BOOK BUYING.
The buying of books is to some men a pastime; to others it is a passion;
but to the librarian and the intelligent book collector it is both a
business and a pleasure. The man who is endowed with a zeal for knowledge
is eager to be continually adding to the stores which will enable him to
acquire and to dispense that knowledge. Hence the perusal of catalogues
is to him an ever fresh and fascinating pursuit. However hampered he may
be by the lack of funds, the zest of being continually in quest of some
coveted volumes gives him an interest in every sale catalogue, whether of
bookseller or of auctioneer. He is led on by the perennial hope that he
may find one or more of the long-wished for and waited-for _desiderata_
in the thin pamphlet whose solid columns bristle with book-titles in
every variety of abbreviation and arrangement. It is a good plan, if one
can possibly command the time, to read every catalogue of the book
auctions, and of the second-hand book dealers, which comes to hand. You
will thus find a world of books chronicled and offered which you do not
want, because you have got them already: you will find many, also, which
you want, but which you know you cannot have; and you may find some of
the very volumes which you have sought through many years in vain. In any
case, you will have acquired valuable information--whether you acquire
any books or not; since there is hardly a priced catalogue, of any
considerable extent, from which you cannot reap knowledge of some
kind--knowledge of editions, knowledge of prices, and knowledge of the
comparative scarcity or full supply of many books, with a glimpse of
titles which you may never have met before. The value of the study of
catalogues as an education in bibliography can never be over-estimated.
The large number of active and discriminating book-buyers from America
has for years past awakened the interest and jealousy of collectors
abroad, where it has very largely enhanced the price of all first-class
editions, and rare works.
No longer, as in the early days of Dibdin and Heber, is the competition
for the curiosities of old English literature confined to a half-score of
native amateurs. True, we have no such omnivorous gatherers of literary
rubbish as that magnificent _helluo librorum_, Richard Heber, who amassed
what was claimed to be the largest collection of books ever formed by a
single individual. Endowed with a princely fortune, and an undying
passion for the possession of books, he spent nearly a million dollars in
their acquisition. His library, variously stated at from 105,000 volumes
(by Dr. Dibdin) to 146,000 volumes (by Dr. Allibone) was brought to the
hammer in 1834. The catalogue filled 13 octavo volumes, and the sale
occupied 216 days. The insatiable owner (who was a brother of Reginald
Heber, Bishop of Calcutta) died while still collecting, at the age of
sixty, leaving his enormous library, which no single house of ordinary
size could hold, scattered in half a dozen mansions in London, Oxford,
Paris, Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent.
Yet the owner of this vast mass of mingled nonsense and erudition, this
library of the curiosities of literature, was as generous in imparting as
in acquiring his literary treasures. No English scholar but was freely
welcome to the loan of his volumes; and his own taste and critical
knowledge are said to have been of the first order.
From this, probably the most extensive private library ever gathered, let
us turn to the largest single purchase, in number of volumes, made at one
time for a public library. When Dr. J. G. Cogswell went abroad in 1848,
to lay the foundations of the Astor Library, he took with him credentials
for the expenditure of $100,000; and, what was of even greater
importance, a thoroughly digested catalogue of _desiderata_, embracing
the most important books in every department of literature and science.
No such opportunity of buying the finest books at the lowest prices is
likely ever to occur again, as the fortuitous concourse of events brought
to Dr. Cogswell. It was the year of revolutions--the year when the
thrones were tottering or falling all over Europe, when the wealthy and
privileged classes were trembling for their possessions, and anxious to
turn them into ready money. In every time of panic, political or
financial, the prices of books, as well as of all articles of luxury, are
the first to fall. Many of the choicest collections came to the hammer;
multitudes were eager to sell--but there were few buyers except the book
merchants, who were all ready to sell again. The result was that some
80,000 volumes were gathered for the Astor Library, embracing a very
large share of the best editions and the most expensive works, with many
books strictly denominated rare, and nearly all bound in superior style,
at an average cost of about $1.40 per volume. This extraordinary good
fortune enabled the Astor Library to be opened on a very small endowment,
more splendidly equipped for a library of reference than any new
institution could be today with four or five times the money.
