witness the work he did on Lamb for Mr. J. A. Spoor of Chicago; but I
always felt a trifle embarrassed when I asked him the _price_ of
anything he had to sell; one could ask him anything else, but to offer
money to Livingston seemed rather like offering money to your host after
an excellent dinner.
[Illustration: BECKY SHARP THROWING DR. JOHNSON'S "DIXONARY" OUT OF THE
CARRIAGE WINDOW, AS SHE LEAVES MISS PINKERTON'S SCHOOL
_From the first pen-and-ink sketch, by Thackeray, afterwards
elaborated_]
He enjoyed the love and respect of all book-collectors and we all
congratulated him when he graduated from the bookshop to the library.
For many years in charge of the rare-book department of Dodd, Mead &
Company, and subsequently a partner of Robert Dodd, he was the first
custodian of the choice collection of books formed by the late Harry
Elkins Widener and bequeathed by the latter's mother to Harvard. A more
admirable selection could not have been made. A scholar and a
gentleman, he brought to that position just the qualities needed for a
post of such distinction, but, unhappily, he lived hardly long enough to
take possession of it. He died at Christmas, 1914, after a long and
painful illness.
James F. Drake, in New York, specializes in association books and in
first editions of nineteenth-century authors. His stock I have
frequently laid under contribution. My Surtees and many other
colored-plate books came from him, and first editions innumerable of
authors now becoming "collected."
I know of no bibliography of George Moore, but my set is, I think,
complete. Many are presentation copies. George Moore's many admirers
will remember that his volume, "Memoirs of My Dead Life," is much sought
in the first English edition. I have the proof sheets of the entire
volume, showing many corrections, as in the specimen on page 50. My
"Literature at Nurse,"--a pamphlet attacking the censorship of the novel
established by Mudie,--which was published at threepence, and now
commands forty dollars, is inscribed to Willie Wilde; while "Pagan
Poems" was a suitable gift "To Oscar Wilde with the author's
compliments."
[Illustration: Specimen Proof-Sheet of George Moore's "Memoirs of My
Dead Life"]
There is no halt in the constantly advancing value of first editions of
Oscar Wilde. That interest in the man still continues, is evidenced by
the steady stream of books about him. Ransome's "Oscar Wilde,"
immediately suppressed; "Oscar Wilde Three Times Tried," and "The
First Stone," privately printed by the "Unspeakable Scot," already
difficult to procure, are among the latest.
[Illustration: Title of George Moore's "Pagan Poems"]
For books of the moment, published in small editions which almost
immediately become scarce, Drake's shop in Fortieth Street is
headquarters; and as my club in New York is near by, I find myself
frequently dropping in for a book and a bit of gossip.
There are drawbacks as well as compensations to living in the country.
"Gossip about Book Collecting" has its charms, as William Loring Andrews
has taught us. It is sometimes difficult to get it, living as I do
"twelve miles from a lemon"; and so, when I am in New York and have
absorbed what I can at Drake's, who is very exact in the information he
imparts, I usually call on Gabriel Wells. How Wells receives you with
open arms and a good cigar, in his lofty rooms on the Avenue
overlooking the Library, is known to most collectors. Books in sets
are,--perhaps I should say, were,--his specialty; recently he has gone
in for very choice items, which, when offered, must be secured, or
anguish is one's portion thereafter. My last interview with him resulted
in my separating myself from a bunch of Liberty Bonds, which I had
intended as a solace for my old age; but a few words from Wells
convinced me that Dr. Johnson was right when he said, "It is better to
live rich than die rich"; and so I walked away with a copy of Blake's
"Marriage of Heaven and Hell," which is about as rare a book as one can
hope to find at the end of a busy day.
It was, if I remember correctly, Ernest Dressel North who first aroused
my interest in Lamb, bibliographically. I had learned to love him in a
dumpy little green cloth volume, "Elia and Eliana," published by Moxon,
which I had picked up at Leary's, and which bears upon its title-page
the glaring inaccuracy,--"The Only Complete Edition." I have this
worthless little volume among my first editions; to me it is one, and it
is certainly the last volume of Lamb I would part with.
