lowell's remark: "There is a sense of
security in an old book which time has criticized for us." It was a
recollection of these sayings that prompted me, if prompting was
necessary, to pay a fabulous price the other day for a copy of
"Hesperides, or the Works both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick,
Esq.," a beautiful copy of the first edition in the original sheep.
We collectors know the saying of Bacon: "Some books are to be tasted,
others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested"; but the
revised version is, Some books are to be read, others are to be
collected. Mere reading books, the five-foot shelf, or the hundred best,
every one knows at least by name. But at the moment I am concerned with
collectors' books and the amenities of book-collecting; for, frankly,--
I am one of those who seek
What Bibliomaniacs love.
Some subjects are not for me. Sydney Smith's question, "Who reads an
American book?" has, I am sure, been answered; and I am equally sure
that I do not know what the answer is. "Americana"--which was not what
Sydney Smith meant--have never caught me, nor has "black letter." It is
not necessary for me to study how to tell a Caxton. Caxtons do not fall
in my way, except single leaves now and then, and these I take as
Goldsmith took his religion, on faith.
Nor am I the rival of the man who buys all his books from Quaritch.
Buying from Quaritch is rather too much like the German idea of hunting:
namely, sitting in an easy chair near a breach in the wall through which
game, big or little, is shooed within easy reach of your gun. No, my
idea of collecting is "watchful waiting," in season and out, in places
likely and unlikely, most of all in London. But one need not begin in
London: one can begin wherever one has pitched one's tent.
I have long wanted Franklin's "Cato Major." A copy was found not long
ago in a farmhouse garret in my own county; but, unluckily, I did not
hear of it until its price, through successive hands, had reached three
hundred dollars. But if one does not begin in London, one ends there. It
is the great market of the world for collectors' books--the best market,
not necessarily the cheapest.
[Illustration:
M. T. CICERO's
_CATO MAJOR_
OR HIS
DISCOURSE
OF
OLD-AGE:
With Explanatory NOTES.
_PHILADELPHIA_:
Printed and sold by B. FRANKLIN,
MDCCXLIV.
]
My first purchase was a Bohn edition of Pope's Homer, the Iliad and the
Odyssey in two volumes--not a bad start for a boy; and under my youthful
signature, with a fine flourish, is the date, 1882.
I read them with delight, and was sorry when I learned that Pope is by
no means Homer. I have been a little chary about reading ever since. We
collectors might just as well wait until scholars settle these
questions.
I have always liked Pope. In reading him one has the sense of progress
from idea to idea, not a mere floundering about in Arcady amid
star-stuff. When Dr. Johnson was asked what poetry is, he replied, "It
is much easier to say what it is not." He was sparring for time and
finally remarked, "If Pope is not poetry it is useless to look for it."
Years later, when I learned from Oscar Wilde that there are two ways of
disliking poetry,--one is to dislike it, and the other, to like Pope,--I
found that I was not entirely prepared to change my mind about Pope.
In 1884 I went to London for the first time, and there I fell under the
lure of Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb. After that, the deluge!
The London of 1884 was the London of Dickens. There have been greater
changes since I first wandered in the purlieus of the Strand and Holborn
than there were in the hundred years before. Dickens's London has
vanished almost as completely as the London of Johnson. One landmark
after another disappeared, until finally the County Council made one
grand sweep with Aldwych and Kingsway. But never to be forgotten are the
rambles I enjoyed with my first bookseller, Fred Hutt of Clement's Inn
Passage, subsequently of Red Lion Passage, now no more. Poor fellow!
when, early in 1914, I went to look him up, I found that he had passed
away, and his shop was being dismantled. He was the last of three
brothers, all booksellers.
From Hutt I received my first lesson in bibliography; from him I bought
my first "Christmas Carol," with "Stave 1," not "Stave One," and with
the green end-papers. I winced at the price: it was thirty shillings. I
saw one marked twenty guineas not long ago. From Hutt, too, I got a copy
of Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads," 1866, with the Moxon imprint, and
had pointed out to me the curious eccentricity of type on page 222. I
did not then take his advice and pay something over two pounds for a
copy of "Desperate Remedies." It seemed wiser to wait until the price
reached forty pounds, which I subsequently paid for it. But I did buy
from him for five shillings an autograph letter of Thomas Hardy to his
first publisher, "old Tinsley." As the details throw some light on the
subject of Hardy's first book, I reproduce the letter, from which it
will be seen that Hardy financed the publication himself.
When, thirty years ago, I picked up my Hardy letter for a few shillings,
I never supposed that the time would come when I would own the complete
manuscript of one of his most famous novels. Yet so it is. Not long
since, quite unexpectedly, the original draft of "Far from the Madding
Crowd" turned up in London. Its author, when informed of its discovery,
wrote saying that he had "supposed the manuscript had been pulped ages
ago." One page only was missing; Mr. Hardy supplied it. Then arose the
question of ownership, which was gracefully settled by sending it to the
auction-room, the proceeds of the sale to go to the British Red Cross. I
cannot say that the bookseller who bought it gave it to me exactly, but
we both agree that it is an item which does honor to any collection.
Although it is the original draft, there are very few corrections or
interlineations, the page reproduced (see next page) being fairly
representative.
[Illustration: LETTER OF THOMAS HARDY TO HIS FIRST PUBLISHER, "OLD
TINSLEY"
I paid five shillings for this letter many years ago, in London. Maggs,
in his last catalogue, prices at fifteen guineas a much less interesting
letter from Hardy to Arthur Symons, dated December 4, 1915, on the same
subject.]
Only those who are trying to complete their sets of Hardy know how
difficult it is to find "Desperate Remedies" and "Under the Greenwood
Tree" "in cloth as issued."
My love for book-collecting and my love for London have gone hand in
hand. From the first, London with its wealth of literary and historic
interest has held me; there has never been a time, not even on that
gloomy December day twenty years ago, when, with injuries subsequently
diagnosed as a "compound comminuted tibia and fibula," I was picked out
of an overturned cab and taken to St. Bartholomew's Hospital for
repairs, that I could not say with Boswell, "There is a city called
London for which I have as violent an affection as the most romantic
lover ever had for his mistress."
The book-shops of London have been the subject of many a song in prose
and verse. Every taste and pocket can be satisfied, I have ransacked the
wretched little shops to be found in the by-streets of Holborn one day,
and the next have browsed in the artificially stimulated pastures of
Grafton Street and Bond Street, and with as much delight in one as in
the other.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF HARDY'S "FAR FROM THE MADDING
CROWD," MUCH REDUCED IN SIZE]
[Illustration: BERNARD QUARITCH
"The extensive literature of catalogues is probably little known to most
readers. I do not pretend to claim a thorough acquaintance with it but I
know the luxury of reading good catalogues and such are those of Bernard
Quaritch."--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.]
I cannot say that "I was 'broke' in London in the fall of '89," for the
simple reason that I was not in London that year; but I am never
long in London without finding myself as light in heart and pocket as
Eugene Field--the result of yielding to the same temptations.
I knew the elder Quaritch well, and over a cup of tea one winter
afternoon years ago, in a cold, dingy little room filled with priceless
volumes in the old shop in Piccadilly, he confided to me his fears for
his son Alfred. This remarkable old man, who has well been called the
Napoleon of booksellers, was certain that Alfred would never be able to
carry on the business when he was gone. "He has no interest in books, he
is not willing to work hard as he will have to, to maintain the standing
I have secured as the greatest bookseller in the world." Quaritch was
very proud, and justly, of his eminence.
How little the old man knew that this son, when the time came, would
step into his father's shoes and stretch them. Alfred, when he inherited
the business, assumed his father's first name and showed all his
father's enthusiasm and shrewdness. He probably surprised himself, as he
surprised the world, by adding lustre to the name of Bernard Quaritch,
so that, when he died, the newspapers of the English-speaking world gave
the details of his life and death as matters of general interest.
The book-lovers' happy hunting-ground is the Charing Cross Road. It is a
dirty and sordid street, too new to be picturesque; but almost every
other shop on both sides of the street is a bookshop, and the patient
man is frequently rewarded by a find of peculiar interest.
One day, a few years ago, I picked up two square folio volumes of
manuscript bound in old, soft morocco, grown shabby from knocking about.
The title was "Lyford Redivivus, or A Grandame's Garrulity."
[Illustration: Title of MS. of "Lyford Redivivus"]
Examination showed me that it was a sort of dictionary of proper names.
In one volume there were countless changes and erasures; the other was
evidently a fair copy. Although there was no name in either volume to
suggest the author, it needed no second glance to see that both were
written in the clear, bold hand of Mrs. Piozzi. The price was but
trifling, and I promptly paid it and carried the volumes home. Some
months later, I was reading a little volume, "Piozziana," by Edward
Mangin,--the first book about Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi,--when, to my surprise,
my eye met the following:--
[Illustration: BERNARD ALFRED QUARITCH
"He probably surprised himself as he surprised the world by adding
lustre to the name of Bernard Quaritch."]
Early in the year 1815, I called on her [Mrs. Piozzi] then resident
in Bath, to examine a manuscript which she informed me she was
preparing for the press. After a short conversation, we sat down to
a table on which lay two manuscript volumes, one of them, the fair
copy of her work, in her own incomparably fine hand-writing. The
title was "Lyford Redivivus"; the idea being taken from a
diminutive old volume, printed in 1657, and professing to be an
alphabetical account of the names of men and women, and their
derivations. Her work was somewhat on this plan: the Christian or
first name given, Charity, for instance, followed by its etymology;
anecdotes of the eminent or obscure, who have borne the
appellation; applicable epigrams, biographical sketches, short
poetical illustrations, &c.
I read over twelve or fourteen articles and found them exceedingly
interesting; abounding in spirit, and novelty; and all supported by
quotations in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Celtic, and
Saxon. There was a learned air over all, and in every page, much
information, ably compressed, and forming what I should have
supposed, an excellent popular volume. She was now seventy-five;
and I naturally complimented her, not only on the work in question,
but on the amazing beauty and variety of her hand-writing. She
seemed gratified and desired me to mention the MS. to some London
publisher. This I afterwards did, and sent the work to one alike
distinguished for discernment and liberality, but with whom we
could not come to an agreement. I have heard no more of "Lyford
Redivivus" since, and know not in whose hands the MS. may now be.
A moment later it was in mine, and I was examining it with renewed
interest.
My secret is out. I collect, as I can, human-interest books--books with
a _provenance_, as they are called; but as I object to foreign words, I
once asked a Bryn Mawr professor, Dr. Holbrook, to give me an English
equivalent. "I should have to make one," he said. "You know the word
_whereabouts_, I suppose." I admitted that I did. "How would
_whenceabouts_ do?" I thought it good.
In recent years, presentation, or association, books have become the
rage, and the reason is plain. Every one is unique, though some are
uniquer than others. My advice to any one who may be tempted by some
volume with an inscription of the author on its fly-leaf or title-page
is, "Yield with coy submission"--and at once. While such books make
frightful inroads on one's bank account, I have regretted only my
economies, never my extravagances.
I was glancing the other day over Arnold's "Record of Books and
Letters." He paid in 1895 seventy-one dollars for a presentation Keats's
"Poems," 1817, and sold it at auction in 1901 for five hundred.[2] A few
years later I was offered a presentation copy of the work, with an
inscription to Keats's intimate friends, Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke,
for a thousand dollars, and while I was doing some preliminary financing
the book disappeared, and forever; and I have never ceased regretting
that the dedication copy of Boswell's "Life of Johnson," to Sir Joshua
Reynolds, passed into the collection of my lamented friend, Harry
Widener, rather than into my own. "I shall not pass this way again"
seems written in these volumes.
But my record is not all of defeats. The "whenceabouts" of my
presentation "Vanity Fair" is not without interest--its story is told in
Wilson's "Thackeray in the United States."
The great man took particular delight in schoolboys. When, during
his lecturing tour, he visited Philadelphia, he presented one of
these boys with a five-dollar gold-piece. The boy's mother objected
to his pocketing the coin, and Thackeray vainly endeavored to
convince her that this species of beneficence was a thing of course
in England. After a discussion the coin was returned, but three
months later the lad was made happy by the receipt of a copy of
"Vanity Fair," across the title-page of which he saw written, in a
curiously small and delicate hand, his name, Henry Reed, with W. M.
Thackeray's kind regards, April, 1856.
One day, some years ago, while strolling through Piccadilly, my
attention was attracted by a newspaper clipping posted on the window of
a bookshop, which called attention to a holograph volume of Johnson-Dodd
letters on exhibition within. I spent several hours in careful
examination of it, and, although the price asked was not inconsiderable,
it was not high in view of the unusual interest of the volume. I felt
that I must own it.
When I am going to be extravagant I always like the encouragement of my
wife, and I usually get it. I determined to talk over with her my
proposed purchase. Her prophetic instinct in this instance was against
it. She reminded me that the business outlook was not good when we left
home, and that the reports received since were anything but encouraging.
"That amount of money," she said, "may be very useful when you get
home." The advice was good; indeed, her arguments were so unanswerable
that I determined not to discuss it further, but to buy it anyhow and
say nothing. Early the next morning I went back, and to my great
disappointment found that some one more forehanded than I had secured
the treasure. My regrets for a time were keen, but on my return to this
country I found myself in the height of the 1907 panic. Securities
seemed almost worthless and actual money unobtainable; then I
congratulated my wife on her wisdom, and pointed out what a fine fellow
I had been to follow her advice.
Six months later, to my great surprise, the collection was again offered
me by a bookseller in New York at a price just fifty per cent in advance
of the price I had been asked for it in London. The man who showed it to
me was amazed when I told him just when he had bought it and where, and
the price he had paid for it. I made a guess that it was ten per cent
below the figure at which it had been offered to me. "I am prepared," I
said, "to pay you the same price I was originally asked for it in
London. You have doubtless shown it to many of your customers and have
not found them as foolish in their enthusiasm over Johnson as I am. You
have had your chance to make a big profit; why not accept a small
one?" There was some discussion; but as I saw my man weakening, my
firmness increased, and it finally ended by my handing him a check and
carrying off the treasure.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHNSON BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. PAINTED
ABOUT 1770 FOR JOHNSON'S STEPDAUGHTER, LUCY PORTER
_Engraved by Watson_]
The collection consists of original manuscripts relating to the forgery
of Dodd, twelve pieces being in Dr. Johnson's handwriting. In 1778 Dr.
William Dodd, the "unfortunate" clergyman, as he came to be called, was
condemned to death for forging the name of his pupil, Lord Chesterfield,
to a bond for forty-two hundred pounds. Through their common friend
Edmund Allen, Johnson worked hard to secure Dodd's pardon, writing
letters, petitions, and addresses, to be presented by Dodd, in his own
or his wife's name, to the King, the Queen, and other important persons,
Johnson taking every care to conceal his own part in the matter. In all
there are thirty-two manuscripts relating to the affair. They were
evidently used by Sir John Hawkins in his "Life of Johnson," but it is
doubtful whether Boswell, although he quotes them in part, ever saw the
collection.[3]
Pearson, from his shop in Pall Mall Place, issues catalogues which for
size, style, and beauty are unexcelled--they remind one more of
publications _deluxe_ than of a bookseller's catalogue. It is almost
vain to look for any item under a hundred pounds, and not infrequently
they run to several thousand. A catalogue now on my writing table tells
me of a Caxton: "Tully, His Treatises of Old Age and Friendship," one of
four known copies, at twenty-five hundred pounds; and I'd gladly pay it
did my means allow.
From Pearson I secured my holograph prayer of Dr. Johnson, of which
Birkbeck Hill says: "Having passed into the cabinet of a collector it
remains as yet unpublished." It is dated Ashbourne, September 5, 1784
(Johnson died on December 13 of that year), and reads:--
Almighty Lord and Merciful Father, to Thee be thanks, and praise
for all thy mercies, for the awakening of my mind, the continuance
of my life, the amendment of my health, and the opportunity now
granted of commemorating the death of thy Son Jesus Christ, our
Mediator and Redeemer. Enable me O Lord to repent truly of my
sins--enable me by thy Holy Spirit to lead hereafter a better life.
Strengthen my mind against useless perplexities, teach me to form
good resolutions and assist me that I may bring them to effect, and
when Thou shalt finally call me to another state, receive me to
everlasting happiness, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
Prayers in Dr. Johnson's hand are excessively rare. He wrote a large
number, modeled evidently upon the beautiful Collects--prose sonnets--of
the Church of England Prayer Book; but after publication by their first
editor, Dr. George Strahan, in 1785, most of the originals were
deposited in the Library of Pembroke College, Oxford; hence their
scarcity.
[Illustration Page of Prayer in Dr. Johnson's Autograph]
From Pearson, too, came my beautiful uncut copy of "A Journey to the
Western Islands of Scotland," with a receipt for one hundred pounds in
Johnson's handwriting on account of the copyright of the book, and, more
interesting still, a brief note to Mrs. Horneck (the mother of
Goldsmith's "Jessamy Bride"), reading: "Mr. Johnson sends Mrs. Horneck
and the young ladies his best wishes for their health and pleasure in
their journey, and hopes his Wife [Johnson's pet name for the young
lady] will keep him in her mind. Wednesday, June 13." The date completes
the story. Forster states that Goldsmith, in company with the Hornecks,
started for Paris in the middle of July, 1770. This was the dear old
Doctor's good-bye as the party was setting out.
To spend a morning with Mr. Sabin, the elder, in his shop in Bond Street
is a delight never to be forgotten. The richest and rarest volumes are
spread out before you as unaffectedly as if they were the last
best-sellers. You are never importuned to buy; on the contrary, even
when his treasures are within your reach, it is difficult to get him to
part with them. One item which you particularly want is a part of a set
held at a king's ransom; some one has the refusal of another. It is
possible to do business, but not easy.