Compared with such opportunities as these, you may consider the
experiences of the little libraries, and the narrow means of recruitment
generally found, as very literally the day of small things. But a wise
apportionment of small funds, combined with a good knowledge of the
commercial value of books, and perpetual vigilance in using
opportunities, will go very far toward enlarging any collection in the
most desirable directions.
Compare for a moment with the results stated of the Astor Library's early
purchases, the average prices paid by British Libraries for books
purchased from 1826 to 1854, as published in a parliamentary return. The
average cost per volume varied from 16_s_ or about $4 a volume, for the
University Library of Edinburgh, to 4_s_ 6_d_, or $1.10 a volume for the
Manchester Free Library. The latter, however, were chiefly popular new
books, published at low prices, while the former included many costly old
works, law books, etc. The British Museum Library's average was 8_s_ 5_d_
or about $2.00 per volume. Those figures represent cloth binding, while
the Astor's purchases were mostly in permanent leather bindings.
Averages are very uncertain standards of comparison, as a single book
rarity often costs more than a hundred volumes of the new books of the
day; but in a library filled with the best editions of classical and
scientific works, and reference books, I presume that two dollars a
volume is not too high an estimate of average cost, in these days
represented by the last twenty years. For a circulating library, on the
other hand, composed chiefly of what the public most seek to read, half
that average would perhaps express the full commercial value of the
collection. Of its intrinsic value I will not here pause to speak.
There are many methods of book buying, of which we may indicate the
principal as follows:
1. By direct orders from book dealers.
2. By competition on select lists of wants.
3. By order from priced catalogues.
4. By purchase at auction sales.
5. By personal research among book stocks.
6. By lists and samples of books sent on approval.
Each of these methods has its advantages--and, I may add, its
disadvantages likewise. The collector who combines them, as opportunity
presents, is most likely to make his funds go the farthest, and to enrich
his collection the most. Direct orders for purchase are necessary for
most new books wanted, except in the case of the one government library,
which in most countries, receives them under copyright provision. An
advantageous arrangement can usually be made with one or more
book-dealers, to supply all new books at a fairly liberal discount from
retail prices. And it is wise management to distribute purchases where
good terms are made, as thereby the trade will feel an interest in the
library, and a mutuality of interest will secure more opportunities and
better bargains.
The submission of lists of books wanted, to houses having large stocks or
good facilities, helps to make funds go as far as possible through
competition. By the typewriter such lists can now be manifolded much more
cheaply than they can be written or printed.
Selection from priced catalogues presents a constantly recurring
opportunity of buying volumes of the greatest consequence, to fill gaps
in any collection, and often at surprisingly low prices. Much as book
values have been enhanced of late years, there are yet catalogues issued
by American, English and continental dealers which quote books both of
the standard and secondary class at very cheap rates. Even now English
books are sold by the Mudie and the W. H. Smith lending libraries in
London, after a very few months, at one-half to one-fourth their original
publishing price. These must usually be rebound, but by instructing your
agent to select copies which are clean within, all the soil of the edges
will disappear with the light trimming of the binder.
Purchase at auction supplies a means of recruiting libraries both public
and private with many rare works, and with the best editions of the
standard authors, often finely bound. The choice private libraries of the
country, as well as the poor ones, tend to pour themselves sooner or
later into public auctions. The collectors of books, whose early avidity
to amass libraries of fine editions was phenomenal, rarely persist in
cultivating the passion through life. Sometimes they are overtaken by
misfortune--sometimes by indifference--the bibliomania not being a
perennial inspiration, but often an acute and fiery attack, which in a
few years burns out. Even if the library gathered with so much money and
pains descends to the heirs of the collector, the passion for books is
very seldom an inherited one. Thus the public libraries are constantly
recruited by the opportunities of selection furnished by the forced sale
of the private ones. Here, public competition frequently runs up the
price of certain books to an exorbitant degree, while those not wanted
often sell for the merest trifle. One should have a pretty clear idea of
the approximate commercial value of books, before competing for them at
public sale. He may, however, if well persuaded in his own mind as to the
importance or the relative unimportance to his own collection of any
work, regulate his bids by that standard, regardless of commercial value,
except as a limit beyond which he will not go. Few librarians can
personally attend auction sales--nor is it needful, when limits can so
easily be set to orders. It is never safe to send an unlimited bid, as
there may be others without limit, in which case the book is commonly
awarded to the most remote bidder.
