Fluctuations in the value of books--The prices of books
comparative--Low prices adverse to the sale of books in certain
cases--Great difficulty in arriving at the market-price of very
rare volumes--Influence of the atmosphere--Reflections on the
utility and prudence of collecting--The collector, as a rule,
pays for his amusement--The classes which chiefly buy the dearer
books--Bookselling a speculation--The question of
investment--Runs on particular kinds of books or particular
subjects--Quotations of prices realised to be read between the
lines--Careful consideration of certain problems essential to
security of buyers--The bookseller's point of view--Books which
are wanted, and why--Capital publications and universally known
authors--Tendency to estimate earlier and middle period
literature by its literary or artistic qualities--Collectors in
the future--Interest in prices current--Some notable figures--The
most precious books of all countries--Two imperfect copies of
Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ bring L2900--Henry VIII.'s own copy
on vellum of a volume of Prayers, 1544, with MSS. notes by him
and his family--Lady Elizabeth Tirrwhyt's _Prayers_, 1574, bound
in gold--_Book of St. Alban's_, 1486, and _Chronicles of
England_, printed at St. Alban's--The _Lincoln Nosegay_--American
buyers and their agents--Composition of an average
auction-room--An early example of a book-lottery.
THE fluctuations and revolutions in the mercantile value of old
English books present phenomena to our consideration of an instructive
and occasionally of a tantalising character. No one has the power to
foresee what future changes time may bring forth. It is the fashion
with the vendor to force a purchase on his client, because, says he,
this book cannot recur for sale, or this class of books is rising; but
that is a _facon de parler_, nothing more. We are apt to sigh over the
times when unique Caxtons could be had--ay, in our grandsires'
time--for less than L20. In the sixteenth century twenty pence paid
for them. But let us recollect that our estimation of an article
depends on its cost so largely. What we acquire cheaply we hold
cheaply. Should we have heard of many of our great modern collectors
had old quotations survived? We have known personally one or two who
would not dream of taking a volume at a low price; you had, as it
were, to adjust it to their meridian. They failed to perceive how
anything could be worth having if it was to be secured for a song. A
hundred-dollar author might be barely admissible; a dollar man would
be a disgrace to the collection.
As regards the strange vicissitudes of the tariff for second-hand
books prices, there is an illustrative note from Robert Scott, the
celebrated dealer, to Pepys, dated June 30, 1688, where he offers his
customer four books for 34s., namely:--
Campion and Others' "History of Ireland" 12 0
Harding's "Chronicle" 6 0
Sir John Pryce's "Defensio Hist. Brit." 8 0
Barclay's "Ship of Fools" [1570] 8 0
The value set on the second and fourth items would now, if they were
poor copies, be vastly in excess of the figures named by Scott; but
for the other two a bookseller of the present day might not expect
much more than Pepys was asked more than two hundred years ago.
The anecdotes of bargains picked up from day to day at the present
time are plentiful, and (except for the fortunate finder) exasperating
enough. But if we go back to a period when there were no auctions, no
organised book depots, no newspapers, no railways and other such
facilities, and men lived practically in separate communities, there
can be no feeling of astonishment that our own early literature, like
that of all other countries, has descended to us in an almost
inconceivably shrunk volume. Books, and more especially pamphlets and
broadsheets, were acquired, and, after perusal, flung away. There were
not only no booksellers, in our sense, but down to the seventeenth
century no systematic book-buyers. The library, as we understand the
term and the thing, is a comparatively modern institution. Even the
products of the Caxton press, very early in the next century, had sunk
in commercial value to almost nothing; they were procurable for pence,
nor did they acquire any appreciation till the reign of George III.
and the rise of a new school of collectors, amongst whom we have to
reckon the King himself.
It is not unusual to hear cases of cheap books having been acquired by
the normal buyer in the open market. A friend tells you that he has
bought such or such a volume of a dealer--perhaps a specialist in
that line--a positive bargain; he was not very keen on purchases just
at the moment, but he could not resist this. It may be so; but it is
exceedingly problematical. If we were to inquire into the facts, one
might, nay, one would almost certainly, find that the specialist had
secured the item over all competitors at a recent auction, and had
added his own profit. If he had not been present, the item would not
have brought half. He was deemed rash by his _confreres_ for giving so
much. Of course there were two in it; but the under-bidder was, maybe,
a second private enthusiast, who had gone to the full extent of his
ideas or resources. Where, then, is the bargain?