[Illustration: JOHN KEATS'S COPY OF SPENSER'S WORKS]
His son, Frank, occasionally takes advantage of his father's absence to
part with a volume or two. He admits the necessity of selling a book
sometimes in order that he may buy another. This, I take it, accounts
for the fact that he consented to part with a copy of "The Works of
that Famous English Poet, Mr. Edmond Spenser"--the fine old folio of
1679, with the beautiful title-page. A "name on title" ordinarily does
not add to a book's value; but when that name is "John Keats" in the
poet's hand, and in addition, "Severn's gift, 1818," one is justified in
feeling elated.
John Keats! who in the realm of poetry stands next to the great
Elizabethans. It was Spenser's "Fairy Queen" which first fired his
ambition to write poetry, and his lines in imitation of Spenser are
among the first he wrote. At the time of the presentation of this
volume, Severn had recently made his acquaintance, and Keats and his
friends were steeped in Elizabethan literature. The finest edition of
the works of Spenser procurable was no doubt selected by Severn as a
gift more likely than any other to be appreciated by the poet.
Remember that books from Keats's library, which was comparatively a
small one, are at the present time practically non-existent; that among
them there could hardly have been one with a more interesting
association than this volume of Spenser. Remember too that Keats's
poem,--
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song,--
was addressed to my great-great-uncle, George Felton Mathew; and let me
refer to the fact that on my first visit to England I had spent several
days with his sister, who as a young girl had known Keats well, and it
will be realized that the possession of this treasure made my heart
thump.
Stimulated and encouraged by this purchase, I successfully angled for
one of the rarest items of the recent Browning sale, the portrait of
Tennyson reading "Maud," a drawing in pen and ink by Rossetti, with a
signed inscription on the drawing in the artist's handwriting:--
I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood.
Browning's inscription is as follows:--
Tennyson read his poem of Maud to E.B.B., R.B., Arabel and
Rossetti, on the evening of Thursday, Septr. 27, 1855, at 13 Dorset
St., Manchester Square. Rossetti made this sketch of Tennyson as he
sat reading to E.B.B., who occupied the other end of the sofa.
R.B. March 6, '74.
19 Warwick Crescent.
W. M. Rossetti and Miss Browning were also present on this famous
evening, which is vivaciously described by Mrs. Browning in an autograph
letter to Mrs. Martin inserted in the album.
One of the pleasantest things which has happened to us here is the
coming down on us of the Laureate, who, being in London for three
or four days from the Isle of Wight, spent two of them with us,
dined with us, smoked with us, opened his heart to us (and the
second bottle of port), and ended by reading "Maud" through from
end to end, and going away at half-past two in the morning. If I
had had a heart to spare, certainly he would have won mine. He is
captivating with his frankness, confidingness, and unexampled
naïveté! Think of his stopping in "Maud" every now and
then--"There's a wonderful touch! That's very tender. How beautiful
that is!" Yes, and it was wonderful, tender, beautiful, and he read
exquisitely in a voice like an organ, rather music than speech.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF TENNYSON, READING "MAUD" TO ROBERT AND MRS.
BROWNING, BY ROSSETTI]
Thus are linked indissolubly together the great Victorians: Browning,
Tennyson, Rossetti, and Mrs. Browning. It would be difficult to procure
a more interesting memento.
At 27 New Oxford Street, West, is a narrow, dingy little shop, which you
would never take to be one of the most celebrated bookshops in
London--Spencer's. How he does it, where he gets them, is his business,
and an inquiry he answers only with a smile; but the fact is, there they
are--just the books you have been looking for, presentation copies and
others, in cloth and bound. Spencer owes it to book-collectors to issue
catalogues. They would make delightful reading. He has always promised
to do it, but he, as well as we, knows that he never will.
But he is kind in another way, if kindness it is: he leaves you alone
for hours in that wonderful second-story room, subjected to temptation
almost too great to be resisted. Autograph letters, first drafts of
well-known poems, rare volumes filled with corrections and notes in the
hand of the author, are scattered about; occasionally, such an
invaluable item as the complete manuscript of "The Cricket on the
Hearth."
It was from the table in this room that I picked up one day a rough
folder of cardboard tied with red tape and labeled "Lamb." Opening it, I
found a letter from Lamb to Taylor & Hessey, "acknowledging with thanks
receit of thirty-two pounds" for the copyright of "Elias (Alas) of last
year," signed and dated, June 9, 1824. I felt that it would look well in
my presentation "Elia," in boards, uncut, and was not mistaken.
My acquaintance with Mr. Dobell I owe to a paragraph that I read many
years ago in Labouchere's "Truth." One day this caught my eye:--
From the catalogue of a West End Bookseller I note this: "Garrick,
David. 'Love in the Suds. A Town Eclogue,' first edition. 1772.
Very rare. 5 guineas." The next post brought me a catalogue from
Bertram Dobell, the well-known bookseller in the Charing Cross
Road. There I read, "Garrick, David. 'Love in the Suds. A Town
Eclogue,' first edition, 1772, boards, 18 pence." The purchaser of
the former might do well to average by acquiring Mr. Dobell's copy.
Old Dobell is in a class by himself--scholar, antiquarian, poet, and
bookseller.[4] He is just the type one would expect to find in a shop on
the floor of which books are stacked in piles four or five feet high,
leaving narrow tortuous paths through which one treads one's way with
great drifts of books on either side. To reach the shelves is
practically impossible, yet out of this confusion I have picked many a
rare item.
Don't be discouraged if, on your asking for a certain volume, Mr. Dobell
gently replies, "No, sorry." That means simply that he cannot put his
mental eye on it at the moment. It, or something as interesting, will
come along. Don't hurry; and let me observe that the prices of this
eighteenth-century bookshop are of the period.
I once sought, for years, a little book of no particular value; but I
wanted it to complete a set. I had about given up all hope of securing a
copy when I finally found it in a fashionable shop on Piccadilly. It was
marked five guineas, an awful price; but I paid it and put the volume in
my pocket. That very day I stumbled across a copy in a better condition
at Dobell's, marked two and six. I bethought me of Labby's advice and
"averaged."
From Dobell came Wordsworth's copy of "Endymion"; likewise a first
edition of the old-fashioned love-story, "Henrietta Temple," by
Disraeli, inscribed, "To William Beckford with the author's
compliments," with many pages of useless notes in Beckford's hand; he
seems to have read the volumes with unnecessary care. Nor should I
forget a beautiful copy of Thomson's "Seasons," presented by Byron "To
the Hon'ble Frances Wedderburne Webster," with this signed impromptu:--
Go!--volume of the Wintry Blast,
The yellow Autumn and the virgin Spring.
Go!--ere the Summer's zephyr's past
And lend to loveliness thy lovely Wing.
The morning's mail of a busy man, marked "personal," takes a wide scope,
ranging all the way from polite requests for a loan to brief statements
that "a prompt remittance will oblige"; but at the bottom of the pile
are the welcome catalogues of the second-hand booksellers--for books, to
be interesting, must at least be second-hand. Indeed, as with notes
offered for discount, the greater the number of good indorsers the
better. In books, indorsements frequently take the form of bookplates. I
am always interested in such a note as this: "From the library of
Charles B. Foote, with his bookplate."
Auction catalogues come, too. These also must be scanned, but they lack
the element which makes the dealers' catalogues so interesting--the
prices. With prices omitted, book-auction catalogues are too
stimulating. The mind at once begins to range. Doubt takes the place of
certainty.
The arrival of a catalogue from the Sign of the Caxton Head, Mr. James
Tregaskis's shop in High Holborn, in the parish of
St.-Giles's-in-the-Fields, always suspends business in my office for
half an hour; and while I glance rapidly through its pages in search of
nuggets, I paraphrase a line out of Boswell, that "Jimmie hath a very
pretty wife." Why shouldn't a book merchant have a pretty wife? The
answer is simple: he has, nor are good-looking wives peculiar to this
generation of booksellers.
Tom Davies, it will be remembered, who, in the back parlor of his little
bookshop in Russell Street, Covent Garden, first introduced Boswell to
Johnson, had a wife who, we are told, caused the great Doctor to
interrupt himself in the Lord's Prayer at the point, "Lead us not into
temptation," and whisper to her, with waggish and gallant good humor,
"You, my dear, are the cause of this." Like causes still produce like
effects.
[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON'S CHURCH, ST. CLEMENT DANES
_From a pen-and-ink sketch by Charles G. Osgood_]
From Tregaskis I secured my "Memoirs of George Psalmanazar," 1764, an
interesting book in itself; but its chief value is the signature and
note, "Given to H. L. Thrale by Dr. Sam Johnson," I suppose about 1770.
Following Mrs. Thrale's usual practice, there are scattered through the
volume a number of notes and criticisms in her handwriting. It was
Psalmanazar, afterwards discovered to be a notorious old scamp, whose
apparent piety so impressed Dr. Johnson that he "sought" his company;
and of whom he said, "Sir, contradict Psalmanazar! I should as soon
think of contradicting a Bishop."
[Illustration: Inscription to Mrs. Thrale in Dr. Johnson's Hand]
Side by side with this volume on my shelves stands the "Historical and
Geographical Description of Formosa," a work of sheer imagination if
ever there was one.
My "Haunch of Venison," 1776, in wrappers, uncut, with the rare portrait
of Goldsmith drawn by Bunbury (he married Goldsmith's Little Comedy, it
will be remembered), also came from him, as did my "London, A poem in
imitation of the third Satire of Juvenal," and the first edition of the
first book on London, Stow's "Survay," 1598.
From another source came one of the last books on London, "Our House."
This book, delightful in itself, is especially interesting to me by
reason of the personal inscription of its charming and witty writer: "To
A.E.N., a welcome visitor to 'Our House,' from Elizabeth Robins
Pennell."
Continuing along Holborn citywards, one comes to (and usually passes)
the Great Turnstile, a narrow court leading into Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Here is another bookshop that I frequent,--Hollings's,--not for the
rarest things, but for the choice little bits which seem almost
commonplace when you are buying them, and give so much pleasure when you
get them safely on your shelves at home. I never spend a few hours with
Mr. Redway, the manager, without thinking of the saying of one of our
most delightful essayists, Augustine Birrell, who, to our loss, seems to
have forsaken literature for politics: "Second-hand booksellers are a
race of men for whom I have the greatest respect; ... their catalogues
are the true textbooks of literature."
One sometimes has the pleasure of running across some reference in a
catalogue to a book of which one has a better or more interesting copy
at half the price. For example, I saw quoted in a catalogue the other
day at eighty pounds a "Set of the Life of the Prince Consort, in _five_
volumes, with an inscription in each volume in the autograph of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria. The first volume being published before Her
Majesty was proclaimed Empress of India, she signed as Queen; the other
four volumes Her Majesty signed as Queen-Empress."
In my collection there are _seven_ volumes, the five mentioned above and
two additional volumes, the "Speeches and Addresses" and the "Biography
of the Prince Consort." My copies also are signed, but note: the volume
of "Speeches and Addresses" has this intensely personal inscription:--
To Major General, the Hon. A. Gordon, in recollection of his great, &
good master from the beloved Prince's broken hearted Widow
VICTORIA R.
OSBORNE
_Jan: 12. 1863_.
The "Biography" has this:--
To Major General, The Hon. Alexander Gordon, C.B. in recollection
of his dear Master from the great Prince's affectionate and
sorrowing Widow,
VICTORIA R.
_April, 1867._
Volume one of the "Life" is inscribed:--
To Lieutenant General, The Hon. Sir Alexander Gordon, K.C.B., in
recollection of his dear Master, from
VICTORIA R.
_January 1875_.
Volume two:--
To Lieut. General, The Hon. Sir Alexander Hamilton Gordon, K.C.B.,
from
VICTORIA R.
_Dec. 1876_.
Volume three:--
To General, The Hon. Sir Alex. H. Gordon, K.C.B., from
VICTORIA R.I.
_Dec. 1877_.
The inscriptions in the last three volumes are identical, except for the
dates. All are written in the large, flowing hand with which we are
familiar, and indicate a declining scale of grief. Time heals all
wounds, and as these volumes appear at intervals, grief is finally
assuaged and Majesty asserts itself.
[Illustration: Inscription to General Sir A. Gordon in Queen Victoria's
Hand]
II
BOOK-COLLECTING AT HOME
In the preceding chapter I wrote of the amenities of book-collecting in
London, of my adventures in the shops of Bond Street and Piccadilly, of
Holborn and the Strand--almost as though this paradise of the
book-collector were his only happy hunting-ground. But all the good
hunting is not found in London: New York has a number of attractive
shops, Philadelphia at least two, while there are several in Chicago and
in unexpected places in the West.
Where in all the world will you find so free a buyer, always ready to
take a chance to turn a volume at a profit, as George D. Smith? He holds
the record for having paid the highest price ever paid for a book at
auction: fifty thousand dollars for a copy of the Gutenberg Bible,
purchased for Mr. Henry E. Huntington at the Hoe sale; and not only did
he pay the highest price--he also bought more than any other purchaser
of the fine books disposed of at that sale.
I have heard Smith's rivals complain that he is not a bookseller in the
proper sense of the word--that he buys without discretion and without
exact knowledge. Such criticism, I take it, is simply the natural result
of jealousy. George D. Smith has sold more fine books than perhaps any
two of his rivals.
[Illustration: GEORGE D. SMITH
"G. D. S." as he is known in the New York Auction Rooms. Like "G. B. S."
of London, he is something of an enigma. What are the qualities which
have made him, as he undoubtedly is, the greatest bookseller in the
world?
_From a photograph by Arnold Genthe_]
There is no affectation of dignity or of knowledge about him, and it is
well that there is not. No one knows all there is to know about books; a
man might know much more than he--such men there are--and yet lack the
qualities which have enabled him to secure and retain the confidence and
commissions of his patrons. He is practically the main support of the
auction-rooms in this country, and I have frequently seen him leave a
sale at which he had purchased every important book that came up. He had
knowledge and confidence enough for that, and I cannot see why his
frankness and lack of affectation should be counted against him. It
takes all kinds of men to make a world, and George is several kinds in
himself.
Twenty-five years ago, in London, early in my book-collecting days, I
came across a bundle of dusty volumes in an old book-shop in the
Strand,--the shop and that part of the Strand have long since
disappeared,--and bought the lot for, as I remember, two guineas.
Subsequently, upon going through the contents carefully, I found that I
had acquired what appeared to be quite a valuable little parcel. There
were the following:--
"Tales from Shakespeare": Baldwin and Cradock, fifth edition, 1831.
Lamb's "Prose Works": 3 volumes, Moxon, 1836.
"The Letters of Charles Lamb": 2 volumes, Moxon, 1837; with the
inscription, "To J. P. Collier, Esq. from his friend H. C.
Robinson."
Talfourd's "Final Memorials of Charles Lamb": 2 volumes, Moxon,
1848.
By the way, the last was Wordsworth's copy, with his signature on the
title-page of each volume; and I observed for the first time that the
book was dedicated to him. Loosely inserted in several of the volumes
were newspaper clippings, a number of pages of manuscript in John Payne
Collier's handwriting, a part of a letter from Mary Lamb addressed to
Jane Collier, his mother, and in several of the volumes were notes in
Collier's handwriting referring to matters in the text: as where,
against a reference to Lamb's "Essay on Roast Pig," Collier says, in
pencil, "My mother sent the pig to Lamb." Again, where Talfourd,
referring to an evening with Lamb, says, "We mounted to the top story
and were soon seated beside a cheerful fire: hot water and its better
adjuncts were soon before us," Collier writes, "Both Lamb and Talfourd
died of the 'Better Adjuncts.'"
There was a large number of such pencil notes. The pages of manuscript
in Collier's heavy and, as he calls it, "infirm" hand begin:--
In relation to C. Lamb and Southey, Mr. Cosens possesses as
interesting a MS. as I know. It is bound as a small quarto, but the
writing of Lamb, and chiefly by Southey is post 8vo. They seem to
have been contributions to an "Annual Anthology" published by
Cottle of Bristol.
The MS. begins with an "Advertisement" in the handwriting of
Southey, and it is followed immediately by a poem in Lamb's
handwriting headed "Elegy on a Quid of Tobacco," in ten stanzas
rhiming alternately thus:--
It lay before me on the close grazed grass
Beside my path, an old tobacco quid:
And shall I by the mute adviser pass
Without one serious thought? now Heaven forbid![5]
The next day, Collier copied more of the poem, for on another sheet he
remarks, "As my hand is steadier to-day I have copied the remaining
stanzas."
On still another sheet, referring to the Cosens MS., Collier writes:--
The whole consists of about sixty leaves chiefly in the handwriting
of Southey and it contains ... productions by Lamb, one a sort of
_jeu d'esprit_ called "The Rhedycinian Barbers" on the
hair-dressing of twelve young men of Christ Church College, and the
other headed, "Dirge for Him Who Shall Deserve It." This has no
signature but the whole is in Lamb's clear young hand, and it shows
very plainly that he partook not only of the poetical but of the
political feeling of the time.
The signatures are various, Erthuryo, Ryalto, Walter, and so forth,
and at the end are four Love Elegies and a serious poem by Charles
Lamb, entitled, "Living without God in the World."
How many of these were printed elsewhere, or in Cottle's
"Anthology," I do not know. I would willingly copy more did not my
hand fail me.
