coming down on us of the Laureate, who, being in London for three
or four days from the Isle of Wight, spent two of them with us,
dined with us, smoked with us, opened his heart to us (and the
second bottle of port), and ended by reading "Maud" through from
end to end, and going away at half-past two in the morning. If I
had had a heart to spare, certainly he would have won mine. He is
captivating with his frankness, confidingness, and unexampled
naïveté! Think of his stopping in "Maud" every now and
then--"There's a wonderful touch! That's very tender. How beautiful
that is!" Yes, and it was wonderful, tender, beautiful, and he read
exquisitely in a voice like an organ, rather music than speech.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF TENNYSON, READING "MAUD" TO ROBERT AND MRS.
BROWNING, BY ROSSETTI]
Thus are linked indissolubly together the great Victorians: Browning,
Tennyson, Rossetti, and Mrs. Browning. It would be difficult to procure
a more interesting memento.
At 27 New Oxford Street, West, is a narrow, dingy little shop, which you
would never take to be one of the most celebrated bookshops in
London--Spencer's. How he does it, where he gets them, is his business,
and an inquiry he answers only with a smile; but the fact is, there they
are--just the books you have been looking for, presentation copies and
others, in cloth and bound. Spencer owes it to book-collectors to issue
catalogues. They would make delightful reading. He has always promised
to do it, but he, as well as we, knows that he never will.
But he is kind in another way, if kindness it is: he leaves you alone
for hours in that wonderful second-story room, subjected to temptation
almost too great to be resisted. Autograph letters, first drafts of
well-known poems, rare volumes filled with corrections and notes in the
hand of the author, are scattered about; occasionally, such an
invaluable item as the complete manuscript of "The Cricket on the
Hearth."
It was from the table in this room that I picked up one day a rough
folder of cardboard tied with red tape and labeled "Lamb." Opening it, I
found a letter from Lamb to Taylor & Hessey, "acknowledging with thanks
receit of thirty-two pounds" for the copyright of "Elias (Alas) of last
year," signed and dated, June 9, 1824. I felt that it would look well in
my presentation "Elia," in boards, uncut, and was not mistaken.
My acquaintance with Mr. Dobell I owe to a paragraph that I read many
years ago in Labouchere's "Truth." One day this caught my eye:--
From the catalogue of a West End Bookseller I note this: "Garrick,
David. 'Love in the Suds. A Town Eclogue,' first edition. 1772.
Very rare. 5 guineas." The next post brought me a catalogue from
Bertram Dobell, the well-known bookseller in the Charing Cross
Road. There I read, "Garrick, David. 'Love in the Suds. A Town
Eclogue,' first edition, 1772, boards, 18 pence." The purchaser of
the former might do well to average by acquiring Mr. Dobell's copy.
Old Dobell is in a class by himself--scholar, antiquarian, poet, and
bookseller.[4] He is just the type one would expect to find in a shop on
the floor of which books are stacked in piles four or five feet high,
leaving narrow tortuous paths through which one treads one's way with
great drifts of books on either side. To reach the shelves is
practically impossible, yet out of this confusion I have picked many a
rare item.
Don't be discouraged if, on your asking for a certain volume, Mr. Dobell
gently replies, "No, sorry." That means simply that he cannot put his
mental eye on it at the moment. It, or something as interesting, will
come along. Don't hurry; and let me observe that the prices of this
eighteenth-century bookshop are of the period.
I once sought, for years, a little book of no particular value; but I
wanted it to complete a set. I had about given up all hope of securing a
copy when I finally found it in a fashionable shop on Piccadilly. It was
marked five guineas, an awful price; but I paid it and put the volume in
my pocket. That very day I stumbled across a copy in a better condition
at Dobell's, marked two and six. I bethought me of Labby's advice and
"averaged."
From Dobell came Wordsworth's copy of "Endymion"; likewise a first
edition of the old-fashioned love-story, "Henrietta Temple," by
Disraeli, inscribed, "To William Beckford with the author's
compliments," with many pages of useless notes in Beckford's hand; he
seems to have read the volumes with unnecessary care. Nor should I
forget a beautiful copy of Thomson's "Seasons," presented by Byron "To
the Hon'ble Frances Wedderburne Webster," with this signed impromptu:--
Go!--volume of the Wintry Blast,
The yellow Autumn and the virgin Spring.
Go!--ere the Summer's zephyr's past
And lend to loveliness thy lovely Wing.
