edition of this book every minute. I had just suggested $2000 as the
probable price of the "Songs" when a priced copy of the Linnell
Catalogue of his Blake Collection reached me. This, the last and
greatest Blake collection in England, was sold at auction on March 15,
1918, and accustomed as I am to high prices I was bewildered as I turned
its pages. There were two copies of the "Songs"; each brought £735. The
"Poetical Sketches" was conspicuous by its absence, while the "Marriage
of Heaven and Hell" was knocked down for £756. The drawings for Dante's
"Divina Commedia," sixty-eight in all, brought the amazing price of
£7665. And these prices will be materially advanced before the
booksellers are done with them, as we shall see when their catalogues
arrive. We come back to earth with a thud after this lofty flight, in
the course of which we seem to have been seeing visions and dreaming
dreams, much as Blake himself did.
[Illustration: "A LEAF FROM AN UNOPENED VOLUME"
An unpublished manuscript in the autograph of Charlotte Brontë, written
in microscopical characters on sixteen pages measuring 3-1/2 by 4-1/2
inches; in a wrapper of druggist's blue paper]
Continuing to "beat the track of the alphabet," we reach Brontë and note
that now scarce item, "Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell," the
genuine first edition printed by Hasler in 1846, for Aylott & Jones,
before the title-page bore the Smith-Elder imprint; price two pounds
five. Walter Hill's last catalogue has a Smith-Elder copy at $12.50, but
the right imprint now makes a difference of several hundred dollars.
About a year ago Edmund D. Brooks, of Minneapolis, was offering
Charlotte Brontë's own copy of the book, with the Aylott and Jones
imprint, with some manuscript notes which made it especially interesting
to Brontë collectors, the most important of whom, by the way, is my
lifelong friend, H. H. Bonnell of Philadelphia, whose unrivaled Brontë
collection is not unworthy of an honored place in the Brontë Museum at
Haworth. I called his attention to it, but he already had a presentation
copy to Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-Law rhymer.
Burns: the first Edinburgh edition, for a song; no Kilmarnock
edition--that fine old item which every collector wants has always been
excessively scarce; and in this connection let me disinter a good story
of how one collector secured a copy. The story is told of John Allan,
from whom, as a collector, I am descended by the process of clasping
hands. My old friend, Ferdinand Dreer, for more than sixty years a
distinguished collector in Philadelphia, was an intimate friend of
Allan's, and passed on to me the collecting legends he had received from
him. Allan was an old Scotchman, living in New York when the story
begins, who by his industry had acquired a small fortune, much of which
he spent in the purchase of books. He collected the books of his period
and extra-illustrated them. Lives of Mary Queen of Scots, and Byron;
Dibdin, of course, and Americana; but Burns was his ruling passion. He
had the first Edinburgh edition, and longed for the Kilmarnock--as who
does not? He had a standing order for a copy up to seven guineas, which
in those days was considered a fair price, and finally one was reported
to him from London at eight. He ordered it out, but it was sold before
his letter arrived, and he was greatly disappointed. Some time afterward
a friend from the old country visited him, and as he was sailing, asked
if he could do anything for him at home. "Yes," said Allan, "get me, if
you possibly can, the Kilmarnock edition of Burns." His friend was
instructed as to its scarcity and the price he might have to pay for it.
On his return his friend, engaged as usual in his affairs, discovered
that one of his workmen was drunk. In those days it was not considered
good form to get drunk except on Saturday night. How could he get drunk
in the middle of the week? Where did he get the money? The answer was
that by pawning some books ten shillings had been raised. "And what
books had you?" "Oh, Burns and some others; every Scotchman has a copy
of Burns." Then, suddenly remembering his old friend in New York, he
asked, "What sort of a copy was it?" "The old Kilmarnock," was the
reply. Not to make the story too long, the pawn-ticket was secured for a
guinea, the books redeemed, and the Kilmarnock Burns passed into Allan's
possession.
[Illustration: Title of the Kilmarnock Edition of Burns's Poems]
After his death his books were sold at auction (1864). This was during
our Civil War, and several times the sale was suspended owing to the
noise of a passing regiment in the street. Notwithstanding that times
were not propitious for book-sales, his friends were astonished at the
prices realized: the Burns fetched $106. It was probably a poor copy. A
generation or two ago not as much care was paid to condition as now.