J. P. C.
[Illustration: Autograph MS. of Lamb's Poem, "Elegy on a Quid of
Tobacco"]
Twenty years later, in New York one day, George D. Smith asked me if I
would care to buy an interesting volume of Southey MSS., and to my great
surprise handed me the identical little quarto which Collier had many
years before found so interesting that he had made excerpts from it. It
might not have made such instant appeal to my recollection of my
purchase in London had it not been for an inserted note, almost
identical with the one on the loose slip in my Lamb volume, obviously in
Collier's "infirm" hand, repeating briefly what he had said on the loose
sheets in my volumes at home.
Mr. Cosens, the former owner of the manuscripts, had added a note: "In
1798 or 1799 Charles Lamb contributed to the 'Annual Anthology' which a
Mr. Cottle, a bookseller of Bristol, published jointly with Coleridge
and Southey. This manuscript is partly in the handwriting of Southey and
was formerly the property of Cottle of Bristol."
Upon investigation I ascertained that the little volume of manuscript
verse had passed from Mr. Cosens's possession into that of Augustin
Daly, at whose sale it had been catalogued as a Southey MS., with small
reference to its Lamb interest. Although the price was high, the
temptation to buy was too strong to be resisted; so after many years the
small quarto of original poems by Lamb, Southey, and others, and
Collier's description of it, stand side by side in my library. For me
the three poems by Lamb outweigh in interest and value all others. The
volume is labeled, "Southey Manuscripts, a long time since the property
of a Mr. Cottle of Bristol."
The most scholarly bookseller in this country to-day is Dr.
Rosenbach--"Rosy" as we who know him well call him. It was not his
original intention to deal in rare books, but to become a professor of
English, a calling for which few have a finer appreciation; but mere
scholars abound. He must have felt that we collectors needed some one to
guide our tastes and deplete our bank accounts. In both he is unequaled.
His spacious second-floor room in Walnut Street is filled with the
rarest volumes. "Ask and it shall be given you"--with a bill at the end
of the month. It is a delightful place to spend a rainy morning, and you
are certain to depart a wiser if a poorer man. I once spent some hours
with the doctor in company with my friend Tinker--not the great Tinker
who plays ball for a bank president's wage, but the less famous Tinker,
Professor of English at Yale. We had been looking at Shakespeare folios
and quartos, and Spenser's and Herrick's and Milton's priceless volumes
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when, looking out of the
window, Rosy remarked, "There goes John G. Johnson." "Oh!" said my
friend, "I thought you were going to say John Dryden. It would not have
surprised me in the least."
[Illustration: DR. A. S. W. ROSENBACH
_Photograph by Arnold Genthe_]
Don't expect ever to "discover" anything at Rosenbach's, except how
ignorant you are. Rosy does all the discovering himself, as when, a few
years ago, he found in a volume of old pamphlets a copy of the first
edition of Dr. Johnson's famous "Prologue Spoken at the Opening of the
Theatre in Drury Lane." It will be remembered that this Prologue
contains several of the Doctor's most famous lines: criticisms of the
stage, as true to-day as when they were uttered; as where he says,--
The Drama's Laws, the Drama's patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live.
It has also the line in which, speaking of Shakespeare, he says, "And
panting Time toil'd after him in vain." Garrick having criticized this
line, Johnson remarked, "Sir, Garrick is a prosaical rogue. The next
time I write I will make both Time and Space pant."
The discovery by Dr. Rosenbach of this Prologue shows that the days of
romance in book-hunting are not over. It is not to be found in the
British Museum. So far as we know, it is the only copy in existence.
Rosy has declined to sell it, though tempting offers have been made, for
he is a booklover as well as a bookseller.
That he is a rare judge of human nature, too, is evidenced by a little
card over his desk on which is printed the text,--
"It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his
way then he boasteth."--PROVERBS XX. 14.
That is exactly what I did when I secured from him my "Robinson Crusoe,"
the first edition in two volumes, with the third, which may not be
Defoe's. It lacks one "point" perhaps: the word "apply," the last word
on page 1 of the preface, is correctly spelled, not spelled "apyly," as
in some copies I have seen. The matter, I believe, is not clear. The
type may have been correctly set at first and have become corrupted in
process of printing, or a few copies may have been so printed before the
error, being noted, was corrected.[6] After page 304, of Volume 1, the
paper is of thinner and poorer quality than in the pages preceding it.
The three volumes are clean, the binding contemporary calf, the folding
maps immaculate, and the first two volumes were once the property of
"Mr. William Congreve." Altogether it is a book of which this collector
"boasteth."
For some unexplained reason I have never been able to buy as many books
from Walter Hill of Chicago as I should like. He is one of the most
amiable and reliable men in the business. His catalogues issued from
time to time are delightful. He once put me under an obligation which I
have not yet repaid and which I want to record.
Several years ago I met him in the streets of Philadelphia and said to
him, "Hello! what are you doing here? Are you buying or selling?"
"Both," said he; "I bought some nice books only a few minutes ago at
Sessler's."
"Don't tell me," I cried, "that 'Oliver Twist,' that presentation copy
to Macready, was among them."
"It was," said he; "why, did you want it?"
"Want it!" said I; "I have just been waiting for my bank account to
recover from a capital operation, to buy it."
[Illustration: Title of "Robinson Crusoe." First Edition]
"All right," said he, "I'll turn it over at just what I paid for it, and
you can send me your check when you are ready."
I was mean enough to accept his offer, and the book is to-day worth at
least twice what I paid.
Yet, come to think of it, several nice volumes, "collated and perfect,"
came from him. There is my "Vicar," not the first edition, with the
misprints in volume 2, page 159, paged 165; and page 95, "Waekcfield"
for "Wakefield,"--that came from North,--but the one with Rowlandson
plates. And "Evelina," _embellished with engravings_, and wretchedly
printed on vile paper; and "She Stoops to Conquer," with all the errors
just as they should be--a printer's carnival; and I have no doubt there
are many more.
Sessler has some unexpectedly fine things from time to time. He goes
abroad every year with his pocket full of money, and comes back with a
lot of things that quickly empty ours. Dickens is one of his
specialties, and from him I have secured at least five of the twenty-one
presentation Dickenses that I boast of. A few years ago quite a number
came on the market at prices which to-day seem very low. In my last
book-hunting experience in London I saw only one presentation Dickens;
but as the price was about three times what I had accustomed myself to
pay Sessler, I let it pass.
[Illustration: Title of "Oliver Twist"]
Sessler studies his customer's weaknesses--that's where his strength
lies. When I came back from Europe some years ago, I discovered that he
had bought for me, in my absence, at the Lambert sale, one item which
he knew I could not resist. It was a little pen-and-ink drawing by
Thackeray, the first sketch, afterwards more fully elaborated,
illustrating "Vanity Fair," where, at the end of the first chapter, the
immortal Becky, driving away from Miss Pinkerton's school, throws Dr.
Johnson's "Dixonary" out of the window of the carriage as it drives off.
I think that all who knew him will agree with me that Luther S.
Livingston was too much of a gentleman, too much of a scholar,--perhaps
I should add, too much of an invalid,--to take high rank as a
bookseller.
His knowledge was profound. He was an appreciative bibliographer,
witness the work he did on Lamb for Mr. J. A. Spoor of Chicago; but I
always felt a trifle embarrassed when I asked him the _price_ of
anything he had to sell; one could ask him anything else, but to offer
money to Livingston seemed rather like offering money to your host after
an excellent dinner.
[Illustration: BECKY SHARP THROWING DR. JOHNSON'S "DIXONARY" OUT OF THE
CARRIAGE WINDOW, AS SHE LEAVES MISS PINKERTON'S SCHOOL
_From the first pen-and-ink sketch, by Thackeray, afterwards
elaborated_]
He enjoyed the love and respect of all book-collectors and we all
congratulated him when he graduated from the bookshop to the library.
For many years in charge of the rare-book department of Dodd, Mead &
Company, and subsequently a partner of Robert Dodd, he was the first
custodian of the choice collection of books formed by the late Harry
Elkins Widener and bequeathed by the latter's mother to Harvard. A more
admirable selection could not have been made. A scholar and a
gentleman, he brought to that position just the qualities needed for a
post of such distinction, but, unhappily, he lived hardly long enough to
take possession of it. He died at Christmas, 1914, after a long and
painful illness.
James F. Drake, in New York, specializes in association books and in
first editions of nineteenth-century authors. His stock I have
frequently laid under contribution. My Surtees and many other
colored-plate books came from him, and first editions innumerable of
authors now becoming "collected."
I know of no bibliography of George Moore, but my set is, I think,
complete. Many are presentation copies. George Moore's many admirers
will remember that his volume, "Memoirs of My Dead Life," is much sought
in the first English edition. I have the proof sheets of the entire
volume, showing many corrections, as in the specimen on page 50. My
"Literature at Nurse,"--a pamphlet attacking the censorship of the novel
established by Mudie,--which was published at threepence, and now
commands forty dollars, is inscribed to Willie Wilde; while "Pagan
Poems" was a suitable gift "To Oscar Wilde with the author's
compliments."
[Illustration: Specimen Proof-Sheet of George Moore's "Memoirs of My
Dead Life"]
There is no halt in the constantly advancing value of first editions of
Oscar Wilde. That interest in the man still continues, is evidenced by
the steady stream of books about him. Ransome's "Oscar Wilde,"
immediately suppressed; "Oscar Wilde Three Times Tried," and "The
First Stone," privately printed by the "Unspeakable Scot," already
difficult to procure, are among the latest.
[Illustration: Title of George Moore's "Pagan Poems"]
For books of the moment, published in small editions which almost
immediately become scarce, Drake's shop in Fortieth Street is
headquarters; and as my club in New York is near by, I find myself
frequently dropping in for a book and a bit of gossip.
There are drawbacks as well as compensations to living in the country.
"Gossip about Book Collecting" has its charms, as William Loring Andrews
has taught us. It is sometimes difficult to get it, living as I do
"twelve miles from a lemon"; and so, when I am in New York and have
absorbed what I can at Drake's, who is very exact in the information he
imparts, I usually call on Gabriel Wells. How Wells receives you with
open arms and a good cigar, in his lofty rooms on the Avenue
overlooking the Library, is known to most collectors. Books in sets
are,--perhaps I should say, were,--his specialty; recently he has gone
in for very choice items, which, when offered, must be secured, or
anguish is one's portion thereafter. My last interview with him resulted
in my separating myself from a bunch of Liberty Bonds, which I had
intended as a solace for my old age; but a few words from Wells
convinced me that Dr. Johnson was right when he said, "It is better to
live rich than die rich"; and so I walked away with a copy of Blake's
"Marriage of Heaven and Hell," which is about as rare a book as one can
hope to find at the end of a busy day.
It was, if I remember correctly, Ernest Dressel North who first aroused
my interest in Lamb, bibliographically. I had learned to love him in a
dumpy little green cloth volume, "Elia and Eliana," published by Moxon,
which I had picked up at Leary's, and which bears upon its title-page
the glaring inaccuracy,--"The Only Complete Edition." I have this
worthless little volume among my first editions; to me it is one, and it
is certainly the last volume of Lamb I would part with.
It must be all of thirty years ago that I went to London with a list of
books by and about Charles Lamb--some twenty volumes in all--which North
had prepared for me. I came across this list not long ago, and was
amused at the prices that he suggested I might safely pay. Guineas where
his list gives shillings would not to-day separate the books from
their owners.
[Illustration: Title of Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell"]
It was at this time, too, that I made my first Lamb pilgrimage, going to
every place of interest I could find, from Christ's Hospital, then in
Newgate Street, where I saw the Blue-Coat boys at dinner, to the
neglected grave in Edmonton Churchyard, where Charles and Mary Lamb lie
buried side by side. The illustration facing page 54 is made from a
negative I procured in 1890, of the house at Enfield in which Lamb lived
from October, 1829, until May, 1833.
A good story is told of my friend, Edmund D. Brooks, the bookseller of
far-off Minneapolis. Brooks, who knows his way about London and is as
much at home with the talent there as any other man, set out one day to
make a "quick turn," in stock-market parlance. Armed with a large sum of
money, the sinews of book-buying as well as of war, he casually dropped
in on Walter Spencer, who was offering for sale the manuscript of
Dickens's "Cricket." The price was known to be pretty steep, but Brooks
was prepared to pay it. What he did not know was that, in an upper room
over Spencer's shop, another bookseller, also with a large sum in
pocket, was debating the price of this very item, raising his offer by
slow degrees. But it did not take Brooks long to discover that
negotiations were progressing and that quick action was necessary.
Calling Spencer aside, he inquired the price, paid the money, and took
the invaluable manuscript away in a taxi. The whole transaction had
occupied only a couple of minutes. Spencer then returned to his first
customer, who continued the attack until, to close the argument, Spencer
quietly remarked that the manuscript had been sold, paid for, and had
passed out of his possession.
It reminds one of the story of how the late A. J. Cassatt, the master
mind of the railroad presidents of his time, bought the Philadelphia,
Wilmington & Baltimore Railway right under the nose of President Garrett
of the Baltimore & Ohio. There were loud cries of anguish from the
defeated parties on both occasions, but the book-selling story is not
over yet, for a few hours later Sabin, the bookseller _de luxe_, had the
Dickens manuscript displayed in his shop-window in Bond Street, and
Brooks had a sheaf of crisp Bank of England notes in his pocket, with
which to advance negotiations in other directions.
I take little or no interest in bindings; I want the book as originally
published, in boards uncut, in old sheep, or in cloth, and as clean and
fair as may be.
I am not without a sense for color, and the backs of books bound in
various colored leathers, suitably gilt, placed with some eye for
arrangement on the shelves, are to me as beautiful and suggestive as any
picture; yet, as one cannot have everything, I yield the beauty and
fragrance of leather for the fascination of the "original state as
issued."
[Illustration: CHARLES LAMB'S HOUSE AT ENFIELD]
Nor am I unmindful how invariably in binding a book, in trimming, be it
ever so little, and gilding its edges, one lops off no small part of
its value. This fact should be pointed out to all young collectors. They
should learn to let their books alone, and if they must patronize a
binder, have slip-cases or pull-cases made. They serve every purpose.
The book will be protected if it is falling apart and unpresentable, and
one's craving for color and gilt will be satisfied. As Eckel says in his
"Bibliography of Dickens," "The tendency of the modern collector has
steadily moved toward books in their original state,--books as they were
when created,--and it is doubtful if there will be much deviation from
this taste in the future."
Only the very immature book-buyer will deprive himself of the pleasure
of "collecting," and buy a complete set of some author he much esteems,
in first editions, assembled and bound without care or thought other
than to produce a piece of merchandise and sell it for as much as it
will fetch. The rich and ignorant buyer should be made to confine his
attention to the purchase of "subscription" books. These are produced in
quantity especially for his benefit, and he should leave our books
alone. The present combination of many rich men and relatively few fine
books is slowly working my ruin; I know it is. We live in a law-full
age, an age in which it seems to be every one's idea to pass laws. I
would have a law for the protection of old books, and our legislators in
Washington might do much worse than consider this suggestion.
[Illustration: INSCRIPTION IN A COPY OF "THE NIGGER OF THE 'NARCISSUS'"]
One other form of book the collector should be warned against--the
extra-illustrated volume. The extra-illustration of a favorite author is
a tedious and expensive method of wasting money, and mutilating other
books the while. I confess to having a few, but I have bought them at a
very small part of what they cost to produce, and I do not encourage
their production.
I know something of the art of inlaying prints. I had a distinguished
and venerable teacher, the late Ferdinand J. Dreer of Philadelphia, who
formed a priceless collection of autographs, which at his death he
bequeathed to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Mr. Dreer was a
collector of the old school. He was a friend of John Allan, one of the
earliest book-collectors in this country, of whom a "Memorial" was
published by the Bradford Club in 1864. Mr. Dreer spent the leisure of
years and a small fortune in inlaying plates and pages of text of such
books as he fancied. I remember well as a lad being allowed to pore over
his sumptuous extra-illustrated books, filled with autograph letters,
portraits, and views, for hours at a time. Little did I think that these
volumes, the object of such loving care, would be sold at auction.
Many years after his death the family decided to dispose of a portion of
his library. Stan. Henkels conducted the sale. When the well-known
volumes came up, I was all in a tremble. It seemed hardly possible that
any of the famous Dreer books were to come within my grasp. But alas!
fashions change, as I have said before. A "History of the Bank of North
America," our oldest national bank, which enjoys the unique distinction
of not calling itself a national bank, went, not to an officer or
director of that sound old Philadelphia institution, but to George D.
Smith of New York, for a song--in a high key, but a song nevertheless.
An "Oration in Carpenter's Hall" in Philadelphia brought close to a
thousand dollars; but, in addition to the rare portraits and views,
there were fifty-seven autograph letters in it. Sold separately, they
would have brought several times as much. Smith was the buyer. Then
there came a "History of Christ Church," full of most interesting
material, as "old Christ Church" is the most beautiful and interesting
colonial church in America. Where was the rector, where were the wardens
and the vestry thereof? No sign of them. Smith was the buyer.
The books were going and for almost nothing, in every case to "Smith."
At last came the "Memoirs of Nicholas Biddle," of the famous old Bank of
the United States. Hear! ye Biddles, if any Biddles there be. There are,
in plenty, but not here. Smith, having bought all the rest, stopped when
he saw me bidding; the hammer fell, and I was the owner of the most
interesting volume in the whole Dreer collection,--the volume I had so
often coveted as a boy, with the letters and portraits of Penn,
Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, and so forth,--in all
twenty-eight of them, and mine for ten dollars apiece, book, portraits,
and binding thrown in. It is painful to witness the slaughter of
another's possessions; it makes one wonder--But that is not what we
collect books for.