It must be all of thirty years ago that I went to London with a list of
books by and about Charles Lamb--some twenty volumes in all--which North
had prepared for me. I came across this list not long ago, and was
amused at the prices that he suggested I might safely pay. Guineas where
his list gives shillings would not to-day separate the books from
their owners.
[Illustration: Title of Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell"]
It was at this time, too, that I made my first Lamb pilgrimage, going to
every place of interest I could find, from Christ's Hospital, then in
Newgate Street, where I saw the Blue-Coat boys at dinner, to the
neglected grave in Edmonton Churchyard, where Charles and Mary Lamb lie
buried side by side. The illustration facing page 54 is made from a
negative I procured in 1890, of the house at Enfield in which Lamb lived
from October, 1829, until May, 1833.
A good story is told of my friend, Edmund D. Brooks, the bookseller of
far-off Minneapolis. Brooks, who knows his way about London and is as
much at home with the talent there as any other man, set out one day to
make a "quick turn," in stock-market parlance. Armed with a large sum of
money, the sinews of book-buying as well as of war, he casually dropped
in on Walter Spencer, who was offering for sale the manuscript of
Dickens's "Cricket." The price was known to be pretty steep, but Brooks
was prepared to pay it. What he did not know was that, in an upper room
over Spencer's shop, another bookseller, also with a large sum in
pocket, was debating the price of this very item, raising his offer by
slow degrees. But it did not take Brooks long to discover that
negotiations were progressing and that quick action was necessary.
Calling Spencer aside, he inquired the price, paid the money, and took
the invaluable manuscript away in a taxi. The whole transaction had
occupied only a couple of minutes. Spencer then returned to his first
customer, who continued the attack until, to close the argument, Spencer
quietly remarked that the manuscript had been sold, paid for, and had
passed out of his possession.
It reminds one of the story of how the late A. J. Cassatt, the master
mind of the railroad presidents of his time, bought the Philadelphia,
Wilmington & Baltimore Railway right under the nose of President Garrett
of the Baltimore & Ohio. There were loud cries of anguish from the
defeated parties on both occasions, but the book-selling story is not
over yet, for a few hours later Sabin, the bookseller _de luxe_, had the
Dickens manuscript displayed in his shop-window in Bond Street, and
Brooks had a sheaf of crisp Bank of England notes in his pocket, with
which to advance negotiations in other directions.
I take little or no interest in bindings; I want the book as originally
published, in boards uncut, in old sheep, or in cloth, and as clean and
fair as may be.
I am not without a sense for color, and the backs of books bound in
various colored leathers, suitably gilt, placed with some eye for
arrangement on the shelves, are to me as beautiful and suggestive as any
picture; yet, as one cannot have everything, I yield the beauty and
fragrance of leather for the fascination of the "original state as
issued."
[Illustration: CHARLES LAMB'S HOUSE AT ENFIELD]
Nor am I unmindful how invariably in binding a book, in trimming, be it
ever so little, and gilding its edges, one lops off no small part of
its value. This fact should be pointed out to all young collectors. They
should learn to let their books alone, and if they must patronize a
binder, have slip-cases or pull-cases made. They serve every purpose.
The book will be protected if it is falling apart and unpresentable, and
one's craving for color and gilt will be satisfied. As Eckel says in his
"Bibliography of Dickens," "The tendency of the modern collector has
steadily moved toward books in their original state,--books as they were
when created,--and it is doubtful if there will be much deviation from
this taste in the future."
Only the very immature book-buyer will deprive himself of the pleasure
of "collecting," and buy a complete set of some author he much esteems,
in first editions, assembled and bound without care or thought other
than to produce a piece of merchandise and sell it for as much as it
will fetch. The rich and ignorant buyer should be made to confine his
attention to the purchase of "subscription" books. These are produced in
quantity especially for his benefit, and he should leave our books
alone. The present combination of many rich men and relatively few fine
books is slowly working my ruin; I know it is. We live in a law-full
age, an age in which it seems to be every one's idea to pass laws. I
would have a law for the protection of old books, and our legislators in
Washington might do much worse than consider this suggestion.
