catalogues which I have never had it in me to destroy. One of them was
published in 1886, by a man I knew well years ago, Charles Hutt, of
Clement's Inn Gateway, Strand. Hutt himself has long since passed away;
so has his shop, the Gateway; and, indeed, the Strand itself--his part
of it, that is. I sometimes think that the best part of old London has
disappeared. Need I say that I refer to Holywell Street and the Clare
Market district which lay between the Strand and Lincoln's Inn Fields,
which Dickens knew and described so well? Hutt in his day was a man of
considerable importance. He was the first London bookseller to realize
the direction and value of the American market. Had he lived, my friends
Sabin and Spencer and Maggs would have had a serious rival.
All the old catalogues before me are alike in one important respect,
namely, the uniformly low prices. From the standpoint of to-day the
prices were absurdly low--or are those of to-day absurdly high? I, for
one, do not think so. When a man puts pen to paper on the subject of the
prices of rare books, he feels--at least I feel--that it is a silly
thing to do,--and yet we collectors have been doing it always, or almost
always,--to point out that prices have about reached top notch, and that
the wise man will wait for the inevitable decline before he separates
himself from his money.
Now, it is my belief that books, in spite of the high prices that they
are bringing in the shops and at auction, have only just begun their
advance, and that there is no limit to the prices they will bring as
time goes on. The only way to guess the future is to study the past; and
such study as I have been able to make leads me to believe that for the
really great books the sky is the limit.
"The really great books!" What are they, and where are they? I am not
sure that I know; they do not often come my way, nor, when they do, am I
in a position to compete for them; but as I can be perfectly happy
without an ocean-going yacht, contenting myself with a motor-boat, so
can I make shift to get along without a Gutenberg Bible, without a first
folio of Shakespeare, or any of the quartos, in short, _sans_ any of
those books which no millionaire's library can be without. But this I
will say, that if I could afford to buy them, I would pay any price for
the privilege of owning them.
A man may be possessed of relatively small means and yet indulge
himself in all the joys of collecting, if he will deny himself other
things not so important to his happiness. It is a problem in selection,
as Elia points out in his essay "Old China," when a weighing for and
against and a wearing of old clothes is recommended by his sister
Bridget, if the twelve or sixteen shillings saved is to enable one to
bring home in triumph an old folio. As a book-collector, Lamb would not
take high rank; but he was a true book-lover, and the books he liked to
read he liked to buy. And just here I may be permitted to record how I
came across a little poem, in the manuscript of the author, which
exactly voices his sentiments--and mine.
I was visiting Princeton not long ago, that beautiful little city, with
its lovely halls and towers; and interested in libraries as I always am,
had secured permission to browse at will among the collections formed by
the late Laurence Hutton. After an inspection of his "Portraits in
Plaster,"--a collection of death-masks, unique in this country or
elsewhere,--I turned my attention to his association books. It is a
difficult lot to classify, and not of overwhelming interest; not to be
compared with the Richard Waln Meirs collection of Cruikshank, which has
just been bequeathed to the Library; but nothing which is a book is
entirely alien to me, and the Hutton books, with their inscriptions from
their authors, testifying to their regard for him and to his love of
books, are well worth examination.
I had opened many volumes at random, and finally chanced upon Brander
Matthews's "Ballads of Books," a little anthology of bookish poems, for
many years a favorite of mine. Turning to the inscription, I found--what
I found; but what interested me particularly was a letter from an
English admirer, one Thomas Hutchinson, inclosing some verses, of which
I made a copy without the permission of any one. I did not ask the
librarian, for he might have referred the question to the trustees, or
something; but I did turn to a speaking likeness of "Larry" that hung
right over the bookcase and seemed to say, "Why, sure, fellow
book-lover; pass on the torch, print anything you please." And these are
the verses:--
BALLADE OF A POOR BOOK-LOVER
I
Though in its stern vagaries Fate
A poor book-lover me decreed,
Perchance mine is a happy state--
The books I buy I like to read:
To me dear friends they are indeed,
But, howe'er enviously I sigh,
Of others take I little heed--
The books I read I like to buy.
