RARE BOOKS.
There is perhaps no field of inquiry concerning literature in which so
large an amount of actual mis-information or of ignorance exists as that
of the rarity of many books. The makers of second-hand catalogues are
responsible for much of this, in describing the books which they wish to
sell as "rare," "very scarce," etc., but more of it proceeds from
absolute ignorance of the book-markets of the world. I have had
multitudes of volumes offered for sale whose commercial value was hardly
as many cents as was demanded in dollars by their ill-informed owners,
who fancied the commonest book valuable because they "had never seen
another copy." No one's ideas of the money value of any book are worth
anything, unless he has had long experimental knowledge of the market for
books both in America and in Europe.
What constitutes rarity in books is a question that involves many
particulars. Thus, a given book may be rare in the United States which is
abundant in London; or rare in London, when common enough in Germany. So
books may be rare in one age which were easily found in another: and
again, books on certain subjects may be so absorbed by public demand when
events excite interest in that subject, as to take up most of the copies
in market, and enhance the price of the remainder. Thus, Napoleon's
conquering career in Egypt created a great demand for all books on Egypt
and Africa. The scheme for founding a great French colony in Louisiana
raised the price of all books and pamphlets on that region, which soon
after fell into the possession of the United States. President Lincoln's
assassination caused a demand for all accounts of the murder of the heads
of nations. Latterly, all books on Cuba, the West Indies, and the
Philippines have been in unprecedented demand, and dealers have raised
the prices, which will again decline after the recent public interest in
them has been supplanted by future events.
There is a broad distinction to be drawn between books which are
absolutely rare, and those which are only relatively scarce, or which
become temporarily rare, as just explained. Thus, a large share of the
books published in the infancy of printing are _rare_; nearly all which
appeared in the quarter century after printing began are _very_ rare; and
several among these last are _superlatively_ rare. I may instance the
Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg and Schoeffer (1455?) of which only
twenty-four copies are known, nearly all in public libraries, where they
ought to be; the Mentz Psalter of the same printers, 1457, the first book
ever printed with a date; and the first edition of Livy, Rome [1469] the
only copy of which printed on vellum is in the British Museum Library.
One reason of the scarcity of books emanating from the presses of the
fifteenth century is that of many of them the editions consisted of only
two hundred to three hundred copies, of which the large number absorbed
in public libraries, or destroyed by use, fire or decay, left very few in
the hands of booksellers or private persons. Still, it is a great mistake
to infer that all books printed before A. D. 1500 are rare. The editions
of many were large, especially after about 1480, many were reprinted in
several editions, and of such incunabula copies can even now be picked up
on the continent at very low prices.
Contrary to a wide-spread belief, mere age adds very little to the value
of any book, and oft-times nothing at all. All librarians are pestered
to buy "hundred year old" treatises on theology or philosophy, as dry as
the desert of Sahara, on the ground that they are both old and rare,
whereas such books, two hundred and even three hundred years old, swarm
in unsalable masses on the shelves of London and provincial booksellers
at a few pence per volume. The reason that they are comparatively rare in
this country is that nobody wants them, and so they do not get imported.
A rare book is, strictly speaking, only one which is found with
difficulty, taking into view all the principal book markets of various
countries. Very few books printed since 1650 have any peculiar value on
account of their age. Of many books, both old and new, the reason of
scarcity is that only a few copies actually remain, outside of public
libraries, and these last, of course, are not for sale. This scarcity of
copies is produced by a great variety of causes, most of which are here
noted.
(1) The small number of the books originally printed leads to rarity.
This is by no means peculiar to early impressions of the press: on the
contrary, of some books printed only last year not one tenth as many
exist as of a multitude of books printed four centuries ago. Not only
privately printed books, not designed for publication, but some family or
personal memoirs, or original works circulated only among friends, and
many other publications belong to this class of rarities. The books
printed at private presses are mostly rare. Horace Walpole's Strawberry
Hill press produced some thirty works from 1757 to 1789, in editions
varying from fifty to six hundred copies. The Lee Priory press of Sir E.