The more or less artificial quotations at first-class auctions partly
arise, no doubt, from the preference of certain private buyers for
dispensing with the middle-man in the person of the bookseller. They
do not object to employ him as an agent, and often enable him to
secure their _desiderata_ against all comers; but they somehow
distrust him as an independent valuer of what he may offer over the
counter; and this is, we fear, usually attributable to their
diffidence of their own judgment and experience. There is a prevailing
idea--it may be a prejudice--that in the salerooms an article fetches
its worth and no more, and that you save the relative profit. You may
or you may not. In the majority of cases, where the actual purchaser
has no practical knowledge, and his resources are ample, the saleroom
is a dearer market than the shop, if the property offered is that of
an eminent person and is of high character; and even in obscurer sales
bargains of any moment are only to those who are experts and are on
the spot.
The prices or market values of the older and rarer books form a
debateable ground, on which those interested will probably never
arrive at anything approaching unanimity; and the reason or part of
the reason seems to be that the actual realised figure depends on so
many considerations, of which the mere character of the article put up
for sale is not invariably the most influential. There is no species
of weather-glass more sensitive than the bibliographical one; it
responds to the slightest change in the commercial temperature, and
must be carefully watched and studied by all who either seek to sell
at a profit or to buy without the risk of serious loss on eventual
realisation. Two books belonging to the same edition, bound in the
same style by the same person, are they not one as good as the other?
By no means necessarily so. Setting aside the extrinsic features which
confer arbitrary value on literary property, one of the copies may
have the start of the other, if it is something then in active or
general demand; one may occur when the trade has a glut of stock, or
has exhausted its credit at the auctioneer's; one may belong to a
"genuine" collection, while the other may labour under the suspicion
of being "rigged." Place them side by side; there does not appear to
be sixpence between them, yet under the hammer one lot may fetch
twice as much as the other.
This, it may be fairly argued, tells against the wisdom and security
of laying out money by collectors of moderate resources on such
doubtful investments; but look in whatever direction you please, and
you will encounter similar phenomena. The buyer of coins, china,
pictures, or any other curiosities, meets with an identical
experience. Immense sums are lost in these recreations by one class to
provide livelihoods, and very handsome livelihoods, too, for thousands
and tens of thousands year by year. Sometimes the amount is not
serious to the individual, or he can afford it; occasionally it is
otherwise.
Prices fluctuate, and their fluctuation is apt to be deceptive. It is
not merely the article which has to be considered, but the atmosphere
in which it was sold. No one can be sure that he has secured a bargain
till he sells it. At the Beckford sale the Thuanus copy of Buchanan's
_Poemata_, 1579, fetched L54; a year or two later it was offered at
L18, and in 1897 it occurs in a catalogue at L42. A rare theatrical
item in the Mackenzie sale produced L62, 10s. In another in 1897 a
second copy formed part of a bundle which brought 14s. At the Laing
sale Beza's _Confession of Christian Faith_, in Italian, 1560, said to
have been the property of Mary Queen of Scots, was carried to L149.
After being kept by the purchaser many years, it realised during the
current year L52. The _eclat_ which accompanied these books on their
original realisation was absent, or was no more than a tradition. Some
judged the Queen of Scots volume very dear even at the lower
quotation. We saw it knocked down, and such was our own judgment.
These samples we adduce for the advantage of ordinary purchasers of
literary property, whose estimation principally depends on its
_provenance_. There is an inherent proneness to shrinkage of interest
and value in the hands of any one who is not equally celebrated, or is
not going to become so.
Even an approximately accurate appreciation in a commercial sense of
books of various classes can only be reached by one who is behind the
scenes, who can feel the pulse of the market, and who follows the
incessant changes in its temperature and feeling. It is absurd for a
simple amateur, who passes his time in a study or an office, to
attempt or presume to instruct us on this subject. He knows what he
has given for his own library, and what some of his friends have given
for theirs, and he reads the accounts in the papers of periodical
sales. But it is a widely different affair, when one sets about the
task, intrusted to this or that individual by a friendly publisher or
editor-general, in a scientific manner; and it is only under such
circumstances that one realises, or can render intelligible to others,
what prices actually mean and are, how much they depend on perpetually
modifying and varying influences, and how little the quotations found
in works of reference are to be trusted. The turns of the book-market
are as sudden and strange, as delicate and mysterious, as those of a
Bourse; and the steadfast and keen onlooker alone can keep pace with
them--not he always; the wire-pullers are so many.
How, then, shall collectors of books, for example, protect themselves?