II
My depth of purse is not so great
Nor yet my bibliophilic greed,
That merely buying doth elate:
The books I buy I like to read:
Still e'en when dawdling in a mead,
Beneath a cloudless summer sky,
By bank of Thames, or Tyne, or Tweed,
The books I read--I like to buy.
III
Some books tho' tooled in style ornate,
Yet worms upon their contents feed,
Some men about their bindings prate--
The books I buy I like to read:
Yet some day may my fancy breed
My ruin--it may now be nigh--
They reap, we know, who sow the seed:
The books I read I like to buy.
ENVOY
Tho' frequently to stall I speed,
The books I buy I like to read;
Yet wealth to me will never hie--
The books I read I like to buy.
Two things there are which go to make the price of a book--first the
book itself, its scarcity, together with the urgency of the demand for
it (a book may be unique and yet practically valueless, because of the
fact that no one much cares to have it); and second, the plentifulness
of money, or the ease with which its owner may have acquired his
fortune. No one will suppose that, at the famous auction in London
something over a hundred years ago, when Earl Spencer bid two thousand,
two hundred and fifty pounds for the famous Boccaccio, and the Marquis
of Blandford added, imperturbedly, "ten," and secured the prize--no one
will suppose that either of the gentlemen had a scanty rent-roll.
In England, the days of the great private libraries are over. For
generations, indeed for centuries, the English have had the leisure, the
inclination, and the means to gratify their taste. They once searched
the Continent for books and works of art, very much as we now go to
England for them. They formed their libraries when books were plentiful
and prices low. Moreover, there were fewer collectors than there are
to-day. We are paying big prices,--the English never sell except at a
profit,--but, all things considered, we are not paying more for the
books than they are worth. There are probably now in England as many
collectors as there ever were, but nevertheless the books are coming to
this country; and while we may never be able to rival the treasures of
the British Museum and the Bodleian, outside the great public libraries
the important collections are now in this country, and will remain here.
And I am not sure how much longer the London dealers are going to retain
their preëminence. We hear of New York becoming the centre of the
financial world. It will in time become the centre of the bookselling
world as well, the best market in which to buy and in which to sell.
With the possible exception of Quaritch, George D. Smith has probably
sold as many rare books as any man in the world; while Dr. Rosenbach, on
the second floor of his shop in Philadelphia, has a stock of rare books
unequaled by any other dealer in this country.
Ask any expert where the great books are, and you will be told, if you
do not know already, of the wonders of Mr. Morgan's collections; of how
Mr. Huntington has bought one library after another until he has
practically everything obtainable; of Mr. William K. Bixby's
manuscripts, of Mr. White's collection of the Elizabethans, and of Mr.
Folger's Shakespeares.
There are as many tastes as there are collectors. Caxtons and incunabula
of any sort are highly regarded; even the possession of a set of the
Shakespeare folios makes a man a marked man, in spite of the fact that
Henrietta Bartlett says they are not rare; but then, Miss Bartlett has
been browsing on books rarer still, namely, the first quartos, of which
there are of "Hamlet" two copies only, one in this country with a
title-page, but lacking the last leaf, while the other copy, in the
British Museum, has the last leaf but lacks the title-page; and "Venus
and Adonis," of the first eight editions of which only thirteen copies
are known to exist. All of these are as yet in England, except one copy
of the second edition, which is owned by the Elizabethan Club of Yale
University. Of "Titus Andronicus" there is only one copy of the first
printing, this in the library of H. C. Folger of New York. Surely no one
will dispute Miss Bartlett's statement that the quartos are rare indeed.
[Illustration: HENRY E. HUNTINGTON OF NEW YORK
A few years ago he conceived the idea of forming the greatest private
library in the world. With the help of "G. D. S." and assisted by a
staff of able librarians, he has accomplished what he set out to do.]
But why continue? Enough has been said: the point I want to make is that
fifty years from now someone will be regretting that he was not present
when a faultless first folio could have been had for the trifling sum of
twenty-five thousand dollars, at which figure a dealer is now offering
one. Or, glancing over a copy of "Book Prices Current" for 1918, bewail
the time when presentation copies of Dickens could have been had for
the trifling sum of a thousand dollars. Hush! I feel the spirit of
prophecy upon me.