Brydges printed many literary curiosities, none of which had more than
one hundred impressions. Most of the editions of the Shakespearean and
other critical essays of J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps were limited to forty
copies, or even less. The genealogical and heraldic imprints of Sir
Thomas Phillipps, at the Middle Hill press, 1819-59, numbering some
hundreds of different works, were mostly confined to twenty copies each,
and some to only six copies. Some of them are as rare as many
manuscripts, of which several copies have been made, and sell at prices
dictated by their scarcity. Most of them are in the Library of Congress.
The Kelmscott press of William Morris printed in sumptuous style,
improved upon the finest models of antique typography, a number of
literary works, which now bring enhanced prices. Of the many historical
and literary publications of the Roxburghe Club, the Percy Society, the
Maitland, the Abbotsford, and the Bannatyne Clubs abroad, only thirty to
one hundred copies were printed. Of those of the Prince Society, the
Grolier Club, and others in America, only from 150 to 300 copies were
printed, being for subscribers only. Rarity and enhanced prices
necessarily result in all these cases. Of some books, only five to ten
copies have been printed, or else, out of fifty or more printed, all but
a very few have been ruthlessly destroyed, in order to give a fanciful
value to the remainder. In these extreme instances, the rarity commonly
constitutes almost the sole value of the work.
(2) Even where many copies have been printed, the destruction of the
greater part of the edition has rendered the book very rare. Printing
offices and book binderies are peculiarly subject to fires, and many
editions have thus been consumed before more than a few copies have been
issued. The great theological libraries edited by the Abbé J. P. Migne,
the _Patrologie Grecque, et Latine_, owe their scarcity and advanced
prices to a fire which consumed the entire remainder of the edition. All
the copies of a large edition of "Twenty years among our savage Indians,"
by J. L. Humfreville, were destroyed by fire in a Hartford printing
office in 1899, except two, which had been deposited in the Library of
Congress, to secure the copyright. The whole edition of the _Machina
coelestis_ of Hevelius was burned, except the few copies which the author
had presented to friends before the fire occurred. The earlier issues in
Spanish of the Mexican and Peruvian presses prior to 1600 are exceedingly
rare. And editions of books printed at places in the United States where
no books are now published are sought for their imprint alone and seldom
found.
(3) Many books have become rare because proscribed and in part destroyed
by governmental or ecclesiastical authority. This applies more especially
to the ages that succeeded the application of printing to the art of
multiplying books. The freedom of many writers upon politics and popular
rights led to the suppression of their books by kings, emperors or
parliaments. At the same time, books of church history or doctrinal
theology which departed, in however slight a degree, from the standard of
faith proclaimed by the church, were put in the Index Expurgatorius, or
list of works condemned in whole or in part as heretical and unlawful to
be read. A long and melancholy record of such proscriptions, civil and
ecclesiastical, is found in Gabriel Peignot's two volumes--_Dictionnaire
des livres condamnés au feu, supprimés, ou censurés_, etc. Works of
writers of genius and versatile ability were thus proscribed, until it
gave rise to the sarcasm among the scholars of Europe, that if one wanted
to find what were the books best worth reading, he should look in the
Index Expurgatorius. It appears to have been quite forgotten by those in
authority that persecution commonly helps the cause persecuted, and that
the best way to promote the circulation of a book is to undertake to
suppress it. This age finds itself endowed with so many heretics that it
is no longer possible to find purchasers at high prices for books once
deemed unholy. Suppressed passages in later editions lead to a demand for
the uncastrated copies which adds an element of enhanced cost in the
market.