Very few uncut copies are known. One is owned by a man as shouldn't.
Another is in the Burns Museum in Ayrshire, which cost the Museum
Trustees a thousand pounds; the Canfield, which was purchased by Harry
Widener for six thousand dollars, and the Van Antwerp copy, which, at
the sale of his collection in London in 1907, brought seven hundred
pounds; but much bibliographical water has gone over the dam since 1907,
and for some reason the Van Antwerp books, with the exception of one or
two items, did not bring as good prices as they should have done. They
were sold at an unfortunate moment and perhaps at the wrong place. In
Walter Hill's current catalogue there is a Kilmarnock Burns, in an old
binding, which looks very cheap to me at $2600. At the Allan sale an
Eliot Bible brought the then enormous sum of $825. Supposing an Eliot
Bible were obtainable to-day, it would bring, no doubt, five thousand
dollars, perhaps more.
This is a long digression. There are other desired volumes besides
Burns. Here is a "Paradise Lost," perhaps not so fine a copy as Sabin is
now offering for four hundred pounds; but the price is only thirty
pounds; and this reminds me that in Beverly Chew's copy, an
exceptionally fine one, as all the books of that fastidious collector
are, there is an interesting note made by a former owner to this effect:
"This is the first edition of this book and has the first title-page. It
is worth nearly ten pounds and is rising in value. 1857."
Alphabetically speaking, it is only a step from Milton to Moore, George.
Here is his "Flowers of Passion," for which I paid fifteen dollars ten
or more years ago--priced at half a crown.
But let us take up another catalogue, one which issued from the
world-famous shop in Piccadilly, Quaritch's. Forty years ago Quaritch
thought it almost beneath his dignity as a bookseller to offer for sale
any except the very rarest books in English; very much as, up to within
the last few years, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge did not
think it worth their while to refer more than casually to the glories of
English literature. When we open an old Quaritch catalogue, we step out
of this age into another, which leads me to observe how remarkable is
the change in taste which has come over the collecting world in the
last fifty years. Formerly it was the fashion to collect extensively
books of which few among us now know anything: books in learned or
painful languages, on Philosophy or Religion, as well as those which,
for the want of a better name, we call "Classics"; books frequently
spoken of, but seldom read.
Such books, unless very valuable indeed, no longer find ready buyers. We
have come into our great inheritance. We now dip deep in our "well of
English undefyled"; Aldines and Elzevirs have gone out of fashion. Even
one of the rarest of them, "Le Pastissier François," is not greatly
desired; and I take it that the reason for this change is chiefly due to
the difference in the type of men who are prominent among the buyers of
fine books to-day. Formerly the collector was a man, not necessarily
with a liberal education, but with an education entirely different from
that which the best educated among us now receive. I doubt if there are
in this country to-day half a dozen important bookbuyers who can read
Latin with ease, let alone Greek. Of French, German, and Italian some of
us have a working knowledge, but most of us prefer to buy books which we
can enjoy without constant reference to a dictionary.
The world is the college of the book-collector of to-day. Many of us are
busy men of affairs, familiar, it may be, with the price of oil, or
steel, or copper, or coal, or cotton, or, it may be, with the price of
the "shares" of all of these and more. Books are our relaxation. We make
it a rule not to buy what we cannot read. Some of us indulge the vain
hope that time will bring us leisure to acquaint ourselves fully with
the contents of all our books. We want books written in our own tongue,
and most of us have some pet author or group of authors, or period, it
may be, in which we love to lose ourselves and forget the cares of the
present. One man may have a collection of Pope, another of Goldsmith,
another of Lamb, and so on. The drama has its votaries who are never
seen in a theatre; but look into their libraries and you will find
everything, from "Ralph Roister Doister" to the "Importance of Being
Earnest." And note that these collections are formed by men who are not
students in the accepted sense of the word, but who, in the course of
years, have accumulated an immense amount of learning. Clarence S.