I sat with Harry Widener at Anderson's auction rooms a few years ago, on
the evening when George D. Smith, acting for Mr. Huntington, paid fifty
thousand dollars for a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. No book had ever
sold for so great a price, yet I feel sure that Mr. Huntington secured a
bargain, and I told him so; but for the average collector such great
books as these are mere names, as far above the ordinary man as the
moon; and the wise among us never cry for them; we content ourselves
with--something else.
In collecting, as in everything else, experience is the best teacher.
Before we can gain our footing we must make our mistakes and have them
pointed out to us, or, by reading, discover them for ourselves. I have a
confession to make. Forty years ago I thought that I had the makings of
a numismatist in me, and was for a time diligent in collecting coins. In
order that they might be readily fastened to a panel covered with
velvet, I pierced each one with a small hole, and was much chagrined
when I was told that I had absolutely ruined the lot, which was worth,
perhaps, ten dollars. This was not a high price to pay for the discovery
I then made and noted, that it is the height of wisdom to leave alone
anything of value which may come my way; to repair, inlay, insert,
mount, frame, or bind as little as possible.
This is not to suggest that my library is entirely devoid of books in
bindings. A few specimens of the good binders I have, but what I value
most is a sound bit of straight-grained crimson morocco covering the
"Poems of Mr. Gray" with one of the finest examples of fore-edge
painting I have ever seen, representing Stoke Poges Church Yard, the
scene of the immortal "Elegy." I was much pleased when I discovered that
this binding bore the stamp of Taylor & Hessey, a name I had always
associated with first editions of Charles Lamb.
How many people have clipped signatures from old letters and documents,
under the mistaken notion that they were collecting autographs. I happen
to own the receipt for the copyright of the "Essays of Elia." It was
signed by Lamb twice, originally; one signature has been cut away. It is
a precious possession as it is, but I could wish that the "collector" in
whose hands it once was had not removed one signature for his
"scrapbook"--properly so called. Nor is the race yet dead of those who,
indulging a vicious taste for subscription books, think that they are
forming a library. My coins I have kept as an ever-present reminder of
the mistake of my early days. Luckily I escaped the subscription-book
stage.
[Illustration: STOKE POGES CHURCH
A fine example of fore-edge painting]
What we collect depends as well upon our taste as upon our means, for,
given zeal and intelligence, it is surprising how soon one acquires a
collection of--whatever it may be--which becomes a source of
relaxation and instruction; and after a little one becomes, if not
exactly expert, at least wise enough to escape obvious pitfalls. When
experience directs our efforts the chief danger is past. But how much
there is to know! I never leave the company of a man like Dr. Rosenbach,
or A. J. Bowden, or the late Luther Livingston, without feeling a sense
of hopelessness coming over me. What wonderful memories these men have!
how many minute "points" about books they must have indexed, so to
speak, in their minds! And there are collectors whose knowledge is
equally bewildering. Mr. White, or Beverly Chew, for example; and Harry
Widener, who, had he lived, would have set a new and, I fear, hopeless
standard for us.
Not knowing much myself, I have found it wise not to try to beat the
expert; it is like trying to beat Wall Street--it cannot be done. How
can an outsider with the corner of his mind compete with one who is
playing the game ever and always? The answer is simple--he can't; and he
will do well not to try. It is better to confess ignorance and rely upon
the word of a reliable dealer, than to endeavor to put one over on him.
This method may enable a novice to buy a good horse, although such has
not been my experience. I think it was Trollope who remarked that not
even a bishop could sell a horse without forgetting that he was a
bishop. I think I would rather trust a bookseller than a bishop.
And speaking of booksellers, they should be regarded as Hamlet did his
players, as the abstract and brief chronicles of the time; and it would
be well to remember that their ill report of you while you live is much
worse than a bad epitaph after you are dead. Their stock in trade
consists, not only in the books they have for sale, but in their
knowledge. This may be at your disposal, if you use them after your own
honor and dignity; but to live, they must sell books at a profit, and
the delightful talk about books which you so much enjoy must, at least
occasionally, result in a sale. Go to them for information as a possible
customer, and you will find them, as Dr. Johnson said, generous and
liberal-minded men; but use them solely as walking encyclopædias, and
you may come to grief.