(4) Another source of rarity is the great extent and cost of many works,
outrunning the ability of most collectors to buy or to accommodate them
on their shelves. These costly possessions have been commonly printed in
limited numbers for subscribers, or for distribution by governments under
whose patronage they were produced. Such are some of the notable
collections of early voyages, the great folios of many illustrated
scientific works on natural history, local geography, etc. That great
scholar, Baron von Humboldt, used jocosely to say that he could not
afford to own a set of his own works, most of which are folios
sumptuously printed, with finely engraved illustrations. The collection
known as the "_Grands et petits Voyages_" of De Bry, the former in 13
volumes, relating to America, and finely illustrated with copper-plates
produced in the highest style of that art, are among the rarest sets of
books to find complete. The collection of voyages by Hulsius is equally
difficult to procure. A really perfect set of Piranesi's great
illustrated work on the art and architecture of ancient Rome is very
difficult to acquire. The _Acta Sanctorum_, in the original edition, is
very seldom found. But there is no room to multiply examples.
(5) What adds to the rarity and cost of certain books is the peculiarly
expensive style or condition in which they are produced or preserved.
Some few copies of an edition, for example, are printed on vellum, or on
China or India or other choice paper, in colored ink or bronze, on
colored paper, (rose-tinted, or green, blue or yellow,) on large paper,
with broad margins, etc. Uncut copies always fetch a higher price than
those whose edges are trimmed down in binding. To some book-collecting
amateurs cut edges are an abomination. They will pay more for a book "in
sheets," which they can bind after their own taste, than for the finest
copy in calf or morocco with gilt edges. Some books, also, are
exceptionally costly because bound in a style of superior elegance and
beauty, or as having belonged to a crowned head or a noble person,
("books with a pedigree") or an eminent author, or having autographs of
notable characters on the fly-leaves or title-pages, or original letters
inserted in the volume. Others still are "extra-illustrated" works, in
which one volume is swelled to several by the insertion of a multitude of
portraits, autographs, and engravings, more or less illustrative of the
contents of the book. This is called "Grangerising," from its origin in
the practice of thus illustrating Granger's Biographical History of
England. Book amateurs of expensive tastes are by no means rare,
especially in England, France, and America, and the great commercial
value placed upon uncut and rarely beautiful books, on which the highest
arts of the printer and book-binder have been lavished, evinces the fact.
(6) The books emanating from the presses of famous printers are more
sought for by collectors and libraries than other publications, because
of their superior excellence. Sometimes this is found in the beauty of
the type, or the clear and elegant press-work; sometimes in the printers'
marks, monograms, engraved initial letters, head and tail-pieces, or
other illustrations; and sometimes in the fine quality of the choice
paper on which the books are printed. Thus, the productions of the
presses of Aldus, Giunta, Bodoni, Etienne, Elzevir, Froben, Gutenberg,
Fust and Schoeffer, Plantin, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Bulmer, Didot,
Baskerville, Pickering, Whittingham, and others, are always in demand,
and some of the choicer specimens of their art, if in fine condition,
bring great prices in the second-hand book-shops, or the auction room. An
example of Caxton's press is now almost unattainable, except in
fragmentary copies. There are known to be only about 560 examples of
Caxtons in the world, four-fifths of which are in England, and thirty-one
of these are unique. His "King Arthur" (1485) brought £1950 at auction in
1885, and the Polychronicon (1482) was sold at the Ives sale (N. Y.) in
1891, for $1,500.
(7) In the case of all finely illustrated works, the earlier impressions
taken, both of text and plates, are more rare, and hence more valuable,
than the bulk of the edition. Thus, copies with "proofs before letters"
of the steel engravings or etchings, sometimes command more than double
the price of copies having only the ordinary plates. Each added
impression deteriorates a little the sharp, clear outlines and brilliant
impressions which are peculiar to the first copies printed.
(8) Of some books, certain volumes only are rare, and very costly in
consequence. Thus, Burk's History of Virginia is common enough in three
volumes, but volume 4 of the set, by Jones and Girardin, (1816,) is
exceedingly rare, and seldom found with the others. The fifth and last
volume of Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History is very scarce,
while the others are readily procured. Of De Bry's Voyages, the 13th or
final part of the American voyages is so rare as to be quite
unattainable, unless after long years of search, and at an unconscionable
price.