In the last analysis pretty much everything, including poetry, is
merchandise, and every important book sooner or later turns up in the
auction rooms. The dozen or fifty men present represent the bookbuyers
of the world--you are buying against them. When you sell a book at
auction the whole world is your market. This refers, of course, only to
important sales. At other times books are frequently disposed of at much
less than their real value. These sales it pays the book-collector to
attend, personally, if he can; or, better still, to entrust his bid to
the auctioneer or to some representative in whom he has confidence. Most
profitable of all for the buyer are the sales where furniture, pictures,
and rugs are disposed of, with, finally, a few books knocked down by one
who knows nothing of their value.
Many are the volumes in my library which have been picked up on such
occasions for a very few dollars, and which are worth infinitely more
than I paid for them. I have in mind my copy of the first edition of
Boswell's "Corsica," in fine old calf, with the inscription "To the
Right Honourable, the Earl Marischal of Scotland, as a mark of sincere
regard and affection, from the Author, James Boswell." This stands me
only a few dollars. In London I should have been asked--and would have
paid--twenty pounds for it.
Some men haunt the auction rooms all the time. I do not. I have a living
to make and I am not quick in making it; moreover, the spirit of
competition invariably leads me astray, and I never come away without
finding myself the owner of at least one book, usually a large one,
which should properly be entitled, "What Will He Do With It?"
* * * * *
No book-collector should be without a book-plate, and a book-plate once
inserted in a volume should never be removed. When the plate is that of
a good collector, it constitutes an indorsement, and adds a certain
interest and value to the volume.
I was once going through the collection of a friend, and observing the
absence of a book-plate, I asked him why it was. He replied, "The
selection of a book-plate is such a serious matter." It is; and I should
never have been able to get one to suit me entirely had not my good
friend, Osgood of Princeton, come to my rescue.
[Illustration: The book-plate illustrates an incident described in
Boswell. Johnson and Goldsmith were walking one day in the Poets' Corner
of Westminster Abbey. Looking at the graves, Johnson solemnly repeated a
line from a Latin poet, which might be freely translated, "Perchance
some day our _names_ will mingle with these." As they strolled home
through the Strand, Goldsmith's eye lighted upon the heads of two
traitors rotting on the spikes over Temple Bar. Remembering that Johnson
and he were rather Jacobitic in sentiment, pointing to the heads and
giving Johnson's quotation a twist, Goldsmith remarked, "Perhaps some
day our _heads_ will mingle with those."]
He was working in my library some years ago on an exquisite appreciation
of Johnson, when, noticing on my writing-table a pen-and-ink sketch, he
asked, "What's this?" I replied with a sigh that it was a suggestion for
a book-plate which I had just received from London. I had described in a
letter exactly what I wanted--an association plate strictly in
eighteenth-century style. Fleet Street was to be indicated, with Temple
Bar in the background. It was to be plain and dignified in treatment.
What came was indeed a sketch of Fleet Street and very much more.
There were scrolls and flourishes, eggs and darts and _fleurs-de-lis_--a
little of everything. In a word it was impossible. "Let me see what I
can do," said Osgood.
When I returned home that evening there was waiting for me an exquisite
pencil sketch, every detail faultless: Fleet Street with its tavern
signs, in the background Temple Bar with Johnson and Goldsmith, the
latter pointing to it and remarking slyly, "_Forsitan et nomen nostrum
miscebitur istis_." I was delighted, as I had reason to be. In due
course, after discussions as to the selection of a suitable motto, we
finally agreed on a line out of Boswell: "Sir, the biographical part of
literature is what I love most"; and the sketch went off to Sidney Smith
of Boston, the distinguished book-plate engraver.
I have a fondness for college professors. I must have inherited it from
a rich old uncle, from whom I unluckily inherited nothing else, who had
a similar weakness for preachers. Let a man, however stupid, once get a
license to wear his collar backwards, and the door was flung wide and
the table spread. I have often thought what an ecstasy of delight he
would have been thrown into had he met a churchman whose rank permitted
him to wear his entire ecclesiastical panoply backwards.
My weakness for scholars is just such a whimsy. As a rule they are not
so indulgent to collectors as they should be. They write books that we
buy and read--when we can. My lifelong friend, Felix Schelling (in
England he would be Sir Felix) is more lenient than most. My copy of his
"Elizabethan Drama," which has made him famous among students, is uncut
and, I am afraid, to some extent unopened. Frankly, it is too scholarly
to read with enjoyment. Indeed, I sometimes think that it was my protest
that led him to adopt the easier and smoother style apparent in his
later books, "English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare,"
and "The English Lyric." Be this as it may, he has shown that he can use
the scholarly and the familiar style with equal facility; and when he
chooses, he can turn a compliment like one of his own sixteenth-century
courtiers.
I had always doubted that famous book-index story, "Mill, J. S., 'On
Liberty'; Ditto, 'On the Floss,'" until one day my friend Tinker sent me
a dedication copy of his "Dr. Johnson and Fanny Burney," in which I
read--and knew that he was poking fun at me for my bookish
weakness--this:--
This copy is a genuine specimen of the first edition, uncut and
unopened, signed and certified by the editor.
CHAUNCEY BREWSTER TINKER.
No copy is now known to exist of the suppressed first state of the
first edition--that in which, instead of the present entry in the
index, under Pope, Alexander, page 111, occurred the words, "Pope
Alexander 111."
How much more valuable this copy would have been if this
blunder--"point," the judicious would call it--had not been corrected
until the second edition!
The work of my office was interrupted one summer morning several years
ago by the receipt of a cable from London, apparently in code, which, I
was advised, would not translate. Upon its being submitted to me I found
that it did not require translating, but I was not surprised that it was
somewhat bewildering to others. It read, "_Johnson Piazza Dictionary
Pounds Forty Hut_." To me it was perfectly clear that Mrs.
Thrale-Piozzi's copy of Johnson's Dictionary in two volumes folio was to
be had from my friend Hutt for forty pounds. I dispatched the money and
in due course received the volumes. Inserted in one of them was a long
holograph letter to the Thrales, giving them some excellent advice on
the management of their affairs.
I think it very probably in your power to lay up eight thousand
pounds a year for every year to come, increasing all the time, what
needs not be increased, the splendour of all external appearance,
and surely such a state is not to be put in yearly hazard for the
pleasure of keeping the house full, or the ambition of outbrewing
Whitbread. Stop now and you are safe--stop a few years and you may
go safely on thereafter, if to go on shall seem worth the while.
Johnson's letters, like his talks, are compact with wisdom, and many of
them are as easy as the proverbial old shoe. Fancy Sam Johnson, the
great lexicographer, writing to Mrs. Thrale and telling her to come home
and take care of him and, as he says, to
Come with a whoop, come with a call,
Come with a good will, or come not at all.
I own thirty or forty Johnson letters, including the one in which he
describes what she called his "menagerie"--dependents too old, too poor,
or too peevish to find asylum elsewhere. He writes, "We have tolerable
concord at home, but no love. Williams hates everybody. Levet hates
Desmoulines, and does not love Williams. Desmoulines hates them both.
Poll loves none of them."
But I must be careful. I had firmly resolved not to say anything which
would lead any one to suspect that I am Johnson-mad, but I admit that
such is the case. I am never without a copy of Boswell. What edition?
Any edition. I have them all--the first in boards uncut, for my personal
satisfaction; an extra-illustrated copy of the same, for display;
Birkbeck Hill's, for reference, and the cheap old Bohn copy which thirty
years ago I first read, because I know it by heart. Yes, I can truly say
with Leslie Stephen, "My enjoyment of books began and will end with
Boswell's 'Life of Johnson.'"
+-----------------------------------------------+
| "Thou fool! to seek companions in a crowd! |
| Into thy room and there upon thy knees, |
| Before thy bookshelves, humbly thank thy God, |
| That thou hast friends like these!" |
+-----------------------------------------------+
III
OLD CATALOGUES AND NEW PRICES
The true book-lover is usually loath to destroy an old book-catalogue.
It would not be easy to give a reason for this, unless it is that no
sooner has he done so than he has occasion to refer to it. Such
catalogues reach me by almost every mail, and I while away many hours in
turning over their leaves. Anatole France in his charming story, "The
Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard," makes his dear old book-collector say,
"There is no reading more easy, more fascinating, and more delightful
than that of a catalogue"; and it is so, for the most part; but some
catalogues annoy me exceedingly: those which contain long lists of books
that are not books; genealogies; county (and especially town) histories,
illustrated with portraits; obsolete medical and scientific books; books
on agriculture and diseases of the horse. How it is that any one can
make a living by vending such merchandise is beyond me--but so are most
things.
Living, however, in the country, and going to town every day, I spend
much time on the trains, and must have something to read besides
newspapers,--who was it who said that reading newspapers is a nervous
habit?--and it is not always convenient to carry a book; so I usually
have a few catalogues which I mark industriously, thus presenting a fine
imitation of a busy man. One check means a book that I own, and I note
with interest the prices; another, a book that I would like to have;
while yet another indicates a book to which under no circumstances would
I give a place on my shelves. When my library calls for a ridding up,
these slim pamphlets are not discarded as they should be, but are stored
in a closet, to be referred to when needed, until at last something must
be done to make room for those that came to-day and those that will come
to-morrow.
On one of these occasional house-clearings I came across a bundle of old
catalogues which I have never had it in me to destroy. One of them was
published in 1886, by a man I knew well years ago, Charles Hutt, of
Clement's Inn Gateway, Strand. Hutt himself has long since passed away;
so has his shop, the Gateway; and, indeed, the Strand itself--his part
of it, that is. I sometimes think that the best part of old London has
disappeared. Need I say that I refer to Holywell Street and the Clare
Market district which lay between the Strand and Lincoln's Inn Fields,
which Dickens knew and described so well? Hutt in his day was a man of
considerable importance. He was the first London bookseller to realize
the direction and value of the American market. Had he lived, my friends
Sabin and Spencer and Maggs would have had a serious rival.
All the old catalogues before me are alike in one important respect,
namely, the uniformly low prices. From the standpoint of to-day the
prices were absurdly low--or are those of to-day absurdly high? I, for
one, do not think so. When a man puts pen to paper on the subject of the
prices of rare books, he feels--at least I feel--that it is a silly
thing to do,--and yet we collectors have been doing it always, or almost
always,--to point out that prices have about reached top notch, and that
the wise man will wait for the inevitable decline before he separates
himself from his money.
Now, it is my belief that books, in spite of the high prices that they
are bringing in the shops and at auction, have only just begun their
advance, and that there is no limit to the prices they will bring as
time goes on. The only way to guess the future is to study the past; and
such study as I have been able to make leads me to believe that for the
really great books the sky is the limit.
"The really great books!" What are they, and where are they? I am not
sure that I know; they do not often come my way, nor, when they do, am I
in a position to compete for them; but as I can be perfectly happy
without an ocean-going yacht, contenting myself with a motor-boat, so
can I make shift to get along without a Gutenberg Bible, without a first
folio of Shakespeare, or any of the quartos, in short, _sans_ any of
those books which no millionaire's library can be without. But this I
will say, that if I could afford to buy them, I would pay any price for
the privilege of owning them.
A man may be possessed of relatively small means and yet indulge
himself in all the joys of collecting, if he will deny himself other
things not so important to his happiness. It is a problem in selection,
as Elia points out in his essay "Old China," when a weighing for and
against and a wearing of old clothes is recommended by his sister
Bridget, if the twelve or sixteen shillings saved is to enable one to
bring home in triumph an old folio. As a book-collector, Lamb would not
take high rank; but he was a true book-lover, and the books he liked to
read he liked to buy. And just here I may be permitted to record how I
came across a little poem, in the manuscript of the author, which
exactly voices his sentiments--and mine.
I was visiting Princeton not long ago, that beautiful little city, with
its lovely halls and towers; and interested in libraries as I always am,
had secured permission to browse at will among the collections formed by
the late Laurence Hutton. After an inspection of his "Portraits in
Plaster,"--a collection of death-masks, unique in this country or
elsewhere,--I turned my attention to his association books. It is a
difficult lot to classify, and not of overwhelming interest; not to be
compared with the Richard Waln Meirs collection of Cruikshank, which has
just been bequeathed to the Library; but nothing which is a book is
entirely alien to me, and the Hutton books, with their inscriptions from
their authors, testifying to their regard for him and to his love of
books, are well worth examination.
I had opened many volumes at random, and finally chanced upon Brander
Matthews's "Ballads of Books," a little anthology of bookish poems, for
many years a favorite of mine. Turning to the inscription, I found--what
I found; but what interested me particularly was a letter from an
English admirer, one Thomas Hutchinson, inclosing some verses, of which
I made a copy without the permission of any one. I did not ask the
librarian, for he might have referred the question to the trustees, or
something; but I did turn to a speaking likeness of "Larry" that hung
right over the bookcase and seemed to say, "Why, sure, fellow
book-lover; pass on the torch, print anything you please." And these are
the verses:--
BALLADE OF A POOR BOOK-LOVER
I
Though in its stern vagaries Fate
A poor book-lover me decreed,
Perchance mine is a happy state--
The books I buy I like to read:
To me dear friends they are indeed,
But, howe'er enviously I sigh,
Of others take I little heed--
The books I read I like to buy.
II
My depth of purse is not so great
Nor yet my bibliophilic greed,
That merely buying doth elate:
The books I buy I like to read:
Still e'en when dawdling in a mead,
Beneath a cloudless summer sky,
By bank of Thames, or Tyne, or Tweed,
The books I read--I like to buy.
III
Some books tho' tooled in style ornate,
Yet worms upon their contents feed,
Some men about their bindings prate--
The books I buy I like to read:
Yet some day may my fancy breed
My ruin--it may now be nigh--
They reap, we know, who sow the seed:
The books I read I like to buy.
ENVOY
Tho' frequently to stall I speed,
The books I buy I like to read;
Yet wealth to me will never hie--
The books I read I like to buy.
Two things there are which go to make the price of a book--first the
book itself, its scarcity, together with the urgency of the demand for
it (a book may be unique and yet practically valueless, because of the
fact that no one much cares to have it); and second, the plentifulness
of money, or the ease with which its owner may have acquired his
fortune. No one will suppose that, at the famous auction in London
something over a hundred years ago, when Earl Spencer bid two thousand,
two hundred and fifty pounds for the famous Boccaccio, and the Marquis
of Blandford added, imperturbedly, "ten," and secured the prize--no one
will suppose that either of the gentlemen had a scanty rent-roll.
In England, the days of the great private libraries are over. For
generations, indeed for centuries, the English have had the leisure, the
inclination, and the means to gratify their taste. They once searched
the Continent for books and works of art, very much as we now go to
England for them. They formed their libraries when books were plentiful
and prices low. Moreover, there were fewer collectors than there are
to-day. We are paying big prices,--the English never sell except at a
profit,--but, all things considered, we are not paying more for the
books than they are worth. There are probably now in England as many
collectors as there ever were, but nevertheless the books are coming to
this country; and while we may never be able to rival the treasures of
the British Museum and the Bodleian, outside the great public libraries
the important collections are now in this country, and will remain here.
And I am not sure how much longer the London dealers are going to retain
their preëminence. We hear of New York becoming the centre of the
financial world. It will in time become the centre of the bookselling
world as well, the best market in which to buy and in which to sell.
With the possible exception of Quaritch, George D. Smith has probably
sold as many rare books as any man in the world; while Dr. Rosenbach, on
the second floor of his shop in Philadelphia, has a stock of rare books
unequaled by any other dealer in this country.
Ask any expert where the great books are, and you will be told, if you
do not know already, of the wonders of Mr. Morgan's collections; of how
Mr. Huntington has bought one library after another until he has
practically everything obtainable; of Mr. William K. Bixby's
manuscripts, of Mr. White's collection of the Elizabethans, and of Mr.
Folger's Shakespeares.
There are as many tastes as there are collectors. Caxtons and incunabula
of any sort are highly regarded; even the possession of a set of the
Shakespeare folios makes a man a marked man, in spite of the fact that
Henrietta Bartlett says they are not rare; but then, Miss Bartlett has
been browsing on books rarer still, namely, the first quartos, of which
there are of "Hamlet" two copies only, one in this country with a
title-page, but lacking the last leaf, while the other copy, in the
British Museum, has the last leaf but lacks the title-page; and "Venus
and Adonis," of the first eight editions of which only thirteen copies
are known to exist. All of these are as yet in England, except one copy
of the second edition, which is owned by the Elizabethan Club of Yale
University. Of "Titus Andronicus" there is only one copy of the first
printing, this in the library of H. C. Folger of New York. Surely no one
will dispute Miss Bartlett's statement that the quartos are rare indeed.
[Illustration: HENRY E. HUNTINGTON OF NEW YORK
A few years ago he conceived the idea of forming the greatest private
library in the world. With the help of "G. D. S." and assisted by a
staff of able librarians, he has accomplished what he set out to do.]
But why continue? Enough has been said: the point I want to make is that
fifty years from now someone will be regretting that he was not present
when a faultless first folio could have been had for the trifling sum of
twenty-five thousand dollars, at which figure a dealer is now offering
one. Or, glancing over a copy of "Book Prices Current" for 1918, bewail
the time when presentation copies of Dickens could have been had for
the trifling sum of a thousand dollars. Hush! I feel the spirit of
prophecy upon me.
I sat with Harry Widener at Anderson's auction rooms a few years ago, on
the evening when George D. Smith, acting for Mr. Huntington, paid fifty
thousand dollars for a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. No book had ever
sold for so great a price, yet I feel sure that Mr. Huntington secured a
bargain, and I told him so; but for the average collector such great
books as these are mere names, as far above the ordinary man as the
moon; and the wise among us never cry for them; we content ourselves
with--something else.