There are many curiosities of the auction room, one of them being the
frequent re-appearance of book rarities which have been through several
auctions, sometimes at intervals of years, keenly competed for by rival
bibliophiles, and carried off in triumph by some ardent collector, who
little thought at the time how soon his own collection would come to the
hammer.
There are also many curiosities of compilation in auction catalogues. Not
to name errors of commission, like giving the authorship of books to the
wrong name, and errors of omission, like giving no author's name at all,
some catalogues are thickly strewn with the epithets _rare_--and _very
rare_, when the books are sufficiently common in one or the other market.
Do not be misled by these surface indications. Books are often attributed
in catalogues to their editor or translator, and the unwary buyer may
thus find himself saddled with a duplicate already in his own collection.
There has been much improvement in late years in the care with which
auction catalogues are edited, and no important collection at least is
offered, without having first passed through the hands of an expert,
familiar with bibliography. It is the minor book sales where the
catalogues receive no careful editing, and where the dates and editions
are frequently omitted, that it is necessary to guard against. It is well
to refrain from sending any bids out of such lists, because they furnish
no certain identification of the books, and if all would do the same,
thus diminishing the competition and the profit of the auctioneer, he
might learn never to print a catalogue without date, place of
publication, and full name of author of every book offered.
Never be too eager to acquire an auction book, unless you are very
thoroughly assured that it is one of the kind truly designated
_rarissimus_. An eminent and thoroughly informed book collector, with an
experience of forty years devoted to book auctions and book catalogues,
assured me that it was his experience that almost every book would turn
up on the average about every seven years. Of course there are notable
exceptions--and especially among the class of books known as
_incunabula_, (or cradle-books printed in the infancy of printing) and of
early Americana: but it is not these which the majority of libraries are
most in search of. Remember always, if you lose a coveted volume, that
there will be another chance--perhaps many of them. The private
collector, who carries it off against you, has had no former opportunity
to get the rare volume, and may never have another. He is therefore
justified in paying what is to ordinary judgment an extraordinary price.
Individual collectors die, but public libraries are immortal.
If you become thoroughly conversant with priced catalogues, you will make
fewer mistakes than most private buyers. Not only catalogues of notable
collections, with the prices obtained at auction, but the large and very
copious catalogues of such London book-dealers as Quaritch and Sotheran,
are accessible in the great city libraries. These are of the highest use
in suggesting the proximate prices at which important books have been or
may be acquired. Since 1895, annual volumes entitled "American Book
Prices Current" have been issued, giving the figures at which books have
been sold at all the principal auction sales of the year.
There is no word so much abused as the term _rare_, when applied to
books. Librarians know well the unsophisticated citizen who wants to sell
at a high price a "rare" volume of divinity "a hundred and fifty years
old" (worth possibly twenty-five cents to half a dollar,) and the
persistent woman who has the rarest old bible in the country, which she
values anywhere from fifty to five hundred dollars, and which turns out
on inspection to be an imperfect copy of one of Barker's multitudinous
editions of 1612 to '18, which may be picked up at five to eight
shillings in any old London book-shop. The confident assertions so often
paraded, even in catalogues, "only three copies known," and the like, are
to be received with absolute incredulity, and the claims of ignorant
owners of books who fancy that their little pet goose is a fine swan,
because they never saw another, are as ridiculous as the laudation
bestowed by a sapient collector upon two of his most valued nuggets.