(9) The condition of any book is an unfailing factor in its price. Many,
if not most books offered by second-hand dealers are shop-worn, soiled,
or with broken bindings, or some other defect. A pure, clean copy, in
handsome condition without and within, commands invariably an extra
price. Thus the noted Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, a huge portly folio,
with 2,250 wood-cuts in the text, many of them by Albert Dürer or other
early artists, is priced in London catalogues all the way from £7.15 up
to £35, for identically the same edition. The difference is dependent
wholly on the condition of the copies offered. Here is part of a
description of the best copy: "Nuremberg Chronicle, by Schedel, printed
by Koberger, first edition, 1493, royal folio, with fine original
impressions of the 2,250 large wood-cuts of towns, historical events,
portraits, etc., very tall copy, measuring 18½ inches by 12½, beautifully
bound in morocco super extra, full gilt edges, by Riviere, £35. All the
cuts are brilliant impressions, large and spirited. The book is genuine
and perfect throughout; _no washed leaves_, and all the large capitals
filled in by the rubricator by different colored inks: it has the six
additional leaves at end, which Brunet says are nearly always wanting."
(10) The first editions printed of many books always command high prices.
Not only is this true of the _editio princeps_ of Homer, Virgil, Tacitus
and other Greek and Roman writers, published in the infancy of printing,
but of every noted author, of ancient or modern date. The edition printed
during the life of the writer has had his own oversight and correction.
And when more than one issue of his book has thus appeared, one sees how
his maturer judgment has altered the substance or the style of his work.
First editions of any very successful work always tend to become scarce,
since the number printed is smaller, as a rule, and a large part of the
issue is absorbed by public libraries. The earliest published writings of
Tennyson, now found with difficulty, show how much of emendation and
omission this great poet thought proper to make in his poems in after
years. A first edition of Ivanhoe, 3 vols., 1820, brings £7 or more, in
the original boards, but if rebound in any style, the first Waverley
novels can be had at much less, though collectors are many.
(11) Another class of rare books is found in many local histories, both
among the county histories of Great Britain, and those of towns and
counties in the United States. Jay Gould's History of Delaware County, N.
Y., published in 1856, and sought after in later times because of his
note as a financier, is seldom found. Of family genealogies, too, printed
in small editions, there are many which cannot be had at all, and many
more which have risen to double or even quadruple price. The market value
of these books, always dependent on demand, is enhanced by the wants of
public libraries which are making or completing collections of these much
sought sources of information.
(12) There is a class of books rarely found in any reputable book shop,
and which ought to be much rarer than they are--namely, those that belong
to the domain of indecent literature. Booksellers who deal in such wares
often put them in catalogues under the head of _facetiae_, thus making a
vile use of what should be characteristic only of books of wit or humor.
Men of prurient tastes become collectors of such books, many of which are
not without some literary merit, while many more are neither fit to be
written, nor printed, nor read.
(13) There is a large variety of books that are sought mainly on account,
not of their authors, nor for their value as literature, but for their
illustrators. Many eminent artists (in fact most of those of any period)
have made designs for certain books of their day. The reputation of an
artist sometimes rests more upon his work given to the public in
engravings, etchings, wood-cuts, etc., that illustrate books, than upon
his works on canvas or in marble. Many finely illustrated works bear
prices enhanced by the eagerness of collectors, who are bent upon
possessing the designs of some favorite artist, while some amateurs covet
a collection of far wider scope. This demand, although fitful, and
sometimes evanescent, (though more frequently recurrent,) lessens the
supply of illustrated books, and with the constant drafts of new
libraries, raises prices. Turner's exquisite pictures in Rogers's Italy
and Poems (1830-34) have floated into fame books of verse which find very
few readers. Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz") designed those immortal Wellers in
Pickwick, which have delighted two whole generations of readers. The
"Cruikshankiana" are sought with avidity, in whatever numerous volumes
they adorn. Books illustrated with the designs of Bartolozzi, Marillier,
Eisen, Gravelot, Moreau, Johannot, Grandville, Rowlandson, Bewick,
William Blake, Stothard, Stanfield, Harvey, Martin, Cattermole, Birket
Foster, Mulready, Tenniel, Maclise, Gilbert, Dalziel, Leighton, Holman
Hunt, Doyle, Leech, Millais, Rossetti, Linton, Du Maurier, Sambourne,
Caldecott, Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Haden, Hamerton, Whistler, Doré,
Anderson, Darley, Matt Morgan, Thos. Nast, Vedder, and others, are in
constant demand, especially for the early impressions of books in which
their designs appear.