[Illustration: INSCRIPTION IN A COPY OF "THE NIGGER OF THE 'NARCISSUS'"]
One other form of book the collector should be warned against--the
extra-illustrated volume. The extra-illustration of a favorite author is
a tedious and expensive method of wasting money, and mutilating other
books the while. I confess to having a few, but I have bought them at a
very small part of what they cost to produce, and I do not encourage
their production.
I know something of the art of inlaying prints. I had a distinguished
and venerable teacher, the late Ferdinand J. Dreer of Philadelphia, who
formed a priceless collection of autographs, which at his death he
bequeathed to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Mr. Dreer was a
collector of the old school. He was a friend of John Allan, one of the
earliest book-collectors in this country, of whom a "Memorial" was
published by the Bradford Club in 1864. Mr. Dreer spent the leisure of
years and a small fortune in inlaying plates and pages of text of such
books as he fancied. I remember well as a lad being allowed to pore over
his sumptuous extra-illustrated books, filled with autograph letters,
portraits, and views, for hours at a time. Little did I think that these
volumes, the object of such loving care, would be sold at auction.
Many years after his death the family decided to dispose of a portion of
his library. Stan. Henkels conducted the sale. When the well-known
volumes came up, I was all in a tremble. It seemed hardly possible that
any of the famous Dreer books were to come within my grasp. But alas!
fashions change, as I have said before. A "History of the Bank of North
America," our oldest national bank, which enjoys the unique distinction
of not calling itself a national bank, went, not to an officer or
director of that sound old Philadelphia institution, but to George D.
Smith of New York, for a song--in a high key, but a song nevertheless.
An "Oration in Carpenter's Hall" in Philadelphia brought close to a
thousand dollars; but, in addition to the rare portraits and views,
there were fifty-seven autograph letters in it. Sold separately, they
would have brought several times as much. Smith was the buyer. Then
there came a "History of Christ Church," full of most interesting
material, as "old Christ Church" is the most beautiful and interesting
colonial church in America. Where was the rector, where were the wardens
and the vestry thereof? No sign of them. Smith was the buyer.
The books were going and for almost nothing, in every case to "Smith."
At last came the "Memoirs of Nicholas Biddle," of the famous old Bank of
the United States. Hear! ye Biddles, if any Biddles there be. There are,
in plenty, but not here. Smith, having bought all the rest, stopped when
he saw me bidding; the hammer fell, and I was the owner of the most
interesting volume in the whole Dreer collection,--the volume I had so
often coveted as a boy, with the letters and portraits of Penn,
Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, and so forth,--in all
twenty-eight of them, and mine for ten dollars apiece, book, portraits,
and binding thrown in. It is painful to witness the slaughter of
another's possessions; it makes one wonder--But that is not what we
collect books for.
In the last analysis pretty much everything, including poetry, is
merchandise, and every important book sooner or later turns up in the
auction rooms. The dozen or fifty men present represent the bookbuyers
of the world--you are buying against them. When you sell a book at
auction the whole world is your market. This refers, of course, only to
important sales. At other times books are frequently disposed of at much
less than their real value. These sales it pays the book-collector to
attend, personally, if he can; or, better still, to entrust his bid to
the auctioneer or to some representative in whom he has confidence. Most
profitable of all for the buyer are the sales where furniture, pictures,
and rugs are disposed of, with, finally, a few books knocked down by one
who knows nothing of their value.
Many are the volumes in my library which have been picked up on such
occasions for a very few dollars, and which are worth infinitely more
than I paid for them. I have in mind my copy of the first edition of
Boswell's "Corsica," in fine old calf, with the inscription "To the
Right Honourable, the Earl Marischal of Scotland, as a mark of sincere
regard and affection, from the Author, James Boswell." This stands me
only a few dollars. In London I should have been asked--and would have
paid--twenty pounds for it.
Some men haunt the auction rooms all the time. I do not. I have a living
to make and I am not quick in making it; moreover, the spirit of
competition invariably leads me astray, and I never come away without
finding myself the owner of at least one book, usually a large one,
which should properly be entitled, "What Will He Do With It?"