In collecting, as in everything else, experience is the best teacher.
Before we can gain our footing we must make our mistakes and have them
pointed out to us, or, by reading, discover them for ourselves. I have a
confession to make. Forty years ago I thought that I had the makings of
a numismatist in me, and was for a time diligent in collecting coins. In
order that they might be readily fastened to a panel covered with
velvet, I pierced each one with a small hole, and was much chagrined
when I was told that I had absolutely ruined the lot, which was worth,
perhaps, ten dollars. This was not a high price to pay for the discovery
I then made and noted, that it is the height of wisdom to leave alone
anything of value which may come my way; to repair, inlay, insert,
mount, frame, or bind as little as possible.
This is not to suggest that my library is entirely devoid of books in
bindings. A few specimens of the good binders I have, but what I value
most is a sound bit of straight-grained crimson morocco covering the
"Poems of Mr. Gray" with one of the finest examples of fore-edge
painting I have ever seen, representing Stoke Poges Church Yard, the
scene of the immortal "Elegy." I was much pleased when I discovered that
this binding bore the stamp of Taylor & Hessey, a name I had always
associated with first editions of Charles Lamb.
How many people have clipped signatures from old letters and documents,
under the mistaken notion that they were collecting autographs. I happen
to own the receipt for the copyright of the "Essays of Elia." It was
signed by Lamb twice, originally; one signature has been cut away. It is
a precious possession as it is, but I could wish that the "collector" in
whose hands it once was had not removed one signature for his
"scrapbook"--properly so called. Nor is the race yet dead of those who,
indulging a vicious taste for subscription books, think that they are
forming a library. My coins I have kept as an ever-present reminder of
the mistake of my early days. Luckily I escaped the subscription-book
stage.
[Illustration: STOKE POGES CHURCH
A fine example of fore-edge painting]
What we collect depends as well upon our taste as upon our means, for,
given zeal and intelligence, it is surprising how soon one acquires a
collection of--whatever it may be--which becomes a source of
relaxation and instruction; and after a little one becomes, if not
exactly expert, at least wise enough to escape obvious pitfalls. When
experience directs our efforts the chief danger is past. But how much
there is to know! I never leave the company of a man like Dr. Rosenbach,
or A. J. Bowden, or the late Luther Livingston, without feeling a sense
of hopelessness coming over me. What wonderful memories these men have!
how many minute "points" about books they must have indexed, so to
speak, in their minds! And there are collectors whose knowledge is
equally bewildering. Mr. White, or Beverly Chew, for example; and Harry
Widener, who, had he lived, would have set a new and, I fear, hopeless
standard for us.
Not knowing much myself, I have found it wise not to try to beat the
expert; it is like trying to beat Wall Street--it cannot be done. How
can an outsider with the corner of his mind compete with one who is
playing the game ever and always? The answer is simple--he can't; and he
will do well not to try. It is better to confess ignorance and rely upon
the word of a reliable dealer, than to endeavor to put one over on him.
This method may enable a novice to buy a good horse, although such has
not been my experience. I think it was Trollope who remarked that not
even a bishop could sell a horse without forgetting that he was a
bishop. I think I would rather trust a bookseller than a bishop.
And speaking of booksellers, they should be regarded as Hamlet did his
players, as the abstract and brief chronicles of the time; and it would
be well to remember that their ill report of you while you live is much
worse than a bad epitaph after you are dead. Their stock in trade
consists, not only in the books they have for sale, but in their
knowledge. This may be at your disposal, if you use them after your own
honor and dignity; but to live, they must sell books at a profit, and
the delightful talk about books which you so much enjoy must, at least
occasionally, result in a sale. Go to them for information as a possible
customer, and you will find them, as Dr. Johnson said, generous and
liberal-minded men; but use them solely as walking encyclopædias, and
you may come to grief.
I have on the shelves over yonder a set of Foxe's "Martyrs" in three
ponderous volumes, which I seldom have occasion to refer to; but in one
volume is pasted a clipping from an old newspaper, telling a story of
the elder Quaritch. A young lady once entered his shop in Piccadilly and
requested to see the great man. She wanted to know all that is to be
known of this once famous book, all about editions and prices and
"points," of which there are many. Finally, after he had answered
questions readily enough for some time, the old man became wise, and
remarked, "Now, my dear, if you want to know anything else about this
book, my fee will be five guineas." The transaction was at an end. Had
Quaritch been a lawyer and the young lady a stranger, her first question
would have resulted in a request for a retainer.
But I am a long time in coming to my old catalogues. Let me take one at
random, and opening it at the first page, pick out the first item which
meets my eye. Here it is:--
ALKEN, HENRY--Analysis of the Hunting Field. Woodcuts and colored
illustrations. First edition, royal 8vo. original cloth, uncut.
Ackerman, 1846. £2.
It was the last work but one of a man who is now "collected" by many
who, like myself, would as soon think of riding a zebra as a hunter. My
copy cost me $100, while my "Life of Mytton," third edition, I regarded
as a bargain at $50. Had I been wise enough to buy it five and thirty
years ago, I would have paid about as many shillings for it.
With sporting books in mind it is quite natural to turn to Surtees. His
"Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities" is missing from this catalogue, but
here are a lot of them. "Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour" in full levant
morocco, extra, by Tout, for three guineas, and "Ask Mamma" in cloth,
uncut, for £2 15_s._ "Handley Cross" is priced at fifty shillings, and
"Facey Romford's Hounds" at two pounds--all first editions, mind you,
and for the most part just as you want them, in the original cloth,
uncut. My advice would be to forget these prices of yesteryear, and if
you want a set of the best sporting novels ever written (I know a
charming woman who has read every one of them) go at once to them that
sell.
But while we are thinking of colored-plate books, let us see what it
would have cost us to secure a copy of À Beckett's "Comic History of
Rome." Here it is, "complete in numbers as originally published," four
guineas; while a "Comic History of England," two volumes, bound by
Riviere from the original parts, in full red levant morocco, extra, cost
five guineas. I have tried to read these histories--it cannot be done.
It is like reading the not very funny book of an old-time comic opera
(always excepting Gilbert's), which depended for its success on the
music and the acting--as these books depend on their illustrations by
Leech. It is on account of the humor of their wonderfully caricatured
portraits of historic personages, in anachronistic surroundings, that
these books live and deserve to live. What could be better than the
landing of Julius Cæsar on the shores of Albion, from the deck of a
channel steamer of Leech's own time?
Did you observe that the "History of Rome" was bound up from the
original parts? This, according to modern notions, is a mistake. Parts
should be left alone--severely alone, I should say. I have no love for
books "in parts," and as this is admitted heresy, I should perhaps
explain. As is well known, some of the most desired of modern books,
"Pickwick" and "Vanity Fair" for example, were so published, and
particulars as to one will indicate the reason for my prejudice against
all books "in parts."
In April, 1916, in New York, the Coggeshall Dickens collection was
dispersed, and a copy of "Pickwick" in parts was advertised, no doubt
correctly, as the most nearly perfect copy ever offered at a public
sale. Two full pages of the catalogue were taken up in a painstaking
description of the birthmarks of this famous book. It was, like most of
the other great novels, brought out "twenty parts in nineteen,"--that
is, the last number was a double number,--and with a page of the
original manuscript, it brought $5350. When a novel published less than
a century ago brings such a price, it must be of extraordinary interest
and rarity. Was the price high? Decidedly not! There are said to be not
ten such copies in existence. It was in superb condition, and manuscript
pages of "Pickwick" do not grow on trees. All the details which go to
make up a perfect set can be found in Eckel's "First Editions of Charles
Dickens."
Briefly, in order to take high rank it is necessary that each part
should be clean and perfect and should have the correct imprint and
date; it should have the proper number of illustrations by the right
artist; and these plates must be original and not reëtched, and almost
every plate has certain peculiarities which will mislead the unwary. But
this is not all. Each part carried certain announcements and
advertisements. These must be carefully looked to, for they are of the
utmost value in determining whether it be an early or a later issue of
the first edition. An advertisement of "Rowland and Son's Toilet
Preparations" where "Simpson's Pills" should be, might lead to painful
discussion.
But it is difficult to say whether the possession of a copy of
"Pickwick" like the Coggeshall copy is an asset or a liability. It must
be handled with gloves; the pea-green paper wrappers are very tender,
and not everyone who insists on seeing your treasures knows how to treat
such a pamphlet; and, horror of horrors! a "part" might get stacked up
with a pile of "Outlooks" on the library table, or get mislaid
altogether. So on the whole I am inclined to leave such books to those
whose knowledge of bibliography is more exact than mine, and who would
not regard the loss of a "part" as an irretrievable disaster. My
preference is to get, when I can, books bound in cloth or boards "as
issued." They are sufficiently expensive and can be handled with greater
freedom. My library is, in a sense, a circulating library: my books move
around with me, and a bound book, in some measure at least, takes care
of itself. Having said all of which, I looked upon that Coggeshall
"Pickwick," and lusted after it.
There is, however, an even greater copy awaiting a purchaser at
Rosenbach's. It is a presentation copy in parts, the only one known to
exist. Each of the first fourteen parts has Dickens's autograph
inscription, "Mary Hogarth from hers most affectionately," variously
signed--in full, "Charles Dickens," with initials, or "The Editor."
After the publication of the fourteenth part Miss Hogarth, his
sister-in-law, a young girl in her eighteenth year, died suddenly, and
the shock of her death was so great that Dickens was obliged to
discontinue work upon "Pickwick" for two months. No doubt this is the
finest "Pickwick" in the world. It has all the "points" and to
spare--and the price, well, only a very rich or a very wise man could
buy it.
[Illustration: "Blake being unable to find a publisher for his songs,
Mrs. Blake went out with half a crown, all the money they had in the
world, and of that laid out 1s. 10d. on the simple materials necessary
for setting in practice the new revelation. Upon that investment of 1s.
10d. he started what was to prove a principal means of support through
his future life.... The poet and his wife did everything in making the
book,--writing, designing, printing, engraving, everything except
manufacturing the paper. The very ink, or color rather, they did
make."--GILCHRIST.]
But to return to my catalogue. Here is Pierce Egan's "Boxiana," five
volumes, 8vo, as clean as new, in the original boards, uncut,--that's my
style,--and the price, twelve pounds; three hundred and fifty dollars
would be a fair price to-day. And here is the "Anecdotes of the Life and
Transactions of Mrs. Margaret Rudd," a notorious woman who just escaped
hanging for forgery, of whom Dr. Johnson once said that he would have
gone to see her, but that he was prevented from such a frolic by his
fear that it would get into the newspapers. I have been looking for it
in vain for years; here it is, in new calf, price nine shillings, and
Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," first edition, in contemporary calf, for
thirty.
Let us turn to poetry. Arnold, Matthew, not interesting; nothing, it
chances, by Blake; his "Poetical Sketches," 1783, has always been
excessively rare, only a dozen or so copies are known, and "Songs of
Innocence and of Experience," while not so scarce, is much more desired.
This lovely book was originally "Songs of Innocence" only; "Experience"
came later, as it always does. Of all the books I know, this is the most
interesting. It is in very deed "W. Blake, his book," the author being
as well the designer, engraver, printer, and illuminator of it.
To attempt in a paragraph any bibliographical account of the "Songs" is
as impossible as to give the genealogy of a fairy. In the ordinary
sense the book was never published. Blake sold it to such of his friends
as would buy, at prices ranging from thirty shillings to two guineas.
Later, to help him over a difficulty (and his life was full of
difficulties), they paid him perhaps as much as twenty pounds and in
return got a copy glowing with colors and gold. Hence no two copies are
exactly alike. It is one of the few books of which a man fortunate
enough to own any copy may say, "I like mine best." The price to-day for
an average copy is about two thousand dollars.
I can see clearly now that in order to be up to date there must be a new
edition of this book every minute. I had just suggested $2000 as the
probable price of the "Songs" when a priced copy of the Linnell
Catalogue of his Blake Collection reached me. This, the last and
greatest Blake collection in England, was sold at auction on March 15,
1918, and accustomed as I am to high prices I was bewildered as I turned
its pages. There were two copies of the "Songs"; each brought £735. The
"Poetical Sketches" was conspicuous by its absence, while the "Marriage
of Heaven and Hell" was knocked down for £756. The drawings for Dante's
"Divina Commedia," sixty-eight in all, brought the amazing price of
£7665. And these prices will be materially advanced before the
booksellers are done with them, as we shall see when their catalogues
arrive. We come back to earth with a thud after this lofty flight, in
the course of which we seem to have been seeing visions and dreaming
dreams, much as Blake himself did.
[Illustration: "A LEAF FROM AN UNOPENED VOLUME"
An unpublished manuscript in the autograph of Charlotte Brontë, written
in microscopical characters on sixteen pages measuring 3-1/2 by 4-1/2
inches; in a wrapper of druggist's blue paper]
Continuing to "beat the track of the alphabet," we reach Brontë and note
that now scarce item, "Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell," the
genuine first edition printed by Hasler in 1846, for Aylott & Jones,
before the title-page bore the Smith-Elder imprint; price two pounds
five. Walter Hill's last catalogue has a Smith-Elder copy at $12.50, but
the right imprint now makes a difference of several hundred dollars.
About a year ago Edmund D. Brooks, of Minneapolis, was offering
Charlotte Brontë's own copy of the book, with the Aylott and Jones
imprint, with some manuscript notes which made it especially interesting
to Brontë collectors, the most important of whom, by the way, is my
lifelong friend, H. H. Bonnell of Philadelphia, whose unrivaled Brontë
collection is not unworthy of an honored place in the Brontë Museum at
Haworth. I called his attention to it, but he already had a presentation
copy to Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-Law rhymer.
Burns: the first Edinburgh edition, for a song; no Kilmarnock
edition--that fine old item which every collector wants has always been
excessively scarce; and in this connection let me disinter a good story
of how one collector secured a copy. The story is told of John Allan,
from whom, as a collector, I am descended by the process of clasping
hands. My old friend, Ferdinand Dreer, for more than sixty years a
distinguished collector in Philadelphia, was an intimate friend of
Allan's, and passed on to me the collecting legends he had received from
him. Allan was an old Scotchman, living in New York when the story
begins, who by his industry had acquired a small fortune, much of which
he spent in the purchase of books. He collected the books of his period
and extra-illustrated them. Lives of Mary Queen of Scots, and Byron;
Dibdin, of course, and Americana; but Burns was his ruling passion. He
had the first Edinburgh edition, and longed for the Kilmarnock--as who
does not? He had a standing order for a copy up to seven guineas, which
in those days was considered a fair price, and finally one was reported
to him from London at eight. He ordered it out, but it was sold before
his letter arrived, and he was greatly disappointed. Some time afterward
a friend from the old country visited him, and as he was sailing, asked
if he could do anything for him at home. "Yes," said Allan, "get me, if
you possibly can, the Kilmarnock edition of Burns." His friend was
instructed as to its scarcity and the price he might have to pay for it.
On his return his friend, engaged as usual in his affairs, discovered
that one of his workmen was drunk. In those days it was not considered
good form to get drunk except on Saturday night. How could he get drunk
in the middle of the week? Where did he get the money? The answer was
that by pawning some books ten shillings had been raised. "And what
books had you?" "Oh, Burns and some others; every Scotchman has a copy
of Burns." Then, suddenly remembering his old friend in New York, he
asked, "What sort of a copy was it?" "The old Kilmarnock," was the
reply. Not to make the story too long, the pawn-ticket was secured for a
guinea, the books redeemed, and the Kilmarnock Burns passed into Allan's
possession.
[Illustration: Title of the Kilmarnock Edition of Burns's Poems]
After his death his books were sold at auction (1864). This was during
our Civil War, and several times the sale was suspended owing to the
noise of a passing regiment in the street. Notwithstanding that times
were not propitious for book-sales, his friends were astonished at the
prices realized: the Burns fetched $106. It was probably a poor copy. A
generation or two ago not as much care was paid to condition as now.
Very few uncut copies are known. One is owned by a man as shouldn't.
Another is in the Burns Museum in Ayrshire, which cost the Museum
Trustees a thousand pounds; the Canfield, which was purchased by Harry
Widener for six thousand dollars, and the Van Antwerp copy, which, at
the sale of his collection in London in 1907, brought seven hundred
pounds; but much bibliographical water has gone over the dam since 1907,
and for some reason the Van Antwerp books, with the exception of one or
two items, did not bring as good prices as they should have done. They
were sold at an unfortunate moment and perhaps at the wrong place. In
Walter Hill's current catalogue there is a Kilmarnock Burns, in an old
binding, which looks very cheap to me at $2600. At the Allan sale an
Eliot Bible brought the then enormous sum of $825. Supposing an Eliot
Bible were obtainable to-day, it would bring, no doubt, five thousand
dollars, perhaps more.
This is a long digression. There are other desired volumes besides
Burns. Here is a "Paradise Lost," perhaps not so fine a copy as Sabin is
now offering for four hundred pounds; but the price is only thirty
pounds; and this reminds me that in Beverly Chew's copy, an
exceptionally fine one, as all the books of that fastidious collector
are, there is an interesting note made by a former owner to this effect:
"This is the first edition of this book and has the first title-page. It
is worth nearly ten pounds and is rising in value. 1857."
Alphabetically speaking, it is only a step from Milton to Moore, George.
Here is his "Flowers of Passion," for which I paid fifteen dollars ten
or more years ago--priced at half a crown.