(14) Finally, that extensive class of books known as early _Americana_
have been steadily growing rarer, and rising in commercial value, since
about the middle of the nineteenth century. Books and pamphlets relating
to any part of the American continent or islands, the first voyages,
discoveries, narratives or histories of those regions, which were hardly
noted or cared for a century ago, are now eagerly sought by collectors
for libraries both public and private. In this field, the keen
competition of American Historical Societies, and of several great
libraries, besides the ever increasing number of private collectors with
large means, has notably enhanced the prices of all desirable and rare
books. Nor do the many reprints which have appeared much affect the
market value of the originals, or first editions.
This rise in prices, while far from uniform, and furnishing many examples
of isolated extravagance, has been marked. Witness some examples. The
"Bay Psalm Book," Cambridge, Mass., A. D. 1640, is the Caxton of New
England, so rare that no perfect copy has been found for many years. In
1855, Henry Stevens had the singular good fortune to find this
typographical gem sandwiched in an odd bundle of old hymn books, unknown
to the auctioneers or catalogue, at a London book sale. Keeping his own
counsel, he bid off the lot at nine shillings, completed an imperfection
in the book, from another imperfect copy, had it bound in Bedford's best,
and sold it to Mr. Lenox's library at £80. In 1868, Stevens sold another
copy to George Brinley for 150 guineas, which was bought for $1,200 in
1878, by C. Vanderbilt, at the Brinley sale.
John Smith's folio "Historie of Virginia," 1st ed., 1624, large paper,
was sold to Brinley in 1874 at $1,275, and re-sold in 1878 for $1,800 to
Mr. Lenox. In 1884 a copy on large paper brought £605 at the Hamilton
Library sale in London. In 1899, a perfect copy of the large paper
edition was presented to the Library of Congress by Gen. W. B. Franklin.
Perfect copies of Smith's Virginia of 1624 on small paper have sold for
$1,000, and those wanting some maps at $70 to $150.
The earlier English tracts relating to Virginia and New England, printed
between 1608 and 1700, command large prices: _e. g._, Lescarbot's New
France, [Canada,] 1609, $50 to $150; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635,
$50 to $320; Hubbard's Present State of New England, Boston, 1677, $180
to $316.
It is curious to note, in contrast, the following record of prices at the
sale of Dr. Bernard's Library in London, in 1686:
T. Morton's New England, 1615, eight pence; Lescarbot's New France, 1609,
ten pence; Wood's New England's Prospect, 1635, and three others, 5 s. 8
d.; nine Eliot Tracts, &c., 5 s. 2 d.; Hubbard's Present State of New
England, 1677, 1 s.; Smith's Historie of Virginia, 1624, 4 s. 2 d.
The numerous and now rare works of Increase and Cotton Mather, printed
from 1667 to 1728, though mostly sermons, are collected by a sufficient
number of libraries to maintain prices at from $4 to $25 each, according
to condition. They number over 470 volumes.
Several collections have been attempted of Frankliniana, or works printed
at Benjamin Franklin's press, and of the many editions of his writings,
with all books concerning the illustrious printer-statesman of America.
His "Poor Richard's Almanacs," printed by him from 1733 to 1758, and by
successors to 1798, are so rare that Mr. P. L. Ford found a visit to
three cities requisite to see all of them. The Library of Congress
possesses thirty-five years of these issues.