"This, sir, is unique, but not so unique as the other."
Buying books by actual inspection at the book-shops is even more
fascinating employment than buying them through catalogues. You thus come
upon the most unexpected volumes unawares. You open the covers, scan the
title-pages, get a glimpse of the plates, and flit from book to book,
like a bee gathering honey for its hive. It is a good way to recruit your
library economically, to run through the stock of a book-dealer
systematically--neglecting no shelf, but selecting throughout the whole
stock, and laying aside what you think you may want. When this is done,
you will have quite a pile of literature upon which to negotiate with the
proprietor. It is cheaper to buy thus at wholesale than by piecemeal,
because the bookseller will make you a larger discount on a round lot of
which you relieve his shelves.
Another method of recruiting your library is the examination of books "on
approval." Most book-dealers will be so obliging as to send in parcels of
books for the inspection of a librarian or collector, who can thus
examine them leisurely and with more thoroughness than in a book store,
without leaving his business.
All books, by whatever course they may be purchased, are indispensably
to be collated before they are accepted and paid for. Neglect of this
will fill any library with imperfections, since second-hand books are
liable to have missing leaves, or plates, or maps, while new books may
lack signatures or plates, or be wrongly bound together. In the case of
new books, or books still in print, the publisher is bound to make good
an imperfection.
In old books, this is usually impossible, and the only remedy is to
return the imperfect books upon the seller's hands, unless there may be a
reason, such as the rarity of the volume, or its comparative little cost,
or the trifling nature of the imperfection, for retaining it. The
equities in these cases are in favor of the buyer, who is presumed to
have purchased a perfect copy. But the right of reclamation must be
exercised promptly, or it may be forfeited by lapse of time. If an
imperfection in any book you order is noted in the catalogue, it is not
subject to return. I have ever found the book auctioneers most courteous
and considerate in their dealings--and the same can be said of the book
trade generally, among whom instances of liberality to libraries are by
no means rare.
One of the choicest pleasures of the book collector, whether private
student or librarian, is to visit the second-hand book-shops of any city,
and examine the stock with care. While he may find but few notable
treasures in one collection, a search through several shops will be
almost sure to reward him. Here are found many of the outpourings of the
private libraries, formed by specialists or amateurs, and either
purchased by the second-hand dealer _en bloc_, or bid off by him at some
auction sale. Even rare books are picked up in this way, no copies of
which can be had by order, because long since "out of print." The stock
in these shops is constantly changing, thus adding a piquant and
sometimes exciting element to the book-hunter, who is wise in proportion
as he seizes quickly upon all opportunities of new "finds" by frequent
visits. To mourn over a lost chance in rare books is often more grievous
to the zealous collector, than to lose a large share out of his fortune;
while to exult over a literary nugget long sought and at length found is
a pleasure to which few others can be compared.
Of the many _bouquinistes_ whose open-air shops line the quays of Paris
along the Seine, numbering once as many as a hundred and fifty dealers in
second-hand books, I have no room to treat; books have been written about
them, and the _littérateurs_ of France, of Europe, and of America have
profited by countless bargains in their learned wares. Nor can I dwell
upon the literary wealth of London book-shops, dark and dingy, but ever
attractive to the hungry scholar, or the devotee of bibliomania.
Of the many second-hand booksellers (or rather sellers of second-hand
books) in American cities, the more notable have passed from the stage of
action in the last quarter of a century. Old William Gowans, a quaint,
intelligent Scotchman, in shabby clothes and a strong face deeply marked
with small pox, was for many years the dean of this fraternity in New
York. His extensive book-shop in Nassau street, with its dark cellar, was
crowded and packed with books on shelves, on stairways and on the floors,
heaped and piled in enormous masses, amid which the visitor could hardly
find room to move. On one of the piles you might find the proprietor
seated--
Books to the right of him,
Books to the left of him,
Books behind him,
Volleyed and tumbled,
while he answered inquiries for books from clergymen and students, or
gruffly bargained with a boy or an old woman for a dilapidated lot of
old books. He had a curious quizzical way with strangers, who at once set
him down as an oddity, and his impatience with ignoramuses and bores gave
him the repute of crustiness, which was redeemed by suavity enough
whenever he met with people of intelligence.