But let us take up another catalogue, one which issued from the
world-famous shop in Piccadilly, Quaritch's. Forty years ago Quaritch
thought it almost beneath his dignity as a bookseller to offer for sale
any except the very rarest books in English; very much as, up to within
the last few years, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge did not
think it worth their while to refer more than casually to the glories of
English literature. When we open an old Quaritch catalogue, we step out
of this age into another, which leads me to observe how remarkable is
the change in taste which has come over the collecting world in the
last fifty years. Formerly it was the fashion to collect extensively
books of which few among us now know anything: books in learned or
painful languages, on Philosophy or Religion, as well as those which,
for the want of a better name, we call "Classics"; books frequently
spoken of, but seldom read.
Such books, unless very valuable indeed, no longer find ready buyers. We
have come into our great inheritance. We now dip deep in our "well of
English undefyled"; Aldines and Elzevirs have gone out of fashion. Even
one of the rarest of them, "Le Pastissier François," is not greatly
desired; and I take it that the reason for this change is chiefly due to
the difference in the type of men who are prominent among the buyers of
fine books to-day. Formerly the collector was a man, not necessarily
with a liberal education, but with an education entirely different from
that which the best educated among us now receive. I doubt if there are
in this country to-day half a dozen important bookbuyers who can read
Latin with ease, let alone Greek. Of French, German, and Italian some of
us have a working knowledge, but most of us prefer to buy books which we
can enjoy without constant reference to a dictionary.
The world is the college of the book-collector of to-day. Many of us are
busy men of affairs, familiar, it may be, with the price of oil, or
steel, or copper, or coal, or cotton, or, it may be, with the price of
the "shares" of all of these and more. Books are our relaxation. We make
it a rule not to buy what we cannot read. Some of us indulge the vain
hope that time will bring us leisure to acquaint ourselves fully with
the contents of all our books. We want books written in our own tongue,
and most of us have some pet author or group of authors, or period, it
may be, in which we love to lose ourselves and forget the cares of the
present. One man may have a collection of Pope, another of Goldsmith,
another of Lamb, and so on. The drama has its votaries who are never
seen in a theatre; but look into their libraries and you will find
everything, from "Ralph Roister Doister" to the "Importance of Being
Earnest." And note that these collections are formed by men who are not
students in the accepted sense of the word, but who, in the course of
years, have accumulated an immense amount of learning. Clarence S.
Bement is a fine example of the collector of to-day, a man of large
affairs with the tastes and learning of a scholar. It has always seemed
to me that professors of literature and collectors do not intermingle as
they should. They might learn much from each other. I yield to no
professor in my passion for English literature. My knowledge is
deficient and inexact, but what I lack in learning I make up in love.
But we are neglecting the Quaritch catalogue. Let us open it at random,
as old people used to open their Bibles, and govern their conduct by the
first text which met their eyes. Here we are: "Grammatica Graeca,"
Milan, 1476; the first edition of the first book printed in Greek; one
of six known copies. So it is possible for only six busy men to
recreate themselves after a hard day's work with a first Greek Grammar.
Too bad! Here is another: Macrobius, "The Saturnalia"--"a miscellany of
criticism and antiquities, full of erudition and very useful, similar in
their plan to the 'Noctes Atticæ' of Aulus Gellius." No doubt, but as
dead as counterfeit money. Here is another: Boethius, "De Consolatione
Philosophiæ." Boethius! I seem to have heard of him. Who was he? Not in
"Who's Who," obviously. Let us look elsewhere. Ah! "Famous philosopher
and official in the Court of Theodoric, born about 475 A.D., put to
death without trial about 524." They had a short way with philosophers
in those days. If William the Second to None in Germany had adopted this
method with his philosophers, the world might not now be in such a
plight.
_Note_: A college professor to whom I was in confidence showing these
notes the other day, remarked, "I suggest that you soft-pedal that
Boethius business, my boy." (How we middle-aged men love to call each
other boys; very much as young boys flatter themselves with the phrase,
"old man.") "The 'Consolation of Philosophy' was the best seller for a
thousand years or so. Boethius's reputation is not in the making, as
yours is, and when yours is made, it will in all probability not last as
long." I thought I detected a slight note of sarcasm in this, but I may
have been mistaken.
[Illustration: Fifteenth-century English manuscript on vellum, "De
Consolatione Philosophiæ." Rubricated throughout. Its chief interest is
the contemporary binding, consisting of the usual oak boards covered
with pink deerskin, let into another piece of deerskin which completely
surrounds it and terminates in a large knot. A clasp fastens the outer
cover. It was evidently intended to be worn at the girdle. The British
Museum possesses very few bindings of this character and these service
books. Lay books are of even greater rarity.]
Let us look further. Here we are: "Coryat's Crudities, hastily
gobbled up in five Moneths Trauells." Tom Coryat was a buffoon and a
beggar and a braggart, who wrote what has come to be regarded as the
first handbook on travel. Browning thought very highly of it, as I
remember, and Walter Hill is at this very minute offering his copy of
the "Crudities" for five hundred dollars. The catalogues say there are
very few perfect copies in existence, in which case I should like to
content myself with Browning's imperfect copy. I love these old books,
written by frail human beings for human beings frail as myself. Clowns
are the true philosophers, and all vagabonds are beloved, most of all,
Locke's. Don't confuse my Locke with the fellow who wrote on the "Human
Understanding," a century or two ago.
Here is the "Ship of Fools," another best seller of a bygone age. The
original work, by Sebastian Brandt, was published not long after the
invention of printing, in 1494. Edition followed edition, not only in
its original Swabian dialect, but also in Latin, French, and Dutch. In
1509 an English version,--it could hardly be called a translation,--by
Alexander Barclay, appeared from the press of Pynson--he who called
Caxton "worshipful master." For quite two hundred years it was the rage
of the reading world. In it the vices and weaknesses of all classes of
society were satirized in a manner which gave great delight; and those
who could not read were able to enjoy the fine, bold woodcuts with which
the work was embellished. No form of folly escaped. Even the mediæval
book-collector is made to say:--
Still am I busy bookes assemblynge,
For to have plentie it is a pleasaunt thynge,
In my conceyt and to have them ay in hande,
But what they mene do I not understande.
This is one of the books which can usually be found in a Quaritch
catalogue, if it can be found anywhere. At the Hoe sale a copy brought
$1825; but the average collector will make shift to get along with an
excellent reprint which was published in Edinburgh forty years or so
ago, and which can be had for a few shillings, when he chances to come
across it.
Here is a great book! The first folio of Shakespeare, the cornerstone of
every great Library. What's in a name? Did Shakespeare of Stratford
write the plays? The late Dr. Furness declined to be led into a
discussion of this point, wisely remarking, "We have the plays; what
difference does it make who wrote them?" But the question will not down.
The latest theory is that Bacon wrote the Psalms of David also, and to
disguise the fact tucked in a cryptogram, another name. If you have at
hand a King James's version of the Bible, and will turn to the
forty-sixth Psalm and count the words from the beginning to the
forty-sixth word, and will then count the words from the end until you
again come to the forty-sixth word, you may learn something to your
advantage.
But, whoever wrote them, the first folio--the plays collected by Heming
and Condell, and printed in 1623, at the charges of Isaac Iaggard, and
Ed. Blount--is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, volume in all
literature. In it not less than twenty dramas, many of which rank among
the literary masterpieces of the world, were brought together for the
first time. Is it any wonder, therefore, that the first folio of
Shakespeare, Shakespeare! "not our poet, but the world's," is so highly
regarded? The condition and location of practically every copy in the
world is known and recorded. Originally the price is supposed to have
been a guinea, and a century passed before collectors and scholars
realized that it, like its author, was not for an age, but for all time.
In 1792 a copy brought £30, and in 1818 "an original copy in a genuine
state" changed hands at £121; but what shall be said of the price it
fetches to-day?
When, a few years ago, a Philadelphia collector paid the record price of
almost twenty thousand dollars, people unlearned in the lore of books
expressed amazement that a book should bring so large a sum; but he
secured one of the finest copies in existence, known to collectors as
the Locker-Lampson copy, which had been for a short time in the
possession of William C. Van Antwerp, of New York, who, unluckily for
himself and for the book-collecting world, stopped collecting almost as
soon as he began. This splendid folio has now found a permanent resting
place in the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard. It is no doubt
inevitable that these notable books should at last come to occupy
honored niches in great mausoleums, as public libraries really are, but
I cannot escape the conviction that Edmond de Goncourt was right when he
said in his will:--
"My wish is that my drawings, my prints, my curiosities, my books--in a
word these things of art which have been the joy of my life--shall not
be consigned to the cold tomb of a museum, and subjected to the stupid
glance of the careless passer-by; but I require that they shall all be
dispersed under the hammer of the auctioneer, so that the pleasure which
the acquiring of each one of them has given me shall be given again, in
each case, to some inheritor of my own tastes."
I wish that my friends, the Pennells, had followed this course when they
gave up their London apartments in the Adelphi and disposed of their
valuable Whistler collection. But no, with characteristic generosity the
whole collection goes to the nation as a gift--the Library of Congress
at Washington is to be its resting-place. The demand for Whistler is
ever increasing with his fame which, the Pennells say, will live
forever. Those who have a lot of Whistler material smile--the value of
their collections is enhanced. Those of us who, like the writer, have to
be content with two butterflies, or at most three, sigh and turn aside.
Possession is the grave of bliss. No sooner do we own some great book
than we want another. The appetite grows by what it feeds on. The
Shakespeare folio is a book for show and to be proud of, but we want a
book to love. Here it is: Walton's "Compleat Angler," beloved by gentle
men, such as all collectors are. We welcome the peace and contentment
which it suggests, "especially," as its author says, "in such days and
times as I have laid aside business and gone a-fishing."
Therein lies the charm of this book, for those of us who are wise enough
occasionally to lay aside business and go a-fishing or a-hunting, albeit
only book-hunting; for it is the spirit of sport rather than the sport
itself that is important. Old Isaak Walton counted fishermen as honest
men. I wonder did he call them truthful? If so, there has been a sad
falling off since his day, for I seem to remember words to this effect:
"The fisherman riseth up early in the morning and disturbeth the whole
household. Mighty are his preparations. He goeth forth full of hope.
When the day is far spent, he returneth, smelling of strong drink, and
the truth is not in him."
I wish that some day I might discover an "Angler," not on the banks of a
stream, but all unsuspected on some book-stall. It is most unlikely;
those days are past. I shall never own a first "Angler." This little
book has been thumbed out of existence almost, by generations of readers
with coarse, wet hands who carried the book in their pockets or left it
lying by the river in the excitement of landing a trout. Five
impressions, all rare, were made before the author died in his
"neintyeth" year, and was buried in the South Transept of the Cathedral
of William of Wykeham.
But Walton wrote of Fishers of Men as well as of fishing. His lives of
John Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's; of Richard Hooker, the "Judicious,"
as he is usually called, when called at all; of George Herbert, and
several other men, honorable in their generation, are quaint and
charming. These lives, published originally at intervals of many years,
are not rare, nor is the volume of 1670, the first collected edition of
the Lives, unless it is a presentation copy. Such a copy sold twenty
years ago for fifteen pounds. Some years ago I paid just three times
this sum for a copy inscribed by Walton to the Lord Bishop of Oxford. I
did not then know that the Bishop of Oxford was also the famous Dr. John
Fell, the hero of the well-known epigram:--
I do not like you Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like you Dr. Fell,--
or I would willingly have paid more for it.
But I am wandering from my text. To return to the "Angler." Fifty pounds
was a fair price for a fine copy fifty years ago. George D. Smith sold a
copy a few weeks since for five thousand dollars, and the Heckscher copy
a few years ago brought thirty-nine hundred dollars; but the record
price appears to have been paid for the Van Antwerp copy, which is
generally believed to be the finest in existence. It is bound in
original sheepskin, and was formerly in the library of Frederick
Locker-Lampson. It was sold in London some ten years ago and was
purchased by Quaritch for "an American," which was a sort of _nom de
guerre_ of the late J. P. Morgan, for £1290.
[Illustration: The rare first edition, and, according to Mr. Livingston
in "The Bibliophile," the earlier issue of the two printed in that year.
A very large copy. From the Hagen collection. Said to be the finest copy
in existence. It is bound in contemporary vellum, and measures 3-1/2 ×
6-1/8 inches.]
When "Anglers" could be had for fifty pounds, "Vicars" brought ten, or
fifteen if in exceptionally fine condition, and the man who then spent
this sum for a "Vicar" chose as wisely as did the Vicar's wife her
wedding gown, "not for a fine glossy surface, but for qualities as would
wear well." These two little volumes, with the Salisbury imprint and a
required blunder or two, will soon be worth a thousand dollars. When I
paid £120 for mine some years ago, I felt that I was courting ruin,
especially when I recalled that Dr. Johnson thought rather well of
himself for having secured for Goldsmith just half this sum for the
copyright of it. Boswell's story of the sale of the manuscript of the
"Vicar of Wakefield," as Johnson related it to him, is as pretty a bit
of bibliographical history as we have. Those who know it will pardon the
intrusion of the story for the sake of the pleasure it may give others.
"I received," said Johnson, "one morning a message from poor Goldsmith
that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to
me, begged that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a
guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon
as I was drest, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his
rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had
already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass
before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm,
and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated.
He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he
produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I
should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty
pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not
without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill
... and Sir," continued Johnson, "it was a sufficient price, too, when
it was sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it
afterwards was by his 'Traveller'; and the bookseller had such faint
hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a
long time, and did not publish it till after 'The Traveller' had
appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money."
Here we have a characteristic sketch of the two men--the excitable,
amiable, and improvident Goldy, and the wise and kindly Johnson,
instantly corking the bottle and getting down to brass tacks, as we
should say.
The first edition of "Robinson Crusoe" is another favorite book with
collectors; as why should it not be? Here is a copy in two volumes
(there should be three) in red morocco, super extra, gilt edges, by
Bedford. It should be in contemporary calf, but the price was only £46.
Turning to a bookseller's catalogue published a year or two ago, there
is a copy "3 vols. 8vo. with map and 2 plates, in original calf
binding," and the price is twenty-five hundred dollars.
A note in one of Stan. Henkel's recent auction catalogues, and there are
none better, clears up a point which has always troubled me, and which I
will quote at length for the benefit of other collectors who may not
have seen it.
The supposed "points," signifying the first issues of this famous
book, are stumbling-blocks to all bibliographers.
Professor W. P. Trent, of Columbia University, undoubtedly the
foremost authority on Defoe, after extended research and the
comparison of many copies, states that he is of the opinion that
any purchaser entering Taylor's shop at the sign of the Ship, in
Pater Noster Row on April 25th, 1719 (usually taken as the date of
issue), might have been handed a copy falling under any of the
following categories:--
With "apply" in the preface, and "Pilot," on page 343, line 2.
With "apply" in the preface, and "Pilate" on page 343.
With "apyly" in the preface, and "Pilate" on page 343.
With "apyly" in the preface, and "Pilot" on page 343.
It is unquestionably wrong, in his opinion, to call any one of
these "first issue." Prof. Trent sees no reason to believe that
there was a re-issue with "apyly" corrected in the preface. Both
these mistakes were quite probably corrected while the sheets were
passing through the press, and it depends on how the sheets were
collated by the binder what category of the four given any special
copy belongs to.
This is a great relief to me, as my copy, which was once Congreve's,
while leaving nothing to be desired in the matter of condition, binding,
and plates, has the word "apply" in the preface and "pilot" on page
343; but it is perfectly clear, having in mind the spacing of the types,
that the longer word has given way to the shorter.
There is, however, another edition of "Robinson Crusoe" which, for
rarity, puts all first editions in the shade. So immediate was the
success of this wonderful romance that it was issued in a newspaper,
very much as popular novels are now run. It was published in the
"Original London Post," or "Heathcot's Intelligence," numbers from 125
to 289, October 7, 1719, to October 19, 1720. This was publication in
parts with a vengeance. Of the entire series of 165 leaves, only one is
in facsimile. I see that I have not yet said that I own this copy. There
is a copy in the British Museum, but I am told that it is very
imperfect, and I know of no other.
I was, a few evenings ago, looking over Arnold's "First Report of a
Book-Collector." I had just given an old-time year's salary for a
manuscript poem by Keats, and I was utterly bewildered by reading this:
"Only a few months after I began collecting, more than one hundred pages
of original manuscripts of Keats that were just then offered for sale
came in my way and were secured at one-fifth of their value." If the
price I paid for one page is any criterion as to the value of one
hundred pages, Mr. Arnold is by now a very rich man; and elsewhere in
his "Report" he gives a list of books sold at Sotheby's in 1896 at
prices which make one's mouth water.
Chapman's Homer, 1616, £15;
Chaucer's Works, 1542, £15 10;
"Robinson Crusoe," 1719-20, £75;
Goldsmith's "Vicar," 1766, £65;
Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," 1770, £25;
Herrick's "Hesperides," 1648, £38;
Milton's "Paradise Lost," 1667, £90.
But why continue? The point of it all is his comment: "If the beginner
is alarmed by these prices, let him remember that such are paid only for
well-known and highly prized rarities"; and remember, too, that this is
the comment of an astute collector upon the prices of only twenty years
ago.