* * * * *
No book-collector should be without a book-plate, and a book-plate once
inserted in a volume should never be removed. When the plate is that of
a good collector, it constitutes an indorsement, and adds a certain
interest and value to the volume.
I was once going through the collection of a friend, and observing the
absence of a book-plate, I asked him why it was. He replied, "The
selection of a book-plate is such a serious matter." It is; and I should
never have been able to get one to suit me entirely had not my good
friend, Osgood of Princeton, come to my rescue.
[Illustration: The book-plate illustrates an incident described in
Boswell. Johnson and Goldsmith were walking one day in the Poets' Corner
of Westminster Abbey. Looking at the graves, Johnson solemnly repeated a
line from a Latin poet, which might be freely translated, "Perchance
some day our _names_ will mingle with these." As they strolled home
through the Strand, Goldsmith's eye lighted upon the heads of two
traitors rotting on the spikes over Temple Bar. Remembering that Johnson
and he were rather Jacobitic in sentiment, pointing to the heads and
giving Johnson's quotation a twist, Goldsmith remarked, "Perhaps some
day our _heads_ will mingle with those."]
He was working in my library some years ago on an exquisite appreciation
of Johnson, when, noticing on my writing-table a pen-and-ink sketch, he
asked, "What's this?" I replied with a sigh that it was a suggestion for
a book-plate which I had just received from London. I had described in a
letter exactly what I wanted--an association plate strictly in
eighteenth-century style. Fleet Street was to be indicated, with Temple
Bar in the background. It was to be plain and dignified in treatment.
What came was indeed a sketch of Fleet Street and very much more.
There were scrolls and flourishes, eggs and darts and _fleurs-de-lis_--a
little of everything. In a word it was impossible. "Let me see what I
can do," said Osgood.
When I returned home that evening there was waiting for me an exquisite
pencil sketch, every detail faultless: Fleet Street with its tavern
signs, in the background Temple Bar with Johnson and Goldsmith, the
latter pointing to it and remarking slyly, "_Forsitan et nomen nostrum
miscebitur istis_." I was delighted, as I had reason to be. In due
course, after discussions as to the selection of a suitable motto, we
finally agreed on a line out of Boswell: "Sir, the biographical part of
literature is what I love most"; and the sketch went off to Sidney Smith
of Boston, the distinguished book-plate engraver.
I have a fondness for college professors. I must have inherited it from
a rich old uncle, from whom I unluckily inherited nothing else, who had
a similar weakness for preachers. Let a man, however stupid, once get a
license to wear his collar backwards, and the door was flung wide and
the table spread. I have often thought what an ecstasy of delight he
would have been thrown into had he met a churchman whose rank permitted
him to wear his entire ecclesiastical panoply backwards.
My weakness for scholars is just such a whimsy. As a rule they are not
so indulgent to collectors as they should be. They write books that we
buy and read--when we can. My lifelong friend, Felix Schelling (in
England he would be Sir Felix) is more lenient than most. My copy of his
"Elizabethan Drama," which has made him famous among students, is uncut
and, I am afraid, to some extent unopened. Frankly, it is too scholarly
to read with enjoyment. Indeed, I sometimes think that it was my protest
that led him to adopt the easier and smoother style apparent in his
later books, "English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare,"
and "The English Lyric." Be this as it may, he has shown that he can use
the scholarly and the familiar style with equal facility; and when he
chooses, he can turn a compliment like one of his own sixteenth-century
courtiers.
I had always doubted that famous book-index story, "Mill, J. S., 'On
Liberty'; Ditto, 'On the Floss,'" until one day my friend Tinker sent me
a dedication copy of his "Dr. Johnson and Fanny Burney," in which I
read--and knew that he was poking fun at me for my bookish
weakness--this:--
This copy is a genuine specimen of the first edition, uncut and
unopened, signed and certified by the editor.
CHAUNCEY BREWSTER TINKER.
No copy is now known to exist of the suppressed first state of the
first edition--that in which, instead of the present entry in the
index, under Pope, Alexander, page 111, occurred the words, "Pope
Alexander 111."