Gowans issued scores of catalogues of his stock, in which titles were
often illustrated by notes, always curious and often amusing, credited to
"Western Memorabilia," a work which no bookseller or man of letters had
ever heard of, but which was shrewdly suspected to have been a projected
scrap-book of the observations and opinions of William Gowans.
There was another eccentric book-dealer's shop in Nassau street kept by
one John Doyle, who aimed so high in his profession as to post over his
door a sign reading "The Moral Centre of the Intellectual Universe." This
establishment was notably full of old editions of books of English
history and controversial theology.
The most famous second-hand book-shop in Boston was Burnham's, whose
fore-name was Thomas Oliver Hazard Perry, shortened into "Perry Burnham"
by his familiars. He was a little, pale-faced, wiry, nervous man, with
piercing black eyes and very brusque manners. In old and musty books he
lived and moved and had his being, for more than a generation. He
exchanged a stuffy, narrow shop in Cornhill for more spacious quarters in
Washington street, near School street, where he bought and sold books
with an assiduous devotion to business, never trusting to others what he
could do himself. He was proud of his collection and its extent. He
bought books and pamphlets at auction literally by the cart-load, every
thing that nobody else wanted being bid off to Burnham at an
insignificant price, almost nominal. He got a wide reputation for
selling cheaply, but he always knew when to charge a stiff price for a
book, and to stick to it. Once when I was pricing a lot of miscellaneous
books picked out for purchase, mostly under a dollar a volume, we came to
a copy of "The Constitutions of the Several Independent States of
America," 1st edition, Philadelphia, 1781, of which two hundred copies
only were printed, by order of Congress. This copy was in the original
boards, uncut, and with the autograph of Timothy Pickering on the title
page. "If the Congress Library wants that book," said Mr. Burnham, "it
will have to pay eight dollars for it." I took it, well pleased to secure
what years of search had failed to bring. The next year my satisfaction
was enhanced when an inferior copy of the same book was offered at twenty
dollars.
Burnham died a wealthy man, having amassed a million dollars in trade and
by rise in real estate, as he owned the land on which the Parker House
stands in Boston.
Among Philadelphia dealers in second-hand books, one John Penington was
recognized as most intelligent and honorable. He was a book-lover and a
scholar, and one instinctively ranked him not as a bookseller, but as a
gentleman who dealt in books. On his shelves one always found books of
science and volumes in foreign languages.
Another notable dealer was John Campbell, a jolly, hearty Irish-American,
with a taste for good books, and an antipathy to negroes, as keen as the
proverbial hatred of the devil for holy water. Campbell wrote a book
entitled "Negromania," published in 1851, in which his creed was set
forth in strong language. He was a regular bidder at book auctions, where
his burly form and loud voice made him a prominent figure.
Of notable auction sales of books, and of the extravagant prices obtained
for certain editions by ambitious and eager competition, there is little
room to treat. The oft-told story of the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471,
carried off at the Roxburghe sale in 1812, at £2,260 from Earl Spencer by
the Marquis of Blandford, and re-purchased seven years after at another
auction for £918, has been far surpassed in modern bibliomania. "The
sound of that hammer," wrote the melodramatic Dibdin, "echoed through
Europe:" but what would he have said of the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg
and Fust (1450-55) sold in 1897, at the Ashburnham sale, for four
thousand pounds, or of the Latin Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, 2d ed.
1459, which brought £4,950 at the Syston Park sale in 1884? This last sum
(about twenty-four thousand dollars) is the largest price ever yet
recorded as received for a single volume. Among books of less rarity,
though always eagerly sought, is the first folio Shakespeare of 1623, a
very fine and perfect copy of which brought £716.2 at Daniel's sale in
1864. Copies warranted perfect have since been sold in London for £415 to
£470. In New York, a perfect but not "tall" copy brought $4,200 in 1891
at auction. Walton's "Compleat Angler," London, 1st ed. 1653, a little
book of only 250 pages, sold for £310 in 1891. It was published for one
shilling and sixpence. The first edition of Robinson Crusoe brought £75
at the Crampton sale in 1896.