Bement is a fine example of the collector of to-day, a man of large
affairs with the tastes and learning of a scholar. It has always seemed
to me that professors of literature and collectors do not intermingle as
they should. They might learn much from each other. I yield to no
professor in my passion for English literature. My knowledge is
deficient and inexact, but what I lack in learning I make up in love.
But we are neglecting the Quaritch catalogue. Let us open it at random,
as old people used to open their Bibles, and govern their conduct by the
first text which met their eyes. Here we are: "Grammatica Graeca,"
Milan, 1476; the first edition of the first book printed in Greek; one
of six known copies. So it is possible for only six busy men to
recreate themselves after a hard day's work with a first Greek Grammar.
Too bad! Here is another: Macrobius, "The Saturnalia"--"a miscellany of
criticism and antiquities, full of erudition and very useful, similar in
their plan to the 'Noctes Atticæ' of Aulus Gellius." No doubt, but as
dead as counterfeit money. Here is another: Boethius, "De Consolatione
Philosophiæ." Boethius! I seem to have heard of him. Who was he? Not in
"Who's Who," obviously. Let us look elsewhere. Ah! "Famous philosopher
and official in the Court of Theodoric, born about 475 A.D., put to
death without trial about 524." They had a short way with philosophers
in those days. If William the Second to None in Germany had adopted this
method with his philosophers, the world might not now be in such a
plight.
_Note_: A college professor to whom I was in confidence showing these
notes the other day, remarked, "I suggest that you soft-pedal that
Boethius business, my boy." (How we middle-aged men love to call each
other boys; very much as young boys flatter themselves with the phrase,
"old man.") "The 'Consolation of Philosophy' was the best seller for a
thousand years or so. Boethius's reputation is not in the making, as
yours is, and when yours is made, it will in all probability not last as
long." I thought I detected a slight note of sarcasm in this, but I may
have been mistaken.
[Illustration: Fifteenth-century English manuscript on vellum, "De
Consolatione Philosophiæ." Rubricated throughout. Its chief interest is
the contemporary binding, consisting of the usual oak boards covered
with pink deerskin, let into another piece of deerskin which completely
surrounds it and terminates in a large knot. A clasp fastens the outer
cover. It was evidently intended to be worn at the girdle. The British
Museum possesses very few bindings of this character and these service
books. Lay books are of even greater rarity.]
Let us look further. Here we are: "Coryat's Crudities, hastily
gobbled up in five Moneths Trauells." Tom Coryat was a buffoon and a
beggar and a braggart, who wrote what has come to be regarded as the
first handbook on travel. Browning thought very highly of it, as I
remember, and Walter Hill is at this very minute offering his copy of
the "Crudities" for five hundred dollars. The catalogues say there are
very few perfect copies in existence, in which case I should like to
content myself with Browning's imperfect copy. I love these old books,
written by frail human beings for human beings frail as myself. Clowns
are the true philosophers, and all vagabonds are beloved, most of all,
Locke's. Don't confuse my Locke with the fellow who wrote on the "Human
Understanding," a century or two ago.
Here is the "Ship of Fools," another best seller of a bygone age. The
original work, by Sebastian Brandt, was published not long after the
invention of printing, in 1494. Edition followed edition, not only in
its original Swabian dialect, but also in Latin, French, and Dutch. In
1509 an English version,--it could hardly be called a translation,--by
Alexander Barclay, appeared from the press of Pynson--he who called
Caxton "worshipful master." For quite two hundred years it was the rage
of the reading world. In it the vices and weaknesses of all classes of
society were satirized in a manner which gave great delight; and those
who could not read were able to enjoy the fine, bold woodcuts with which
the work was embellished. No form of folly escaped. Even the mediæval
book-collector is made to say:--
Still am I busy bookes assemblynge,
For to have plentie it is a pleasaunt thynge,
In my conceyt and to have them ay in hande,
But what they mene do I not understande.
This is one of the books which can usually be found in a Quaritch
catalogue, if it can be found anywhere. At the Hoe sale a copy brought
$1825; but the average collector will make shift to get along with an
excellent reprint which was published in Edinburgh forty years or so
ago, and which can be had for a few shillings, when he chances to come
across it.