How much more valuable this copy would have been if this
blunder--"point," the judicious would call it--had not been corrected
until the second edition!
The work of my office was interrupted one summer morning several years
ago by the receipt of a cable from London, apparently in code, which, I
was advised, would not translate. Upon its being submitted to me I found
that it did not require translating, but I was not surprised that it was
somewhat bewildering to others. It read, "_Johnson Piazza Dictionary
Pounds Forty Hut_." To me it was perfectly clear that Mrs.
Thrale-Piozzi's copy of Johnson's Dictionary in two volumes folio was to
be had from my friend Hutt for forty pounds. I dispatched the money and
in due course received the volumes. Inserted in one of them was a long
holograph letter to the Thrales, giving them some excellent advice on
the management of their affairs.
I think it very probably in your power to lay up eight thousand
pounds a year for every year to come, increasing all the time, what
needs not be increased, the splendour of all external appearance,
and surely such a state is not to be put in yearly hazard for the
pleasure of keeping the house full, or the ambition of outbrewing
Whitbread. Stop now and you are safe--stop a few years and you may
go safely on thereafter, if to go on shall seem worth the while.
Johnson's letters, like his talks, are compact with wisdom, and many of
them are as easy as the proverbial old shoe. Fancy Sam Johnson, the
great lexicographer, writing to Mrs. Thrale and telling her to come home
and take care of him and, as he says, to
Come with a whoop, come with a call,
Come with a good will, or come not at all.
I own thirty or forty Johnson letters, including the one in which he
describes what she called his "menagerie"--dependents too old, too poor,
or too peevish to find asylum elsewhere. He writes, "We have tolerable
concord at home, but no love. Williams hates everybody. Levet hates
Desmoulines, and does not love Williams. Desmoulines hates them both.
Poll loves none of them."
But I must be careful. I had firmly resolved not to say anything which
would lead any one to suspect that I am Johnson-mad, but I admit that
such is the case. I am never without a copy of Boswell. What edition?
Any edition. I have them all--the first in boards uncut, for my personal
satisfaction; an extra-illustrated copy of the same, for display;
Birkbeck Hill's, for reference, and the cheap old Bohn copy which thirty
years ago I first read, because I know it by heart. Yes, I can truly say
with Leslie Stephen, "My enjoyment of books began and will end with
Boswell's 'Life of Johnson.'"
+-----------------------------------------------+
| "Thou fool! to seek companions in a crowd! |
| Into thy room and there upon thy knees, |
| Before thy bookshelves, humbly thank thy God, |
| That thou hast friends like these!" |
+-----------------------------------------------+
III
OLD CATALOGUES AND NEW PRICES
The true book-lover is usually loath to destroy an old book-catalogue.
It would not be easy to give a reason for this, unless it is that no
sooner has he done so than he has occasion to refer to it. Such
catalogues reach me by almost every mail, and I while away many hours in
turning over their leaves. Anatole France in his charming story, "The
Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard," makes his dear old book-collector say,
"There is no reading more easy, more fascinating, and more delightful
than that of a catalogue"; and it is so, for the most part; but some
catalogues annoy me exceedingly: those which contain long lists of books
that are not books; genealogies; county (and especially town) histories,
illustrated with portraits; obsolete medical and scientific books; books
on agriculture and diseases of the horse. How it is that any one can
make a living by vending such merchandise is beyond me--but so are most
things.
Living, however, in the country, and going to town every day, I spend
much time on the trains, and must have something to read besides
newspapers,--who was it who said that reading newspapers is a nervous
habit?--and it is not always convenient to carry a book; so I usually
have a few catalogues which I mark industriously, thus presenting a fine
imitation of a busy man. One check means a book that I own, and I note
with interest the prices; another, a book that I would like to have;
while yet another indicates a book to which under no circumstances would
I give a place on my shelves. When my library calls for a ridding up,
these slim pamphlets are not discarded as they should be, but are stored
in a closet, to be referred to when needed, until at last something must
be done to make room for those that came to-day and those that will come
to-morrow.