The morning's mail of a busy man, marked "personal," takes a wide scope,
ranging all the way from polite requests for a loan to brief statements
that "a prompt remittance will oblige"; but at the bottom of the pile
are the welcome catalogues of the second-hand booksellers--for books, to
be interesting, must at least be second-hand. Indeed, as with notes
offered for discount, the greater the number of good indorsers the
better. In books, indorsements frequently take the form of bookplates. I
am always interested in such a note as this: "From the library of
Charles B. Foote, with his bookplate."
Auction catalogues come, too. These also must be scanned, but they lack
the element which makes the dealers' catalogues so interesting--the
prices. With prices omitted, book-auction catalogues are too
stimulating. The mind at once begins to range. Doubt takes the place of
certainty.
The arrival of a catalogue from the Sign of the Caxton Head, Mr. James
Tregaskis's shop in High Holborn, in the parish of
St.-Giles's-in-the-Fields, always suspends business in my office for
half an hour; and while I glance rapidly through its pages in search of
nuggets, I paraphrase a line out of Boswell, that "Jimmie hath a very
pretty wife." Why shouldn't a book merchant have a pretty wife? The
answer is simple: he has, nor are good-looking wives peculiar to this
generation of booksellers.
Tom Davies, it will be remembered, who, in the back parlor of his little
bookshop in Russell Street, Covent Garden, first introduced Boswell to
Johnson, had a wife who, we are told, caused the great Doctor to
interrupt himself in the Lord's Prayer at the point, "Lead us not into
temptation," and whisper to her, with waggish and gallant good humor,
"You, my dear, are the cause of this." Like causes still produce like
effects.
[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON'S CHURCH, ST. CLEMENT DANES
_From a pen-and-ink sketch by Charles G. Osgood_]
From Tregaskis I secured my "Memoirs of George Psalmanazar," 1764, an
interesting book in itself; but its chief value is the signature and
note, "Given to H. L. Thrale by Dr. Sam Johnson," I suppose about 1770.
Following Mrs. Thrale's usual practice, there are scattered through the
volume a number of notes and criticisms in her handwriting. It was
Psalmanazar, afterwards discovered to be a notorious old scamp, whose
apparent piety so impressed Dr. Johnson that he "sought" his company;
and of whom he said, "Sir, contradict Psalmanazar! I should as soon
think of contradicting a Bishop."
[Illustration: Inscription to Mrs. Thrale in Dr. Johnson's Hand]
Side by side with this volume on my shelves stands the "Historical and
Geographical Description of Formosa," a work of sheer imagination if
ever there was one.
My "Haunch of Venison," 1776, in wrappers, uncut, with the rare portrait
of Goldsmith drawn by Bunbury (he married Goldsmith's Little Comedy, it
will be remembered), also came from him, as did my "London, A poem in
imitation of the third Satire of Juvenal," and the first edition of the
first book on London, Stow's "Survay," 1598.
From another source came one of the last books on London, "Our House."
This book, delightful in itself, is especially interesting to me by
reason of the personal inscription of its charming and witty writer: "To
A.E.N., a welcome visitor to 'Our House,' from Elizabeth Robins
Pennell."
Continuing along Holborn citywards, one comes to (and usually passes)
the Great Turnstile, a narrow court leading into Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Here is another bookshop that I frequent,--Hollings's,--not for the
rarest things, but for the choice little bits which seem almost
commonplace when you are buying them, and give so much pleasure when you
get them safely on your shelves at home. I never spend a few hours with
Mr. Redway, the manager, without thinking of the saying of one of our
most delightful essayists, Augustine Birrell, who, to our loss, seems to
have forsaken literature for politics: "Second-hand booksellers are a
race of men for whom I have the greatest respect; ... their catalogues
are the true textbooks of literature."
One sometimes has the pleasure of running across some reference in a
catalogue to a book of which one has a better or more interesting copy
at half the price. For example, I saw quoted in a catalogue the other
day at eighty pounds a "Set of the Life of the Prince Consort, in _five_
volumes, with an inscription in each volume in the autograph of Her
Majesty Queen Victoria. The first volume being published before Her
Majesty was proclaimed Empress of India, she signed as Queen; the other
four volumes Her Majesty signed as Queen-Empress."
In my collection there are _seven_ volumes, the five mentioned above and
two additional volumes, the "Speeches and Addresses" and the "Biography
of the Prince Consort." My copies also are signed, but note: the volume
of "Speeches and Addresses" has this intensely personal inscription:--
To Major General, the Hon. A. Gordon, in recollection of his great, &
good master from the beloved Prince's broken hearted Widow
VICTORIA R.
OSBORNE
_Jan: 12. 1863_.