Here is a great book! The first folio of Shakespeare, the cornerstone of
every great Library. What's in a name? Did Shakespeare of Stratford
write the plays? The late Dr. Furness declined to be led into a
discussion of this point, wisely remarking, "We have the plays; what
difference does it make who wrote them?" But the question will not down.
The latest theory is that Bacon wrote the Psalms of David also, and to
disguise the fact tucked in a cryptogram, another name. If you have at
hand a King James's version of the Bible, and will turn to the
forty-sixth Psalm and count the words from the beginning to the
forty-sixth word, and will then count the words from the end until you
again come to the forty-sixth word, you may learn something to your
advantage.
But, whoever wrote them, the first folio--the plays collected by Heming
and Condell, and printed in 1623, at the charges of Isaac Iaggard, and
Ed. Blount--is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, volume in all
literature. In it not less than twenty dramas, many of which rank among
the literary masterpieces of the world, were brought together for the
first time. Is it any wonder, therefore, that the first folio of
Shakespeare, Shakespeare! "not our poet, but the world's," is so highly
regarded? The condition and location of practically every copy in the
world is known and recorded. Originally the price is supposed to have
been a guinea, and a century passed before collectors and scholars
realized that it, like its author, was not for an age, but for all time.
In 1792 a copy brought £30, and in 1818 "an original copy in a genuine
state" changed hands at £121; but what shall be said of the price it
fetches to-day?
When, a few years ago, a Philadelphia collector paid the record price of
almost twenty thousand dollars, people unlearned in the lore of books
expressed amazement that a book should bring so large a sum; but he
secured one of the finest copies in existence, known to collectors as
the Locker-Lampson copy, which had been for a short time in the
possession of William C. Van Antwerp, of New York, who, unluckily for
himself and for the book-collecting world, stopped collecting almost as
soon as he began. This splendid folio has now found a permanent resting
place in the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard. It is no doubt
inevitable that these notable books should at last come to occupy
honored niches in great mausoleums, as public libraries really are, but
I cannot escape the conviction that Edmond de Goncourt was right when he
said in his will:--
"My wish is that my drawings, my prints, my curiosities, my books--in a
word these things of art which have been the joy of my life--shall not
be consigned to the cold tomb of a museum, and subjected to the stupid
glance of the careless passer-by; but I require that they shall all be
dispersed under the hammer of the auctioneer, so that the pleasure which
the acquiring of each one of them has given me shall be given again, in
each case, to some inheritor of my own tastes."
I wish that my friends, the Pennells, had followed this course when they
gave up their London apartments in the Adelphi and disposed of their
valuable Whistler collection. But no, with characteristic generosity the
whole collection goes to the nation as a gift--the Library of Congress
at Washington is to be its resting-place. The demand for Whistler is
ever increasing with his fame which, the Pennells say, will live
forever. Those who have a lot of Whistler material smile--the value of
their collections is enhanced. Those of us who, like the writer, have to
be content with two butterflies, or at most three, sigh and turn aside.
Possession is the grave of bliss. No sooner do we own some great book
than we want another. The appetite grows by what it feeds on. The
Shakespeare folio is a book for show and to be proud of, but we want a
book to love. Here it is: Walton's "Compleat Angler," beloved by gentle
men, such as all collectors are. We welcome the peace and contentment
which it suggests, "especially," as its author says, "in such days and
times as I have laid aside business and gone a-fishing."
Therein lies the charm of this book, for those of us who are wise enough
occasionally to lay aside business and go a-fishing or a-hunting, albeit
only book-hunting; for it is the spirit of sport rather than the sport
itself that is important. Old Isaak Walton counted fishermen as honest
men. I wonder did he call them truthful? If so, there has been a sad
falling off since his day, for I seem to remember words to this effect:
"The fisherman riseth up early in the morning and disturbeth the whole
household. Mighty are his preparations. He goeth forth full of hope.
When the day is far spent, he returneth, smelling of strong drink, and
the truth is not in him."