The rage for first editions of very modern books reached what might be
called high-water mark some time since, and has been on the decline.
Shelley's "Queen Mab," 1st ed. 1813, was sold at London for £22.10, and
his "Refutation of Deism," 1814, was sold at £33, at a London sale in
1887. In New York, many first editions of Shelley's poems brought the
following enormous prices in 1897.
Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, Italy, 1821, $335.
Alastor, London, 1816, $130.
The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $65.
Hellas, London, 1822, $13.
But these were purely adventitious prices, as was clearly shown in the
sale at the same auction rooms, a year or two earlier, of the following:
Shelley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, 1821, $19.
Alastor, London, 1816, $32.
The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $21.
Hellas, London, 1822, $2.
The sales occasionally made at auction of certain books at extraordinary
prices, prove nothing whatever as to the real market value, for these
reasons: (1) The auctioneer often has an unlimited bid, and the price is
carried up to an inordinate height. (2) Two or more bidders present,
infatuated by the idea of extreme rarity, bid against one another until
all but one succumb, when the price has reached a figure which it is a
mild use of terms to call absurd. (3) Descriptions in sale catalogues,
though often entirely unfounded, characterising a book as "excessively
rare;" "only -- copies known," "very scarce," "never before offered at
our sales," etc., may carry the bidding on a book up to an unheard-of
price.
The appeal always lies to the years against the hours; and many a poor
book-mad enthusiast has had to rue his too easy credulity in giving an
extravagant sum for books which he discovers later that he could have
bought for as many shillings as he has paid dollars. Not that the
_rarissimi_ of early printed books can ever be purchased for a trifle;
but it should ever be remembered that even at the sales where a few--a
very few--bring the enormous prices that are bruited abroad, the mass of
the books offered are knocked down at very moderate figures, or are even
sacrificed at rates very far below their cost. The possessor of one of
the books so advertised as sold at some auction for a hundred dollars or
upwards, if he expects to realise a tithe of the figure quoted, will
speedily find himself in the vocative.
While there are almost priceless rarities not to be found in the market
by any buyer, let the book collector be consoled by the knowledge that
good books, in good editions, were never so easy to come by as now. A
fine library can be gathered by any one with very moderate means,
supplemented by a fair amount of sagacity and common sense. The buyer
with a carefully digested list of books wanted will find that to buy them
wisely takes more time and less money than he had anticipated. The time
is required to acquaint himself with the many competing editions, with
their respective merits and demerits. This involves a comparison of type,
paper, and binding, as well as the comparative prices of various dealers
for the same books. No one who is himself gifted with good perceptions
and good taste, should trust to other hands the selection of his library.
His enjoyment of it will be proportioned to the extent to which it is his
own creation. The passion for nobly written books, handsomely printed,
and clothed in a fitting garb, when it has once dawned, is not to be
defrauded of its satisfaction by hiring a commission merchant to appease
it. What we do for ourselves, in the acquirement of any knowledge, is apt
to be well done: what is done for us by others is of little value.
We have heard of some uninformed _parvenus_, grown suddenly rich, who
have first ordered a magnificent library room fitted with rose-wood,
marble and gilded trappings, and then ordered it to be filled with
splendidly bound volumes at so much per volume. And it is an authentic
fact, that a bookseller to the Czar of Russia one Klostermann, actually
sold books at fifty to one hundred roubles by the yard, according to the
binding. The force of folly could no farther go, to debase the aims and
degrade the intellect of man.
In the chapter upon rare books, the reader will find instances in great
variety of the causes that contribute to the scarcity and enhancement of
prices of certain books, without at all affecting their intrinsic value,
which may be of the smallest.