The "Biography" has this:--
To Major General, The Hon. Alexander Gordon, C.B. in recollection
of his dear Master from the great Prince's affectionate and
sorrowing Widow,
VICTORIA R.
_April, 1867._
Volume one of the "Life" is inscribed:--
To Lieutenant General, The Hon. Sir Alexander Gordon, K.C.B., in
recollection of his dear Master, from
VICTORIA R.
_January 1875_.
Volume two:--
To Lieut. General, The Hon. Sir Alexander Hamilton Gordon, K.C.B.,
from
VICTORIA R.
_Dec. 1876_.
Volume three:--
To General, The Hon. Sir Alex. H. Gordon, K.C.B., from
VICTORIA R.I.
_Dec. 1877_.
The inscriptions in the last three volumes are identical, except for the
dates. All are written in the large, flowing hand with which we are
familiar, and indicate a declining scale of grief. Time heals all
wounds, and as these volumes appear at intervals, grief is finally
assuaged and Majesty asserts itself.
[Illustration: Inscription to General Sir A. Gordon in Queen Victoria's
Hand]
II
BOOK-COLLECTING AT HOME
In the preceding chapter I wrote of the amenities of book-collecting in
London, of my adventures in the shops of Bond Street and Piccadilly, of
Holborn and the Strand--almost as though this paradise of the
book-collector were his only happy hunting-ground. But all the good
hunting is not found in London: New York has a number of attractive
shops, Philadelphia at least two, while there are several in Chicago and
in unexpected places in the West.
Where in all the world will you find so free a buyer, always ready to
take a chance to turn a volume at a profit, as George D. Smith? He holds
the record for having paid the highest price ever paid for a book at
auction: fifty thousand dollars for a copy of the Gutenberg Bible,
purchased for Mr. Henry E. Huntington at the Hoe sale; and not only did
he pay the highest price--he also bought more than any other purchaser
of the fine books disposed of at that sale.
I have heard Smith's rivals complain that he is not a bookseller in the
proper sense of the word--that he buys without discretion and without
exact knowledge. Such criticism, I take it, is simply the natural result
of jealousy. George D. Smith has sold more fine books than perhaps any
two of his rivals.
[Illustration: GEORGE D. SMITH
"G. D. S." as he is known in the New York Auction Rooms. Like "G. B. S."
of London, he is something of an enigma. What are the qualities which
have made him, as he undoubtedly is, the greatest bookseller in the
world?
_From a photograph by Arnold Genthe_]
There is no affectation of dignity or of knowledge about him, and it is
well that there is not. No one knows all there is to know about books; a
man might know much more than he--such men there are--and yet lack the
qualities which have enabled him to secure and retain the confidence and
commissions of his patrons. He is practically the main support of the
auction-rooms in this country, and I have frequently seen him leave a
sale at which he had purchased every important book that came up. He had
knowledge and confidence enough for that, and I cannot see why his
frankness and lack of affectation should be counted against him. It
takes all kinds of men to make a world, and George is several kinds in
himself.
Twenty-five years ago, in London, early in my book-collecting days, I
came across a bundle of dusty volumes in an old book-shop in the
Strand,--the shop and that part of the Strand have long since
disappeared,--and bought the lot for, as I remember, two guineas.
Subsequently, upon going through the contents carefully, I found that I
had acquired what appeared to be quite a valuable little parcel. There
were the following:--
"Tales from Shakespeare": Baldwin and Cradock, fifth edition, 1831.
Lamb's "Prose Works": 3 volumes, Moxon, 1836.
"The Letters of Charles Lamb": 2 volumes, Moxon, 1837; with the
inscription, "To J. P. Collier, Esq. from his friend H. C.
Robinson."
Talfourd's "Final Memorials of Charles Lamb": 2 volumes, Moxon,
1848.
By the way, the last was Wordsworth's copy, with his signature on the
title-page of each volume; and I observed for the first time that the
book was dedicated to him. Loosely inserted in several of the volumes
were newspaper clippings, a number of pages of manuscript in John Payne
Collier's handwriting, a part of a letter from Mary Lamb addressed to
Jane Collier, his mother, and in several of the volumes were notes in
Collier's handwriting referring to matters in the text: as where,
against a reference to Lamb's "Essay on Roast Pig," Collier says, in
pencil, "My mother sent the pig to Lamb." Again, where Talfourd,
referring to an evening with Lamb, says, "We mounted to the top story
and were soon seated beside a cheerful fire: hot water and its better
adjuncts were soon before us," Collier writes, "Both Lamb and Talfourd
died of the 'Better Adjuncts.'"