A word may be added as to early newspapers, of some special numbers of
which prices that are literally "fabulous" are recorded. There are many
reprints afloat of the first American newspaper, and most librarians have
frequent offers of the Ulster County, (N. Y.) Gazette of Jan. 10, 1800,
in mourning for the death of Washington, a genuine copy of which is worth
money, but the many spurious reprints (which include all those offered)
are worth nothing.
Of many rare early books reprints or facsimiles are rife in the market,
especially of those having but few leaves; these, however, are easily
detected by an expert eye, and need deceive no one.
Of some scarce books, it may be said that they are as rare as the
individuals who want them: and of a very few, that they are as rare as
the extinct dodo. In fact, volumes have been written concerning extinct
books, not without interest to the bibliomaniac who is fired with the
passion for possessing something which no one else has got. Some books
are quite as worthless as they are rare. But books deemed worthless by
the common or even by the enlightened mind are cherished as treasures by
many collectors. The cook-book, entitled _Le Pastissier françois_, an
Elzevir of 1655, is so rare as to have brought several times its weight
in gold. Nearly all the copies of some books have been worn to rags by
anglers, devout women, cooks, or children.
When a book is sold at a great price as "very rare," it often happens
that several copies come into the market soon after, and, there being no
demand, the commercial value is correspondingly depressed. The books most
sure of maintaining full prices are first editions of master-pieces in
literature. Fitzgerald's version of Omar Khayyam was bought by nobody
when Quaritch first published it in 1859. After eight years, he put the
remainder of the edition,--a paper-covered volume--down to a penny each.
When the book had grown into fame, and the many variations in later
issues were discovered, this first edition, no longer procurable, rose to
£21, the price actually paid by Mr. Quaritch himself at a book auction in
1898!
Auction sales of libraries having many rare books have been frequent in
London and Paris. The largest price yet obtained for any library was
reached in 1882-3, when that of Mr. Wm. Beckford brought £73,551, being
an average of nearly $40 a volume. But W. C. Hazlitt says of this sale,
"the Beckford books realized perfectly insane prices, and were afterwards
re-sold for a sixth or even tenth of the amount, to the serious loss of
somebody, when the barometer had fallen."
The second-hand bookseller, having the whole range of printed literature
for his field, has a great advantage in dealing with book collectors over
the average dealer, who has to offer only new books, or such as are "in
print."
It may be owned that the love of rare books is chiefly sentimental. He
who delights to spend his days or his nights in the contemplation of
black-letter volumes, quaint title-pages, fine old bindings, and curious
early illustrations, may not add to the knowledge or the happiness of
mankind, but he makes sure of his own.
The passion for rare books, merely because of their rarity, is a low
order of the taste for books. But the desire to possess and read wise old
books which have been touched by the hoar frost of time is of a higher
mood. The first impression of Paradise Lost (1667) with its quarto page
and antique orthography, is it not more redolent of the author's age than
the elegant Pickering edition, or the one illustrated by John Martin or
Gustave Doré? When you hold in your hand Shakespeare's "Midsommer Night's
Dream" (A. D. 1600) and read with fresh admiration and delight the
exquisite speeches of Oberon and Titania, may not the thought that
perhaps that very copy may once have been held in the immortal bard's own
hand send a thrill through your own?
When you turn over the classic pages of Homer illustrated by Flaxman,
that "dear sculptor of eternity," as William Blake called him, or drink
in the beauty of those delicious landscapes of Turner, that astonishing
man, who shall wonder at your desire to possess them?
The genuine book lover is he who reads books; who values them for what
they contain, not for their rarity, nor for the preposterous prices which
have been paid for them. To him, book-hunting is an ever-enduring
delight. Of all the pleasures tasted here below, that of the book lover
in finding a precious and long sought volume is one of the purest and
most innocent. In books, he becomes master of all the kingdoms of the
world.