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.
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.
STOKE POGES CHURCH A fine example of fore-edge painting
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 15s. “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.
“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.
“A LEAF FROM AN UNOPENED VOLUME” An unpublished manuscript in the autograph of Charlotte Brontë, written in microscopical characters on sixteen pages measuring 3½ by 4½ inches; in a wrapper of druggist’s blue paper
“A LEAF FROM AN UNOPENED VOLUME”
An unpublished manuscript in the autograph of Charlotte Brontë, written
in microscopical characters on sixteen pages measuring 3½ by 4½
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.
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.
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:—
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:—
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.
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 3½ × 6⅛ 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.