There was a large number of such pencil notes. The pages of manuscript
in Collier's heavy and, as he calls it, "infirm" hand begin:--
In relation to C. Lamb and Southey, Mr. Cosens possesses as
interesting a MS. as I know. It is bound as a small quarto, but the
writing of Lamb, and chiefly by Southey is post 8vo. They seem to
have been contributions to an "Annual Anthology" published by
Cottle of Bristol.
The MS. begins with an "Advertisement" in the handwriting of
Southey, and it is followed immediately by a poem in Lamb's
handwriting headed "Elegy on a Quid of Tobacco," in ten stanzas
rhiming alternately thus:--
It lay before me on the close grazed grass
Beside my path, an old tobacco quid:
And shall I by the mute adviser pass
Without one serious thought? now Heaven forbid![5]
The next day, Collier copied more of the poem, for on another sheet he
remarks, "As my hand is steadier to-day I have copied the remaining
stanzas."
On still another sheet, referring to the Cosens MS., Collier writes:--
The whole consists of about sixty leaves chiefly in the handwriting
of Southey and it contains ... productions by Lamb, one a sort of
_jeu d'esprit_ called "The Rhedycinian Barbers" on the
hair-dressing of twelve young men of Christ Church College, and the
other headed, "Dirge for Him Who Shall Deserve It." This has no
signature but the whole is in Lamb's clear young hand, and it shows
very plainly that he partook not only of the poetical but of the
political feeling of the time.
The signatures are various, Erthuryo, Ryalto, Walter, and so forth,
and at the end are four Love Elegies and a serious poem by Charles
Lamb, entitled, "Living without God in the World."
How many of these were printed elsewhere, or in Cottle's
"Anthology," I do not know. I would willingly copy more did not my
hand fail me.
J. P. C.
[Illustration: Autograph MS. of Lamb's Poem, "Elegy on a Quid of
Tobacco"]
Twenty years later, in New York one day, George D. Smith asked me if I
would care to buy an interesting volume of Southey MSS., and to my great
surprise handed me the identical little quarto which Collier had many
years before found so interesting that he had made excerpts from it. It
might not have made such instant appeal to my recollection of my
purchase in London had it not been for an inserted note, almost
identical with the one on the loose slip in my Lamb volume, obviously in
Collier's "infirm" hand, repeating briefly what he had said on the loose
sheets in my volumes at home.
Mr. Cosens, the former owner of the manuscripts, had added a note: "In
1798 or 1799 Charles Lamb contributed to the 'Annual Anthology' which a
Mr. Cottle, a bookseller of Bristol, published jointly with Coleridge
and Southey. This manuscript is partly in the handwriting of Southey and
was formerly the property of Cottle of Bristol."
Upon investigation I ascertained that the little volume of manuscript
verse had passed from Mr. Cosens's possession into that of Augustin
Daly, at whose sale it had been catalogued as a Southey MS., with small
reference to its Lamb interest. Although the price was high, the
temptation to buy was too strong to be resisted; so after many years the
small quarto of original poems by Lamb, Southey, and others, and
Collier's description of it, stand side by side in my library. For me
the three poems by Lamb outweigh in interest and value all others. The
volume is labeled, "Southey Manuscripts, a long time since the property
of a Mr. Cottle of Bristol."
The most scholarly bookseller in this country to-day is Dr.
Rosenbach--"Rosy" as we who know him well call him. It was not his
original intention to deal in rare books, but to become a professor of
English, a calling for which few have a finer appreciation; but mere
scholars abound. He must have felt that we collectors needed some one to
guide our tastes and deplete our bank accounts. In both he is unequaled.
His spacious second-floor room in Walnut Street is filled with the
rarest volumes. "Ask and it shall be given you"--with a bill at the end
of the month. It is a delightful place to spend a rainy morning, and you
are certain to depart a wiser if a poorer man. I once spent some hours
with the doctor in company with my friend Tinker--not the great Tinker
who plays ball for a bank president's wage, but the less famous Tinker,
Professor of English at Yale. We had been looking at Shakespeare folios
and quartos, and Spenser's and Herrick's and Milton's priceless volumes
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when, looking out of the
window, Rosy remarked, "There goes John G. Johnson." "Oh!" said my
friend, "I thought you were going to say John Dryden. It would not have
surprised me in the least."