I have on the shelves over yonder a set of Foxe's "Martyrs" in three
ponderous volumes, which I seldom have occasion to refer to; but in one
volume is pasted a clipping from an old newspaper, telling a story of
the elder Quaritch. A young lady once entered his shop in Piccadilly and
requested to see the great man. She wanted to know all that is to be
known of this once famous book, all about editions and prices and
"points," of which there are many. Finally, after he had answered
questions readily enough for some time, the old man became wise, and
remarked, "Now, my dear, if you want to know anything else about this
book, my fee will be five guineas." The transaction was at an end. Had
Quaritch been a lawyer and the young lady a stranger, her first question
would have resulted in a request for a retainer.
But I am a long time in coming to my old catalogues. Let me take one at
random, and opening it at the first page, pick out the first item which
meets my eye. Here it is:--
ALKEN, HENRY--Analysis of the Hunting Field. Woodcuts and colored
illustrations. First edition, royal 8vo. original cloth, uncut.
Ackerman, 1846. £2.
It was the last work but one of a man who is now "collected" by many
who, like myself, would as soon think of riding a zebra as a hunter. My
copy cost me $100, while my "Life of Mytton," third edition, I regarded
as a bargain at $50. Had I been wise enough to buy it five and thirty
years ago, I would have paid about as many shillings for it.
With sporting books in mind it is quite natural to turn to Surtees. His
"Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities" is missing from this catalogue, but
here are a lot of them. "Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour" in full levant
morocco, extra, by Tout, for three guineas, and "Ask Mamma" in cloth,
uncut, for £2 15_s._ "Handley Cross" is priced at fifty shillings, and
"Facey Romford's Hounds" at two pounds--all first editions, mind you,
and for the most part just as you want them, in the original cloth,
uncut. My advice would be to forget these prices of yesteryear, and if
you want a set of the best sporting novels ever written (I know a
charming woman who has read every one of them) go at once to them that
sell.
But while we are thinking of colored-plate books, let us see what it
would have cost us to secure a copy of À Beckett's "Comic History of
Rome." Here it is, "complete in numbers as originally published," four
guineas; while a "Comic History of England," two volumes, bound by
Riviere from the original parts, in full red levant morocco, extra, cost
five guineas. I have tried to read these histories--it cannot be done.
It is like reading the not very funny book of an old-time comic opera
(always excepting Gilbert's), which depended for its success on the
music and the acting--as these books depend on their illustrations by
Leech. It is on account of the humor of their wonderfully caricatured
portraits of historic personages, in anachronistic surroundings, that
these books live and deserve to live. What could be better than the
landing of Julius Cæsar on the shores of Albion, from the deck of a
channel steamer of Leech's own time?
Did you observe that the "History of Rome" was bound up from the
original parts? This, according to modern notions, is a mistake. Parts
should be left alone--severely alone, I should say. I have no love for
books "in parts," and as this is admitted heresy, I should perhaps
explain. As is well known, some of the most desired of modern books,
"Pickwick" and "Vanity Fair" for example, were so published, and
particulars as to one will indicate the reason for my prejudice against
all books "in parts."
In April, 1916, in New York, the Coggeshall Dickens collection was
dispersed, and a copy of "Pickwick" in parts was advertised, no doubt
correctly, as the most nearly perfect copy ever offered at a public
sale. Two full pages of the catalogue were taken up in a painstaking
description of the birthmarks of this famous book. It was, like most of
the other great novels, brought out "twenty parts in nineteen,"--that
is, the last number was a double number,--and with a page of the
original manuscript, it brought $5350. When a novel published less than
a century ago brings such a price, it must be of extraordinary interest
and rarity. Was the price high? Decidedly not! There are said to be not
ten such copies in existence. It was in superb condition, and manuscript
pages of "Pickwick" do not grow on trees. All the details which go to
make up a perfect set can be found in Eckel's "First Editions of Charles
Dickens."