[Illustration: First Page of a Rare Edition of "ROBINSON CRUSOE"]
It is, however, only proper to bear in mind, when referring to English
auction prices, that the "knockout" may have been, and probably was, in
operation. This time-honored and beneficent custom results in enriching
the London book-dealer at the expense of the owner or the estate whose
books are being sold. The existence of the "knockout" is pretty
generally admitted by the London dealers, but they usually couple the
admission with the statement that no reputable dealer will have anything
to do with its operations. It is always the other fellow who is in the
ring. Reduced to its simplest terms, a "knockout" consists of a clique
of men who agree that certain books (or anything else) shall be bought
at auction without competition. One book, or class of books, shall be
bought by A, B will buy another, C another, and so on. At some
convenient time or place after the books have been delivered, a second
auction is held and they are again put up. This time there is real
competition, but the profits go into a pool which is equally divided
among the members. This custom has taken such a strong hold on the trade
that it seems impossible to break it up. Should a private person bid at
a sale at which the scheme is intended to operate, he would get, either
nothing, or books at such a price as would cause him to remember the
sale to his dying day. There is nothing analogous to it in this country,
and it was to escape from its operations that it was decided to sell the
great Hoe collection at Anderson's in New York City a few years ago.
Most of the books then sold realized the highest prices ever known. Many
of the London dealers were represented,--Quaritch, Maggs, and several
others came in person,--and the sale will long be remembered in the
annals of the trade.
After the above explanation it is hardly necessary to say that "Book
Auction Records," published by Karslake in London, has no value whatever
as a guide to prices, in comparison with "American Book Prices Current,"
to the compilation of which the late Luther S. Livingston devoted so
much of his time--time which we now know should have been spent in doing
original work in bibliography.
Returning for a moment to Mr. Arnold and his contributions to
bibliography, he did the booksellers a good turn and helped collectors
justify their extravagance to their wives by publishing some years ago
"A Record of Books and Letters." Mr. Arnold devoted the leisure of six
years to forming a collection of books with perseverance and
intelligence; then he suddenly stopped and turned over to Bangs &
Company, the auctioneers, the greater part of his collection, and
awaited the result with interest. I say "with interest" advisedly, for
the result fully justified his judgment. In his "Record" he gives the
date of acquisition, together with the cost of each item, in one column,
and in another the selling price. He also states whether the item was
bought of a bookseller or a collector, or at auction. He had spent a
trifle over ten thousand dollars, and his profit almost exactly equalled
his outlay. I said his profit, but I have used the wrong word. His
profit was the pleasure he received in discovering, buying, and owning
the treasures which for a time were in his possession. The difference in
actual money between what he paid and what he received, some ten
thousand dollars, was the reward for his industry and courage in paying
what doubtless many people supposed to be extravagant prices for his
books.
[Illustration: Autograph MS. of a Poem by Keats--"To the Misses M---- at
Hastings]
[Illustration: signature]
Let us examine one only. It is certainly not a fair example, but it
happens to interest me. He had a copy of Keats's "Poems," 1817, with an
inscription in the poet's handwriting: "My dear Giovanni, I hope your
eyes will soon be well enough to read this with pleasure and ease."
There were some other inscriptions in Keats's hand, and for this
treasure Arnold paid a bookseller, in 1895, seventy-one dollars. At the
auction in 1901 it brought five hundred dollars, and it subsequently
passed into the Van Antwerp collection, finally going back to London,
where it was sold in 1907 for ninety pounds, being bought by Quaritch.
Finally it passed into the possession of the late W. H. Hagen and, at
the sale of his library, in May, 1918, was knocked down to "G.D.S." for
$1950. From him I tried to secure it, but was "too late."[7]
My copy of the Poems has, alas, no inscription, but it cost me in excess
of five hundred dollars; and a well-known collector has just paid
Rosenbach nine thousand dollars for Keats's three slender volumes, each
with inscriptions in the poet's hand. Three into nine is a simple
problem: even I can do it; but the volume of "Poems" is much rarer than
"Endymion" or "Lamia."
IV
"ASSOCIATION" BOOKS AND FIRST EDITIONS
No books have appreciated more in value than presentation or association
volumes, and the reason is not far to seek. Of any given copy there can
hardly be a duplicate. For the most part presentation copies are first
editions--_plus_. Frequently there is a note or a comment which sheds
biographical light on the author. In the slightest inscription there is
the record of a friendship by means of which we get back of the book to
the writer. And speaking of association books, every one will remember
the story that General Wolfe, in an open boat on the St. Lawrence as he
was being rowed down the stream to a point just below Quebec, recited
the lines from Gray's "Elegy,"--
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave
Await alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave,"--
adding, "I would rather be the author of that piece than have the honor
of beating the French to-morrow." When Wolfe left England he carried
with him a copy of the "Elegy," the gift of his fiancée, Miss Katherine
Lowther. He learned the poem by heart, he underscored his favorite
lines, among them the passage quoted; he filled the book with his
notes. After his death the book and a miniature of the lady were
returned to her, and only a few days ago this book, a priceless volume
of unique association interest, was offered for sale. The first man who
saw it bought it. He had never bought a fine book before, but he could
not resist this one. When I heard of the transaction I was grieved and
delighted--grieved that so wonderful a volume had escaped me, delighted
that I had not been subjected to so terrible a temptation. What was the
price of it? Only the seller and the buyer know, but I fancy some
gilt-edged securities had to be parted with.
How the prices of these books go a-soaring is shown by the continuous
advance in the price of a copy of Shelley's "Queen Mab." It is a notable
copy, referred to in Dowden's "Life of Shelley." On the fly leaf is an
inscription in Shelley's hand, "Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, from
P.B.S."; inside of the back cover Shelley has written in pencil, "You
see, Mary, I have not forgotten you"; and elsewhere in the book in
Mary's hand, we read, "This book is sacred to me, and as no other
creature shall ever look into it, I may write in it what I please. Yet
what shall I write? That I love the author beyond all powers of
expression and that I am parted from him"; and much more to the same
effect. At the Ives sale in 1891 this volume of supreme interest brought
$190; in 1897, at the Frederickson sale, it brought $615; and a year ago
a dealer sold it for $7500; and cheap at that, I say, for where will you
find another?
I have before me a copy of Stevenson's "Inland Voyage." Pamphlets aside,
which, by reason of their manner of publication, are now rare, it may be
said to be the author's first book. It has an inscription, "My dear
Cummy: If you had not taken so much trouble with me all the years of my
childhood, this little book would never have been written. Many a long
night you sat up with me when I was ill; I wish I could hope by way of
return to amuse a single evening for you with my little book! But
whatever you may think of it, I know you will continue to think kindly
of the Author." I thought, when I gave four hundred dollars for it, that
I was paying a fabulous price; but as I have since been offered twice
that sum, Rosenbach evidently let me have a bargain. He tells me that it
is good business sometimes to sell a book for less than it is worth. He
regards it as bait. He angles for you very skilfully, does Rosy, and
lands you--me--every time.
[Illustration: Autograph Inscription by Stevenson, in a Copy of his
"Inland Voyage]
"A Child's Garden of Verses" is another book which has doubled in value
two or three times in the last few years. Gabriel Wells is now offering
a copy, with a brief inscription, for three hundred dollars, having sold
me not long ago, for twice this sum, a copy in which Stevenson's writing
is mingled with the type of the title-page so that it reads:--
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
his copy of
A CHILD'S GARDEN OF
VERSES
and if it is [in] the hands of any one
else, explain it who can!
but not by the gift of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
That Stevenson afterward changed his mind and gave it to "E. F. Russell,
with hearty good will," is shown by another inscription. This copy was
purchased at the sale for the British Red Cross in London, shortly after
the outbreak of the war. It may be some time before it is worth what I
paid for it, or the price may look cheap to-morrow--who shall say?
Watching the quotations of the first editions of Stevenson is rather
like looking at the quotations of stocks you haven't got, as they
recover from a panic. A point or two a day is added to their prices; but
Stevenson's move five or ten points at a time, and there has been no
reaction--as yet. Only a year or two ago I paid Drake fifty dollars for
a copy of "The New Arabian Nights"; and a few days ago I saw in the
papers that a copy had just been sold for fifty pounds in a London
auction room.[8]
[Illustration: Title of a Unique Copy of Stevenson's "Child's Garden of
Verses"]
I cannot quite understand Stevenson's immense vogue. Perhaps it is the
rare personality of the man. Try as we may, it is impossible to separate
the personality of a man from his work. Why is one author "collected"
and another not? I do not know. Practically no one collects Scott, or
George Eliot, or Trollope; but Trollope collectors there will be, and
"The Macdermots of Ballycloran" and "The Kellys and the O'Kellys" will
bring fabulous prices some of these days--five hundred dollars each;
more, a thousand, I should say; and when you pay this sum, look well for
the errors in pagination and see that Mortimer Street is spelt Morimer
on the title-page of volume three of the former. And remember, too, that
this book is so rare that there is no copy of it in the British
Museum--at least so I am told; but you will find one on my shelves, in
the corner over there, together with everything else this great
Victorian has written--of all novelists my favorite. Trollope proved the
correctness of Johnson's remark, "A man may write at any time if he will
set himself doggedly at it." This we know Trollope did, we have his word
for it. His personality was too sane, too matter of fact, to be
attractive; but his books are delightful. One doesn't read Trollope as
Coleridge did Shakespeare--by flashes of lighting (this isn't right, but
it expresses the idea); but there is a good, steady glow emanating from
the author himself, which, once you get accustomed to it, will enable
you to see a whole group of mid-Victorian characters so perfectly that
you come to know them as well as the members of your own family, and, I
sometimes think, understand them better.
But for one collector who expresses a mild interest in Trollope, there
are a thousand who regard the brave invalid, who, little more than
twenty years ago, passed away on that lonely Samoan island in the
Pacific, as one of the greatest of the moderns, as certain of
immortality as Charles Lamb. They may be right. His little toy books and
leaflets, those which
The author and the printer
With various kinds of skill
Concocted in the Winter
At Davos on the Hill,
and elsewhere, are simply invaluable. The author and the printer were
one and the same--R. L. S., assisted, or perhaps hindered, by S. L. O.,
Mrs. Stevenson's son, then a lad. Of these Stevensons, "Penny Whistles"
is the rarest. But two copies are known. One is in a private collection
in England; the other was bought at the Borden sale in 1913 by Mrs.
Widener, for twenty-five hundred dollars, in order to complete, as far
as might be, the Stevenson collection now in the Widener Memorial
Library. It was a privately printed forerunner of "A Child's Garden of
Verses," published several years later.
It is a far cry from these bijoux to Stevenson's regularly published
volumes; but when it is remembered that these latter were printed in
fairly large editions and relatively only a few years ago, it will be
seen that no other author of yesterday fetches such high prices as
Stevenson.
In recent years there have been published a number of bibliographies
without which no collector can be expected to keep house. We are
indebted to the Grolier Club for some of the best of these. Its members
have the books and are most generous in exhibiting them, and it must
indeed be a churlish scholar who cannot freely secure access to the
collections of its members.
Aside from the three volumes entitled "Contributions to English
Bibliography," published and sold by the Club, the handbooks of the
exhibitions held from time to time are much sought, for the wealth of
information they contain. The Club's librarian, Miss Ruth S. Granniss,
working in coöperation with the members, is largely responsible for the
skill and intelligence with which these little catalogues are compiled.
The time and amount of painstaking research which enter into the making
of them is simply enormous. Indeed, no one quite understands the many
questions which arise to vex the bibliographer unless they have
attempted to make for themselves even the simplest form of catalogue.
Over the door of the room in which they work should be inscribed the
text, "Be sure your sin will find you out." Some blunders are redeemed
by the laughter they arouse. Here is a famous one:--
Shelley--Prometheus--unbound, etc.
" --Prometheus--bound in olive morocco, etc.
But for the most part the lot of the bibliographer, as Dr. Johnson said
of the dictionary-maker, is to be exposed to censure without hope of
praise.
That Oscar Wilde continues to interest the collector is proved, if proof
were necessary, by the splendid bibliography by Stuart Mason, in two
large volumes. Its editor tells us that it was the work of ten years,
which I can readily believe; and Robert Ross, Wilde's literary executor,
says in the introduction, that, in turning over the proof for ten
minutes, he learned more about Wilde's writings than Wilde himself ever
knew. It gave me some pleasure, when I first took the book up, to see
that Mason had used for his frontispiece the caricature of Wilde by
Aubrey Beardsley, the original of which now hangs on the wall near my
writing-table, together with a letter from Ross in which he says, "From
a technical point of view this drawing is interesting as showing the
artistic development of what afterwards was called his Japanese method
in the 'Salome' drawings. Here it is only in embryo, but this is the
earliest drawing I remember in which the use of dotted lines, a
peculiarity of Beardsley, can be traced."[9]
[Illustration: THE NEW BUILDING OF THE GROLIER CLUB 47 EAST SIXTIETH
ST., NEW YORK]
Another favorite bibliography is that of Dickens, by John C. Eckel. His
"First Editions of Charles Dickens" is a book which no lover of
Dickens--and who is not?--can do without. It is a book to be read, as
well as a book of reference. In it Mr. Eckel does one thing, however,
which is, from its very nature, hopeless and discouraging. He
attempts to indicate the prices at which first editions of his favorite
author can be secured at auction, or from the dealers in London and this
country. Alas, alas! while waiting to secure prizes at Eckel's prices I
have seen them soaring to figures undreamed of a few years ago. In his
chapter on "Presentation Copies," he refers to a copy of "Bleak House"
given by Dickens to Dudley Costello. "Some years ago," he says, "it sold
for $150.00. Eighteen months later the collector resold the book to the
dealer for $380.00, who made a quick turn and sold the book for ten per
cent advance, or $418.00." These figures Mr. Eckel considers
astonishing. I now own the book, but it came into my possession at a
figure considerably in excess of that named.
A copy of "American Notes," with an inscription, "Thomas Carlyle from
Charles Dickens, Nineteenth October, 1842," gives an excellent idea of
the rise in the price of a book, interesting itself and on account of
its inscription. At auction, in London, in 1902, it sold for £45. After
passing through the hands of several dealers it was purchased by W. E.
Allis, of Milwaukee; and at the sale of his books in New York, in 1912,
it was bought by George D. Smith for $1050. Smith passed the book on to
Edwin W. Coggeshall; but its history is not yet at an end, for at his
sale, on April 25, 1916, it was bought by the firm of Dutton for $1850,
and by them passed on, the story goes, to a discriminating collector in
Detroit, a man who can call all the parts of an automobile by name.
Fortunately, while this book was in full flight, I secured a copy with
an inscription, "W. C. Macready from his friend Charles Dickens,
Eighteenth October, 1842." Now, what is my copy worth?
[Illustration: Inscription to Charles Dickens, Junior, from Charles
Dickens]
Seven years ago I paid Charles Sessler nine hundred dollars for three
books: a presentation "Carol," to Tom Beard, a "Cricket," to Macready,
and a "Haunted Man," to Maclise. At the Coggeshall sale a dealer paid a
thousand dollars for a "Carol," while I gave Smith ten per cent advance
on a thousand dollars for a "Chimes," with an inscription, "Charles
Dickens, Junior, from his affectionate father, Charles Dickens." This
copy at the Allis sale had brought seven hundred and seventy-five
dollars, at which time I was prepared to pay five hundred dollars for
it.
[Illustration: AN ILLUSTRATION, "THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS," BY JOHN
LEECH, FOR DICKENS'S "CHRISTMAS CAROL"
_From the original water-color drawing_]
I always return from these all-star performances depressed in spirit and
shattered in pocket. "Where will it stop?" I say to myself. "When will
you stop?" my wife says to me. And both questions remain unanswered;
certainly not, while presentation Dickenses can be had and are lacking
from my collection. I now possess twenty-one, and it is with
presentation Dickenses as with elephants--a good many go to the dozen;
but I lack and sadly want--Shall I give a list? No, the prices are going
up fast enough without stimulation from me. Wait until my "wants" are
complete; then let joy be unconfined.
A final word on Dickens: the prices are skyrocketing because everyone
loves him. Age cannot wither nor custom stale his infinite variety. As a
great creative genius he ranks with Shakespeare. He has given pleasure
to millions; he has been translated into all the languages of Europe.
"Pickwick," it is said, stands fourth in circulation among English
printed books, being exceeded only by the Bible, Shakespeare, and the
English Prayer-Book; and the marvel is that when Dickens is spoken of,
it is difficult to arrive at an agreement as to which is his greatest
book.
But this paper is supposed to relate to prices rather than to books
themselves. Other seductive arguments having failed, one sometimes hears
a vendor of rare books add, in his most convincing manner, "And you
couldn't possibly make a better investment." The idea, I suppose, is
calculated to enable a man to meet his wife's reproachful glance, or
something worse, as he returns home with a book under his arm. But
when one is about to commit some piece of extravagance, such as buying a
book of which one already has several copies, one will grasp at any
straw, the more so as there may be some truth in the statement.
[Illustration: DEDICATION TO "THE VILLAGE COQUETTES," BY CHARLES DICKENS
_From the manuscript formerly in the Coggeshall collection, much reduced
in size_]
There are, however, so many good reasons why we should buy rare books,
that it seems a pity ever to refer to the least of them. I am not sure
that I am called on to give any judgment in the matter; but my belief is
that the one best and sufficient reason for a man to buy a book is
because he thinks he will be happier with it than without it. I always
question myself on this point, and another which presses it closely--can
I pay for it? I confess that I do not always listen so attentively for
the answer to this second question; but I try so to live as to be able
to look my bookseller in the eye and tell him where to go. I govern
myself by few rules, but this is one of them--never to allow a book to
enter my library as a creditor.
"Un livre est un ami qui ne change jamais"; I want to enjoy my friends
whenever I am with them. One would get very tired of a friend if, every
time one met him, he should suggest a touch for fifty or five hundred
dollars. On the shelves in my office are some books that are mine, some
in which there is at the moment a joint ownership, and some which will
be mine in the near future, I hope--and doubtless in this hope I am not
alone; but the books on the shelves around the room in which I write
are mine, all of them.