They cannot. It is their diversion, their by-play; their time and
thought are engaged elsewhere in business, where it is their turn to
reap the fruit of special study and experience, and they hand over a
percentage of this to the caterer for their pleasure. The whole world
is, in other words, perpetually intent on gathering and distributing;
we are, every one of us, buyers and sellers, not of necessaries only,
but of luxuries and amusements.
Coming to the more immediate point, men nowadays, in the presence of a
severe and almost homicidal competition for subsistence, have to
devote their whole attention to their chosen employment, and have the
most limited opportunities of ascertaining or verifying values as
submitted to them by experts in the book-market; they have Lowndes,
which is almost worthless, and _Book Prices Current_, which is, of
course, more contemporary, but must be read between the lines; and the
extreme difficulty of judging what is worth having, and how much
should be given for it, has led to that frequent habit of collectors
favouring a particular dealer, or, as an alternative, pursuing a
policy highly unpleasant to dealers by acquiring direct from the
salerooms. Fortunately for booksellers the latter plan does not suit
busy men, and it is just that class, especially the merchant and the
stockbroker, the solicitor and accountant, who are their best clients.
The trade has its sorrows and trials; but it cannot be a very bad one
when we see how many live out of it, if they do not often make
fortunes. The fact is, that the motives for buying books are almost as
infinitely multifarious as the books themselves, and there exists not
the volume for which the customer will not arise, if the holder can
wait; and this customary incidence accounts for the familiar aphorism
that booksellers accumulate stock, not money--an aphorism to which the
exceedingly rare exceptions prove the rule.
Putting it differently, bookselling outside the current literature is
a form of speculation which varies according to the class of
investment which the stockholder selects; and it is quite necessary to
bear in mind the nature and tendency of the business in order to more
clearly appreciate the uncertainty of prices, and how utterly
impossible it must ever be for any ordinary book-buyer to rely on his
purchases as a representation of value. If he does not view the matter
in that light, or chooses to let the instruction or pleasure derived
from his acquisitions become a set-off against the outlay, it is very
well; what he or his heirs get for the property is in that case all
profit.
We dwell a little on this aspect of the matter, because we are quite
aware that in purchasing books many persons look at the ulterior
question, and even demand of the vendor how much the article is likely
to bring when or if re-sold. Such a contingency usually limits itself
to cases where a volume is secured for a special and temporary object,
or where funds are restricted and the fancy is purely personal.
Apart from these considerations, there are other influences always at
work to render the book-market uncertain and insecure. Collectors who
have no fixed plan or aim are apt to follow the precedent set by such
as have, or are supposed to have, one, and this obviously tends to
create a run on particular subjects or authors, till the call is
satisfied, or the _coterie_ grows sensible of the inexpediency of
proceeding any further. A revolt from a fad naturally gluts the market
with the discarded copies, and the latest vendors have to bear the
brunt. Such is not an occasional incidence, but one continually in
progress among a certain _quota_, and a large _quota_, too, of the
book-buying public, who let others judge for them, instead of judging
for themselves.
It cannot be treated as otherwise than an ordinary and reasonable
_sequitur_ that prices which are purely artificial are also arbitrary
and precarious. The quotations which are to be found in such a
publication as _Book Prices Current_ are at best a bare record of
facts; but with such a record at his elbow no man who does not possess
a fair amount of knowledge and judgment would be safe in his figures.
It would be little better than plunging. Still less is it of any use
to rely on the reports in the press, which are frequently inaccurate,
and in nine cases out of ten are the work of inexperienced persons.
The careful and discerning observer of these problems (for such they
indeed are) discovers that the high prices for books, which the trade
is never tired of citing as an encouragement to its connections, are
almost invariably associated with conditions which are adventitious or
accidental, and which scarcely ever comprise benefit to a living
individual. A man must be truly exceptional, phenomenally above
suspicion, bedridden with an incurable complaint, to disarm the
scepticism of the wary buyer under the hammer; it is the property of
the departed which is preferred; for the result cannot help him, and
he is not at hand to reserve lots. So recently as 1896, there was an
exception to the prevailing rule; but it was one rather in appearance
than in reality. We allude to the FRERE sale at Sotheby's. Now, we
repeat that this was merely an ostensible departure from ordinary
experience; and what we mean is that the most valuable portion of the
library was that which once belonged to another and antecedent person,
Sir John Fenn, and that these items had been long known to exist, and
were _desiderata_ for which public and private collections had
hitherto thirsted in vain. No wonder, then, that there was a dead set
at them, the living owner _maulgre_.