[Illustration: DR. A. S. W. ROSENBACH
_Photograph by Arnold Genthe_]
Don't expect ever to "discover" anything at Rosenbach's, except how
ignorant you are. Rosy does all the discovering himself, as when, a few
years ago, he found in a volume of old pamphlets a copy of the first
edition of Dr. Johnson's famous "Prologue Spoken at the Opening of the
Theatre in Drury Lane." It will be remembered that this Prologue
contains several of the Doctor's most famous lines: criticisms of the
stage, as true to-day as when they were uttered; as where he says,--
The Drama's Laws, the Drama's patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live.
It has also the line in which, speaking of Shakespeare, he says, "And
panting Time toil'd after him in vain." Garrick having criticized this
line, Johnson remarked, "Sir, Garrick is a prosaical rogue. The next
time I write I will make both Time and Space pant."
The discovery by Dr. Rosenbach of this Prologue shows that the days of
romance in book-hunting are not over. It is not to be found in the
British Museum. So far as we know, it is the only copy in existence.
Rosy has declined to sell it, though tempting offers have been made, for
he is a booklover as well as a bookseller.
That he is a rare judge of human nature, too, is evidenced by a little
card over his desk on which is printed the text,--
"It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his
way then he boasteth."--PROVERBS XX. 14.
That is exactly what I did when I secured from him my "Robinson Crusoe,"
the first edition in two volumes, with the third, which may not be
Defoe's. It lacks one "point" perhaps: the word "apply," the last word
on page 1 of the preface, is correctly spelled, not spelled "apyly," as
in some copies I have seen. The matter, I believe, is not clear. The
type may have been correctly set at first and have become corrupted in
process of printing, or a few copies may have been so printed before the
error, being noted, was corrected.[6] After page 304, of Volume 1, the
paper is of thinner and poorer quality than in the pages preceding it.
The three volumes are clean, the binding contemporary calf, the folding
maps immaculate, and the first two volumes were once the property of
"Mr. William Congreve." Altogether it is a book of which this collector
"boasteth."
For some unexplained reason I have never been able to buy as many books
from Walter Hill of Chicago as I should like. He is one of the most
amiable and reliable men in the business. His catalogues issued from
time to time are delightful. He once put me under an obligation which I
have not yet repaid and which I want to record.
Several years ago I met him in the streets of Philadelphia and said to
him, "Hello! what are you doing here? Are you buying or selling?"
"Both," said he; "I bought some nice books only a few minutes ago at
Sessler's."
"Don't tell me," I cried, "that 'Oliver Twist,' that presentation copy
to Macready, was among them."
"It was," said he; "why, did you want it?"
"Want it!" said I; "I have just been waiting for my bank account to
recover from a capital operation, to buy it."
[Illustration: Title of "Robinson Crusoe." First Edition]
"All right," said he, "I'll turn it over at just what I paid for it, and
you can send me your check when you are ready."
I was mean enough to accept his offer, and the book is to-day worth at
least twice what I paid.
Yet, come to think of it, several nice volumes, "collated and perfect,"
came from him. There is my "Vicar," not the first edition, with the
misprints in volume 2, page 159, paged 165; and page 95, "Waekcfield"
for "Wakefield,"--that came from North,--but the one with Rowlandson
plates. And "Evelina," _embellished with engravings_, and wretchedly
printed on vile paper; and "She Stoops to Conquer," with all the errors
just as they should be--a printer's carnival; and I have no doubt there
are many more.
Sessler has some unexpectedly fine things from time to time. He goes
abroad every year with his pocket full of money, and comes back with a
lot of things that quickly empty ours. Dickens is one of his
specialties, and from him I have secured at least five of the twenty-one
presentation Dickenses that I boast of. A few years ago quite a number
came on the market at prices which to-day seem very low. In my last
book-hunting experience in London I saw only one presentation Dickens;
but as the price was about three times what I had accustomed myself to
pay Sessler, I let it pass.
[Illustration: Title of "Oliver Twist"]
Sessler studies his customer's weaknesses--that's where his strength
lies. When I came back from Europe some years ago, I discovered that he
had bought for me, in my absence, at the Lambert sale, one item which
he knew I could not resist. It was a little pen-and-ink drawing by
Thackeray, the first sketch, afterwards more fully elaborated,
illustrating "Vanity Fair," where, at the end of the first chapter, the
immortal Becky, driving away from Miss Pinkerton's school, throws Dr.
Johnson's "Dixonary" out of the window of the carriage as it drives off.
I think that all who knew him will agree with me that Luther S.
Livingston was too much of a gentleman, too much of a scholar,--perhaps
I should add, too much of an invalid,--to take high rank as a
bookseller.