The advice given by "Punch" to those about to marry--"Don't"--seems,
then, to be the best advice to a man who is tempted to buy by the hope
of making a profit out of his books; but I observe that this short and
ugly word deters very few from following their inclinations in the
matter of marriage, and this advice may fall, as advice usually falls,
on deaf ears. Only when a man is safely ensconced in six feet of earth,
with several tons of enlauding granite upon his chest, is he in a
position to give advice with any certainty, and then he is silent; but
it will nevertheless be understood that I do not recommend the purchase
of rare books as an investment, and this in spite of the fact that many
collectors have made handsome profits out of the books they have sold.
While a man may do much worse with his money than buy rare books, he
cannot be certain that he can dispose of them at a profit, nor is it
necessary that he should do so. He should be satisfied to eat his cake
and have it; books selected with any judgment will almost certainly
afford this satisfaction, and of what other hobby can this be said with
the same assurance?
[Illustration: Title of Meredith's "Modern Love," with Autograph
Inscription to Swinburne]
The possession of rare books is a delight best understood by the owners
of them. They are not called upon to explain. The gentle will
understand, and the savage may be disregarded. It is the scholar whose
sword is usually brandished against collectors; and I would not have him
think that, in addition to our being ignorant of our books, we are
speculators in them also. Let him remember that we have our uses.
Unlearned men of books assume the care,
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.
It may as well be admitted that we do not buy expensive books to read.
We may say that it is a delight to us to look upon the very page on
which appeared for the first time such a sonnet as "On First Looking
into Chapman's Homer," or to read that bit of realism unsurpassed, where
Robinson Crusoe one day, about noon, discovered the print of a man's
naked foot upon the sand; but when we sit down with a copy of Keats, we
do not ask for a first edition; much less when we want to live over
again the joys of our childhood, do we pick up a copy of Defoe which
would be a find at a thousand dollars. But first editions of Keats's
Poems, 1817, in boards, with the paper label if possible, and a Defoe
unwashed, in a sound old calf binding, are good things to have. They are
indeed a joy forever, and will never pass into nothingness. I cannot see
why the possession of fine books is more reprehensible than the
possession of valuable property of any other sort.
In speaking of books as an investment, one implies first editions. First
editions are scarce; tenth editions, as Charles Lamb stutteringly
suggested, are scarcer, but there is no demand for them. Why, then,
first editions? The question is usually dodged; the truth may as well
be stated. There is a joy in mere ownership. It may be silly, or it may
be selfish; but it is a joy, akin to that of possessing land, which
seems to need no defense. We do not walk over our property every day; we
frequently do not see it; but when the fancy takes us, we love to forget
our cares and responsibilities in a ramble over our fields. In like
manner, and for the same reason, we browse with delight in a corner of
our library in which we have placed our most precious books. We should
buy our books as we buy our clothes, not only to cover our nakedness,
but to embellish us; and we should buy more books and fewer clothes.
I am told that, in proportion to our numbers and our wealth, less money
is spent on books now than was spent fifty years ago. I suppose our
growing love of sport is to some extent responsible. Golf has taken the
place of books. I know that it takes time and costs money. I do not play
the game myself, but I have a son who does. Perhaps when I am his age, I
shall feel that I can afford it. My sport is book-hunting. I look upon
it as a game, a game requiring skill, some money, and luck. The pleasure
that comes from seeing some book in a catalogue priced at two or three
times what I may have paid for a copy, is a pleasure due to vindicated
judgment. I do not wish to rush into the market and sell and secure my
profit. What is profit if I lose my book? Moreover, if one thinks of
profit rather than of books, there is an interest charge to be
considered. A book for which I paid a thousand dollars a few years ago,
no longer stands me at a thousand dollars, but at a considerably greater
sum. A man neat at figures could tell with mathematical accuracy just
the actual cost of that book down to any given minute. I neither know
nor want to know.
There is another class of collector with whom I am not in keen sympathy,
and that is the men who specialize in the first published volumes of
some given group of authors. These works are usually of relatively
little merit, but they are scarce and expensive: scarce, because
published in small editions and at first neglected; expensive, because
they are desired to complete sets of first editions. Anthony Trollope's
first two novels have a greater money value than all the rest of his
books put together--but they are hard to read. In like manner, a
sensational novel, "Desperate Remedies," by Hardy, his first venture in
fiction, is worth perhaps as much as fifty copies of his "Woodlanders,"
one of the best novels of the last half century. George Gissing, when he
was walking our streets penniless and in rags, could never have supposed
that a few years later his first novel, "Workers in the Dawn," would
sell for one hundred and fifty dollars, but it has done so. I have a
friend who has just paid this price.
Just here I would like to remark that for several years I have been
seeking, without success, a copy of the first edition of that very
remarkable book, Samuel Butler's "The Way of All Flesh." Booksellers
who jauntily advertise, "Any book got," will please make a note of this
one.
Nor do I think it necessary to have every scrap, every waif and stray,
of any author, however much I may esteem him. My collection of Johnson
is fairly complete, but I have no copy of Father Lobo's "Abyssinia." It
was an early piece of hack-work, a translation from the French, for
which Johnson received five pounds. It is not scarce; one would hardly
want to read it. It was the recollection of this book, doubtless, that
suggested the "Prince of Abissinia" to Johnson years later, when he
wanted to write "fiction," as the dear old ladies in "Cranford" called
"Rasselas"; but it has never seemed necessary to my happiness to have a
copy of "Lobo." On the other hand I have "stocked" "Rasselas" pretty
considerably, and could supply any reasonable demand. Such are the
vagaries of collectors.
[Illustration: IN A COPY OF "RASSELAS"]
Only once, I think, have I been guilty of buying a book I did not
particularly want, because of its speculative value--that was when I
stumbled across a copy of Woodrow Wilson's "Constitutional Government in
the United States" with a long inscription in its author's cursive hand.
Even in this case I think it was my imagination rather than avarice
that led me to pay a fancy price for a book which some day when I am not
"among those present" will fetch as many thousands as I paid hundreds.
In 1909, when the inscription was written, its author was a relatively
unimportant man--to-day he is known throughout the world and is in a
position to influence its destinies as no other man has ever been.
[Illustration: The constitution of the United States, like the
constitution of every living state, grows and is altered by force of
circumstances and changes in affairs. The effect of a written
constitution is only to render the growth more subtle, more studious,
more conservative, more a thing of carefully, almost unconsciously,
wrought sequences. Our statesmen must, in the midst of origination, have
the spirit of lawyers.
Woodrow Wilson
Princeton, 18 Oct., '09.
]
No paper dealing with the prices of books would be complete without the
remark that condition is everything. Any rare book is immensely more
valuable if in very fine condition. Imagine for a moment a book worth,
say, six hundred dollars in good condition,--for example, the "Vicar of
Wakefield,"--and then imagine--if you can--a copy of this same book in
boards uncut. Would twenty-five hundred dollars be too high a price for
such a copy? I think not.
Another point to be remembered is that the price of a book depends, not
only on its scarcity, but also on the universality of the demand for it.
And once again I may take the "Vicar" as an example of what I mean. The
"Vicar" is not a scarce book. For from six to eight hundred dollars,
dependent upon condition, one could, I think, lay his hands on as many
as ten copies in as many weeks. It is what the trade call a
bread-and-butter book--a staple. There is always a demand for it and
always a supply at a price; but try to get a copy of Fanny Burney's
"Evelina," and you may have to wait a year or more for it. It was the
first book of an unknown young lady; the first edition was very small,
it was printed on poor paper, proved to be immensely popular, and was
immediately worn out in the reading; but there is no persistent demand
for it as there is for the "Vicar," and it costs only half as much.
In reading over whatever I have written on the subject of the prices of
rare books, I am aware that my remarks may sound to some like a
whistle--a whistle to keep up my courage at the thought of the prices I
am paying. But so long as the "knockout" does not get a foothold in this
country,--and it would immediately be the subject of investigation if it
did, and be stopped, as other abuses have been,--the prices of really
great books will always average higher and higher. "Of the making of
many books there is no end," nor is there an end to the prices men will
be willing to pay for them.
[Illustration: This first book of my writings is dearest to my soul,
Because all of 'em's bought called "The Old Swimmin' Hole."
Ever thine,
{Benj. F. Johnson, Boone Co., Ind.--
{James Whitcomb Riley.
For--Wallace H. Cathcourt(?), Cleveland, Ohio Indianapolis, Jan. 23
1899]
V
"WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN"
On a cold, raw day in December, 1882, there was laid to rest in Brompton
Cemetery, in London, an old lady,--an actress,--whose name, Frances
Maria Kelly, meant little to the generation of theatre-goers, then busy
with the rising reputation of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. She was a
very old lady when she died--ninety-two, to be exact; she had outlived
her fame and her friends, and few followed her to her grave.
I have said that the day was cold and raw. I do not know certainly that
it was so; I was not there; but for my sins I have passed many Decembers
in London, and take the right, in Charles Lamb's phrase, to damn the
weather at a venture.
Fanny Kelly, as she was called by the generations that knew her, came of
a theatrical family, and most of her long life had been passed on the
stage. She was only seven when she made her first appearance at Drury
Lane, at which theatre she acted for some thirty-six years, when she
retired; subsequently she established a school of dramatic art and gave
from time to time what she termed "Entertainments," in which she
sometimes took as many as fourteen different parts in a single evening.
With her death the last link connecting us with the age of Johnson was
broken. She had acted with John Philip Kemble and with Mrs. Siddons. By
her sprightliness and grace she had charmed Fox and Sheridan and the
generations which followed, down to Charles Dickens, who had acted with
her in private theatricals at her own private theatre in Dean
Street,--now the Royalty,--taking the part of Captain Bobadil in _Every
Man in his Humor_.
Nothing is more evanescent than the reputation of an actor. Every age
lingers lovingly over the greatness of the actors of its own youth; thus
it was that the theatre-goer of the eighteen-eighties only yawned when
told of the grace of Miss Kelly's Ophelia, of the charm of her Lydia
Languish, or of her bewitchingness in "breeches parts." To some she was
the old actress for whom the government was being solicited to do
something; a few thought of her as the old maiden lady who was obsessed
with the idea that Charles Lamb had once made her an offer of marriage.
It was well known that, half a century before, Lamb had been one of her
greatest admirers. Every reader of his dramatic criticisms and his
letters knew that; they knew, too, that in one of his daintiest essays,
perhaps the most exquisite essay in the language, "Dream Children, A
Reverie," Lamb, speaking apparently more autobiographically than usual
even for him, says:--
[Illustration: Charles Lamb]
"Then I told how, for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in
despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W----n; and,
as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness,
and difficulty, and denial meant to maidens--when suddenly, turning to
Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a
reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood
there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood
gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding
and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were
seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely
impressed upon me the effects of speech:--
"'We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The
children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than
nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been.'"
I am quoting, not from the printed text, but from the original
manuscript, which is my most cherished literary possession; and this
lovely peroration, if such it may be called, is the only part of the
essay which has been much interlineated or recast. It appears to have
occasioned Lamb considerable difficulty; there was obviously some
searching for the right word; a part of it, indeed, was entirely
rewritten.
The coyness, the difficulty, and the denial of Alice: was it not
immortally written into the record by Lamb himself? Miss Kelly's
rejection of an offer of marriage from him must be a figment of the
imagination of an old lady, who, as her years approached a century, had
her dream-children, too--children who called Lamb father.
There the matter rested. Fanny Kelly was by way of being forgotten; all
the facts of Lamb's life were known, apparently, and he had lain in a
curiously neglected grave in Edmonton Churchyard for seventy years.
Innumerable sketches and lives and memorials of him, "final" and
otherwise, had been written and read. His letters--not complete,
perhaps, but volumes of them--had been published and read by the
constantly increasing number of his admirers, and no one suspected that
Lamb had had a serious love-affair--the world accepting without reserve
the statement of one of his biographers that "Lamb at the bidding of
duty remained single, wedding himself to the sad fortunes of his
sister."
Then, quite unexpectedly, in 1903, John Hollingshead, the former manager
of the Gaiety Theatre, discovered and published two letters of Charles
Lamb written on the same day, July 20, 1819. One, a long letter in
Lamb's most serious vein, in which he formally offers his hand, and in a
way his sister's, to Miss Kelly, and the other a whimsical, elfish
letter, in which he tries to disguise the fact that in her refusal of
him he has received a hard blow.
[Illustration: Miss Frances Maria Kelly]
By reason of this important discovery, every line that Lamb had written
in regard to Fanny Kelly was read with new interest, and an admirable
biography of him by his latest and most sympathetic critic, Edward
Verrall Lucas, appearing shortly afterwards, was carefully studied to
see what, if any, further light could be thrown upon this interesting
subject. But it appears that the whole story has been told in the
letters, and students of Lamb were thrown back upon the already
published references.
In the Works of Lamb, published in 1818, he had addressed to Miss Kelly
a sonnet:--
You are not, Kelly, of the common strain,
That stoop their pride and female honor down
To please that many-headed beast, the town,
And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain;
By fortune thrown amid the actor's train,
You keep your native dignity of thought;
The plaudits that attend you come unsought,
As tributes due unto your natural vein.
Your tears have passion in them, and a grace
Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow;
Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace,
That vanish and return we know not how--
And please the better from a pensive face,
And thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.
And early in the following year he had printed in a provincial journal
an appreciation of her acting, comparing her, not unfavorably, with Mrs.
Jordan, who, in her day, then over, is said to have had no rival in
comedy parts.
Lamb's earliest reference to Miss Kelly, however, appears to be in a
letter to the Wordsworths, in which he says that he can keep the
accounts of his office, comparing sum with sum, writing "Paid" against
one and "Unpaid" against t'other (this was long before the days of
scientific bookkeeping and muchvaunted efficiency), and still reserve a
corner of his mind for the memory of some passage from a book, or "the
gleam of Fanny Kelly's divine plain face." This is an always quoted
reference and seems correctly to describe the lady, who is spoken of by
others as an unaffected, sensible, clear-headed, warm-hearted woman,
plain but engaging, with none of the vanities or arrogance of the
actress about her. It will be recalled that Lamb had no love for
blue-stocking women, and speaking of one, said, "If she belonged to me I
would lock her up and feed her on bread and water till she left off
writing poetry. A female poet, or female author of any kind, ranks below
an actress, I think." This shortest way with minor poets has, perhaps,
much to recommend it.
It was Lamb's whim in his essays to be frequently misleading, setting
his signals at full speed ahead when they should have been set at
danger, or, at least, at caution. Thus in his charming essay "Barbara
S----" (how unconsciously one invariably uses this adjective in speaking
of anything Lamb wrote), after telling the story of a poor little stage
waif receiving by mistake a whole sovereign instead of the half a one
justly due for a week's pay, and how she was tempted to keep it, but did
not, he adds, "I had the anecdote from the mouth of the late Mrs.
Crawford." Here seemed to be plain sailing, and grave editors pointed
out who Mrs. Crawford was: they told her maiden name, and for good
measure threw in the names of her several husbands. But Lamb, in a
letter to Bernard Barton in 1825, speaking of these essays, said: "Tell
me how you like 'Barbara S----.' I never saw Mrs. Crawford in my life,
nevertheless 'tis all true of somebody." And some years later, not long
before he died, to another correspondent he wrote: "As Miss Kelly is
just now in notoriety,"--she was then giving an entertainment called
"Dramatic Recollections" at the Strand Theatre,--"it may amuse you to
know that 'Barbara S----' is all of it true of her, being all
communicated to me from her own mouth. Can we not contrive to make up a
party to see her?"
There is another reference to Miss Kelly, which, in the light of our
subsequent knowledge, is as dainty a suggestion of marriage with her as
can be found in the annals of courtship. It appeared in "The Examiner"
just a fortnight before Lamb's proposal. In a criticism of her acting as
Rachel in "The Jovial Crew," now forgotten, Lamb was, he says,
interrupted in the enjoyment of the play by a stranger who sat beside
him remarking of Miss Kelly, "What a lass that were to go a gypsying
through the world with!"
Knowing how frequently Lamb addressed Elia, his other self, and Elia,
Lamb, may we not suppose that on this occasion the voice of the stranger
was the voice of Elia? Was it unlikely that Miss Kelly, who would see
the criticism, would hear the voice and recognize it as Lamb's? I love
to linger over these delicate incidents of Lamb's courtship, which was
all too brief.
But what of Mary? I think she cannot but have contemplated the
likelihood of her brother's marriage and determined upon the line she
would take in that event. Years before she had written, "You will smile
when I tell you I think myself the only woman in the world who could
live with a brother's wife, and make a real friend of her, partly from
early observations of the unhappy example I have just given you, and
partly from a knack I know I have of looking into people's real
character, and never expecting them to act out of it--never expecting
another to do as I would in the same case."
Mary Lamb was an exceptional woman; and even though her brother might
have thought he kept the secret of his love to himself, she would know
and, I fancy, approve. Was it not agreed between them that she was to
die first? and when she was gone, who would be left to care for Charles?
Before I come to the little drama--tragedy one could hardly call it--of
Lamb's love-affair as told in his own way by his letters, I may be
permitted to refer to two letters of his to Miss Kelly, one of them
relatively unimportant, the other a few lines only, both unpublished,
which form a part of my own Lamb collection. These letters, before they
fell from high estate, formed a part of the "Sentimental Library" of
Harry B. Smith, to whom I am indebted for much information concerning
them. It will be s
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