The booksellers are apt to complain nowadays of their inability to
move or place items with which they cannot give a certificate of
character. It will not always suffice to allege that they have
realised a great deal of money heretofore, as vouched by Lowndes; they
must carry with them some definite recommendation; they must exhibit
remarkable allusions; they may be written by an ancestor or namesake
of the buyer in view; at all events, if they are not by a good author,
they must be on a good subject. Their interest must be (1) personal;
(2) local; or (3) topical. There is a drift on the part of collectors
of the purer type toward accredited and certified securities--toward
recognised writers. Established character goes for more than mere
rarity. The trade can always place fine copies of authors who have
made their personality standard: Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare,
Sydney, Jonson, Milton, Butler, Swift, Thomson, Goldsmith, Miss
Burney, Dr. Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Charles
Lamb, Shelley, Keats, Thackeray, George Eliot. If to the more
fastidious or self-diffident amateur an excessively rare item is
introduced without credentials, it is in danger of being rejected; the
same principle applies to certain foreign writers, such as Cervantes,
Montaigne, Moliere, Corneille, La Fontaine. But in almost all these
cases the demand is not for collected or library editions, or even for
first copies of everything coming from the pens of those writers.
Chaucer has to be served up in the types of Caxton or De Worde or
Pynson; Spenser is only sought in quarto and octavo; Shakespeare
means the four folios and certain quartos, and the Poems in octavo;
the leading aim in Sydney is the _Arcadia_ of 1590; Jonson is just
admissible in folio (the right one), but is preferred in quarto; by
Milton we mean the _Comus_, _Lycidas_, _Poems_, _Paradise Lost_ and
_Paradise Regained_ in the original issues. Butler is only represented
by his _Hudibras_; Swift by his _Gulliver_; Defoe by his _Crusoe_
(some must have all three volumes, although the first is worth nearly
all the money); Thomson by the _Seasons_; Goldsmith by the _Vicar of
Wakefield_; Miss Burney by one or two of her Novels in boards; Dr.
Johnson by his _Rasselas_; Scott by the _Waverley_ series with uncut
edges, and so forth.
The actual current appreciation of old books seems to be, to a large
and increasing extent, in the ratio of their literary or artistic
attraction; and under the second head we comprise typography and
wood-engraving; and we think that we could establish that, as a rule,
the highest bids in modern days are for something of which the
reputation or importance, or both, are a matter of tacit
acknowledgment and acceptance. A merely _curious_ volume may fetch
money; but it must be something beyond that to make the pulse beat
more quickly and form a record.
Two considerations govern and recommend such a course--those of
commercial expediency and of space. There is not much probability that
in the time to come book-buyers will arise to renew the traditions of
the Harleian and Heber libraries, or even of such vast heterogeneous
assemblages of literary monuments as those formed by Sir Thomas
Phillipps, James Crossley, Joseph Tasker, Gibson-Craig, and a few
others. The feeling is more in favour of the French view--small and
choice; and there is no doubt that, as a rule, the sale of a
collection should not occupy more than three days. Beyond that time
the interest flags and prices are apt to recede.
At the same time there has always been, and will be, a powerful
curiosity in the direction of knowing or hearing what certain rare or
superlatively important books occasionally bring. The feeling is
rather more general than might be imagined, for it extends to those
who are not collectors, yet like to see how foolish other people are,
or, again, store up the information, in case they should have the good
fortune to meet with similar things in their travels. When one thinks
of the extraordinary casualities which have brought to light
undescribed works or editions, and continue to do so year by year,
there is no reason to despair of completing ourselves in due course in
many and many a direction. The tendency in prices of late has
certainly been favourable to books which are at once rare and
admittedly important; and we have said that the latter feature and
quality appear to be weightier than mere unfrequency of occurrence.
For instance, any given number of copies of such comparatively common
volumes as the first folio Shakespeare, the first _Faery Queen_, the
first _Paradise Lost_, Herrick, Beaumont and Fletcher, will present
themselves in the market and command steadily advancing figures; it is
the same with Pope and Dryden in a measure, and with some of the more
eminent moderns. The literary _eclat_ stimulates the biddings.