Briefly, in order to take high rank it is necessary that each part
should be clean and perfect and should have the correct imprint and
date; it should have the proper number of illustrations by the right
artist; and these plates must be original and not reëtched, and almost
every plate has certain peculiarities which will mislead the unwary. But
this is not all. Each part carried certain announcements and
advertisements. These must be carefully looked to, for they are of the
utmost value in determining whether it be an early or a later issue of
the first edition. An advertisement of "Rowland and Son's Toilet
Preparations" where "Simpson's Pills" should be, might lead to painful
discussion.
But it is difficult to say whether the possession of a copy of
"Pickwick" like the Coggeshall copy is an asset or a liability. It must
be handled with gloves; the pea-green paper wrappers are very tender,
and not everyone who insists on seeing your treasures knows how to treat
such a pamphlet; and, horror of horrors! a "part" might get stacked up
with a pile of "Outlooks" on the library table, or get mislaid
altogether. So on the whole I am inclined to leave such books to those
whose knowledge of bibliography is more exact than mine, and who would
not regard the loss of a "part" as an irretrievable disaster. My
preference is to get, when I can, books bound in cloth or boards "as
issued." They are sufficiently expensive and can be handled with greater
freedom. My library is, in a sense, a circulating library: my books move
around with me, and a bound book, in some measure at least, takes care
of itself. Having said all of which, I looked upon that Coggeshall
"Pickwick," and lusted after it.
There is, however, an even greater copy awaiting a purchaser at
Rosenbach's. It is a presentation copy in parts, the only one known to
exist. Each of the first fourteen parts has Dickens's autograph
inscription, "Mary Hogarth from hers most affectionately," variously
signed--in full, "Charles Dickens," with initials, or "The Editor."
After the publication of the fourteenth part Miss Hogarth, his
sister-in-law, a young girl in her eighteenth year, died suddenly, and
the shock of her death was so great that Dickens was obliged to
discontinue work upon "Pickwick" for two months. No doubt this is the
finest "Pickwick" in the world. It has all the "points" and to
spare--and the price, well, only a very rich or a very wise man could
buy it.
[Illustration: "Blake being unable to find a publisher for his songs,
Mrs. Blake went out with half a crown, all the money they had in the
world, and of that laid out 1s. 10d. on the simple materials necessary
for setting in practice the new revelation. Upon that investment of 1s.
10d. he started what was to prove a principal means of support through
his future life.... The poet and his wife did everything in making the
book,--writing, designing, printing, engraving, everything except
manufacturing the paper. The very ink, or color rather, they did
make."--GILCHRIST.]
But to return to my catalogue. Here is Pierce Egan's "Boxiana," five
volumes, 8vo, as clean as new, in the original boards, uncut,--that's my
style,--and the price, twelve pounds; three hundred and fifty dollars
would be a fair price to-day. And here is the "Anecdotes of the Life and
Transactions of Mrs. Margaret Rudd," a notorious woman who just escaped
hanging for forgery, of whom Dr. Johnson once said that he would have
gone to see her, but that he was prevented from such a frolic by his
fear that it would get into the newspapers. I have been looking for it
in vain for years; here it is, in new calf, price nine shillings, and
Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," first edition, in contemporary calf, for
thirty.
Let us turn to poetry. Arnold, Matthew, not interesting; nothing, it
chances, by Blake; his "Poetical Sketches," 1783, has always been
excessively rare, only a dozen or so copies are known, and "Songs of
Innocence and of Experience," while not so scarce, is much more desired.
This lovely book was originally "Songs of Innocence" only; "Experience"
came later, as it always does. Of all the books I know, this is the most
interesting. It is in very deed "W. Blake, his book," the author being
as well the designer, engraver, printer, and illuminator of it.
To attempt in a paragraph any bibliographical account of the "Songs" is
as impossible as to give the genealogy of a fairy. In the ordinary
sense the book was never published. Blake sold it to such of his friends
as would buy, at prices ranging from thirty shillings to two guineas.
Later, to help him over a difficulty (and his life was full of
difficulties), they paid him perhaps as much as twenty pounds and in
return got a copy glowing with colors and gold. Hence no two copies are
exactly alike. It is one of the few books of which a man fortunate
enough to own any copy may say, "I like mine best." The price to-day for
an average copy is about two thousand dollars.