I wish that some day I might discover an "Angler," not on the banks of a
stream, but all unsuspected on some book-stall. It is most unlikely;
those days are past. I shall never own a first "Angler." This little
book has been thumbed out of existence almost, by generations of readers
with coarse, wet hands who carried the book in their pockets or left it
lying by the river in the excitement of landing a trout. Five
impressions, all rare, were made before the author died in his
"neintyeth" year, and was buried in the South Transept of the Cathedral
of William of Wykeham.
But Walton wrote of Fishers of Men as well as of fishing. His lives of
John Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's; of Richard Hooker, the "Judicious,"
as he is usually called, when called at all; of George Herbert, and
several other men, honorable in their generation, are quaint and
charming. These lives, published originally at intervals of many years,
are not rare, nor is the volume of 1670, the first collected edition of
the Lives, unless it is a presentation copy. Such a copy sold twenty
years ago for fifteen pounds. Some years ago I paid just three times
this sum for a copy inscribed by Walton to the Lord Bishop of Oxford. I
did not then know that the Bishop of Oxford was also the famous Dr. John
Fell, the hero of the well-known epigram:--
I do not like you Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like you Dr. Fell,--
or I would willingly have paid more for it.
But I am wandering from my text. To return to the "Angler." Fifty pounds
was a fair price for a fine copy fifty years ago. George D. Smith sold a
copy a few weeks since for five thousand dollars, and the Heckscher copy
a few years ago brought thirty-nine hundred dollars; but the record
price appears to have been paid for the Van Antwerp copy, which is
generally believed to be the finest in existence. It is bound in
original sheepskin, and was formerly in the library of Frederick
Locker-Lampson. It was sold in London some ten years ago and was
purchased by Quaritch for "an American," which was a sort of _nom de
guerre_ of the late J. P. Morgan, for £1290.
[Illustration: The rare first edition, and, according to Mr. Livingston
in "The Bibliophile," the earlier issue of the two printed in that year.
A very large copy. From the Hagen collection. Said to be the finest copy
in existence. It is bound in contemporary vellum, and measures 3-1/2 ×
6-1/8 inches.]
When "Anglers" could be had for fifty pounds, "Vicars" brought ten, or
fifteen if in exceptionally fine condition, and the man who then spent
this sum for a "Vicar" chose as wisely as did the Vicar's wife her
wedding gown, "not for a fine glossy surface, but for qualities as would
wear well." These two little volumes, with the Salisbury imprint and a
required blunder or two, will soon be worth a thousand dollars. When I
paid £120 for mine some years ago, I felt that I was courting ruin,
especially when I recalled that Dr. Johnson thought rather well of
himself for having secured for Goldsmith just half this sum for the
copyright of it. Boswell's story of the sale of the manuscript of the
"Vicar of Wakefield," as Johnson related it to him, is as pretty a bit
of bibliographical history as we have. Those who know it will pardon the
intrusion of the story for the sake of the pleasure it may give others.
"I received," said Johnson, "one morning a message from poor Goldsmith
that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to
me, begged that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a
guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon
as I was drest, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his
rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had
already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass
before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm,
and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated.
He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he
produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I
should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty
pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not
without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill
... and Sir," continued Johnson, "it was a sufficient price, too, when
it was sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it
afterwards was by his 'Traveller'; and the bookseller had such faint
hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a
long time, and did not publish it till after 'The Traveller' had
appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money."
Here we have a characteristic sketch of the two men--the excitable,
amiable, and improvident Goldy, and the wise and kindly Johnson,
instantly corking the bottle and getting down to brass tacks, as we
should say.
The first edition of "Robinson Crusoe" is another favorite book with
collectors; as why should it not be? Here is a copy in two volumes
(there should be three) in red morocco, super extra, gilt edges, by
Bedford. It should be in contemporary calf, but the price was only £46.
Turning to a bookseller's catalogue published a year or two ago, there
is a copy "3 vols. 8vo. with map and 2 plates, in original calf
binding," and the price is twenty-five hundred dollars.
A note in one of Stan. Henkel's recent auction catalogues, and there are
none better, clears up a point which has always troubled me, and which I
will quote at length for the benefit of other collectors who may not
have seen it.
The supposed "points," signifying the first issues of this famous
book, are stumbling-blocks to all bibliographers.