Those works which represent the maximum value during recent years have
been:--
(i.) The earliest examples of printing, at all events in book-form;
_Missae Speciales_, and other smaller books executed by Gutenberg
previous to 1455, or at all events to the Bible ascribed to that date;
Gutenberg's Bible, otherwise known as the Mazarin Bible, 1455,
re-issued by Fust and Schoeffer in 1456; the Psalters of 1457 and
1459, designed for the Cathedral and Benedictine monastery of Mainz
respectively; the _Chronicles_ of Monstrelet on vellum; _Lancelot du
Lac_ on vellum, 1488; the Sarum _Missal_, 1492, 1497, 1504; Caxton's
two _Troy-Books_, two _Jasons_, _Arthur_, _Speculum Vitae Christi_ and
_Doctrinal of Sapience_ on vellum, _Canterbury Tales_ and other
separate works of Chaucer, _Paris and Vienne_, &c.; _Book of St.
Albans_, 1486, and other works printed there, 1480-1534; Tyndale's
_New Testament_, 1526; Coverdale's _Bible_, 1535; Boece's _Chronicles
of Scotland_ on vellum, 1536; the Huth Ballads; Montaigne's _Essais_,
1580; the same in English, 1603, 1613; Spenser's _Faery Queen_,
1590-96; Constable's _Diana_, 1592; Bacon's _Essays_, 1597, 1598;
Shakespeare's _Venus and Adonis_, _Lucrece_, 1st quartos, _Sonnets_,
and the collected _Plays_, 1593-1623. (ii.) Shelton's _Don Quixote_,
1612-20; first editions of Daniel, Drayton, Lodge, Watson, Barnfield,
Breton, &c.; Milton's _Comus_, 1637, _Lycidas_, 1638, _Paradise Lost_,
1667; Walton's _Complete Angler_, 1653, Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_,
1678, and any other capital or standard authors of the seventeenth
century, particularly Lovelace, Carew, Suckling, down to Locke's
_Essay on the Human Understanding_, which, though a common book, has
lately grown a dear one by sheer force of companionship.
There seems a disposition to look more indifferently on volumes which
have no certificate or passport. Secondarily, as in the case of
Florio's version of Montaigne, items are admitted as hangers-on and
interpreters of great authors.
The last copy of the _Faery Queen_, 1590-96, offered for sale, an
extraordinarily fine one, brought L84, of _Robinson Crusoe_, L75. The
British Museum paid for the _Book of Common Prayer_, 1603, a year
earlier than any edition so far described, L175. It was obtained by
the vendor from a sale at Sotheby's, where its liturgical interest was
overlooked.
The question of prices in all these cases is involved in equal
uncertainty and difficulty. The second Psalter of 1459 brought at the
Syston Park sale L4950. Mr. Quaritch still holds it (1897), and asks
L5250. The British Museum possesses both impressions. This was the
highest figure ever reached by a single lot in this country.
Gutenberg's Bible follows, copies on vellum and paper having produced
from L1500 to L4000; the vellum copies are deemed more valuable, but
of those issued by Gutenberg himself we seem to have only examples on
paper. The Huth copy of the latter type, from the Sykes and H. Perkins
libraries cost its late owner L3650. Mr. Grenville for his gave L500.
As we have already remarked, the book has a tendency to become
commoner. The Ashburnham Fust and Schoeffer Bible of 1462 brought
L1500; at the Comte de Brienne's sale in 1724, where Hearne refers to
the "vast prices," the Earl of Oxford gave for the same book L112.
The _History of King Arthur_, printed by Caxton, 1485, for which Lord
Jersey's ancestor gave L2, 12s. 6d. about 1750 to Osborne, was carried
at the Osterley Park sale in 1885 to L1950, the British Museum
underbidding; while the _Troy-Book_ in English from the same press
fetched L1820; and at the dispersion of a curious lot of miscellanies,
apparently derived from Darlaston Hall, near Stone, Staffordshire, an
imperfect, but very large and clean, copy of the first edition of the
_Canterbury Tales_, by Caxton, was adjudged to Mr. Quaritch at L1020,
a second one, by an unparalleled coincidence presenting itself at the
same place of sale a few months later, only four leaves wanting, but
not so fine, and being knocked down at L1800 to the same buyer. The
Asburnham Chaucers and other works from the same press were (with one
or two exceptions) so poor, that it was surprising that they sold
even so well as they did.
We descend to relatively moderate quotations when we come to the
Daniel (now Huth) Ballads in 1864 (L750); the L670 and L810 bidden for
the Caxton's _Gower_ at the Selsey sale in 1871 and the Osterley Park
sale in 1885 respectively; the L600 paid for the _Book of St. Albans_,
1486, wanting two leaves, in 1882; and the L420 at which Mr. Quaritch
estimated the _Troy-Book_ of 1503. The price asked for the original
MS. of the _Towneley Mysteries_ in 1892, L820, strikes one as
reasonable by comparison.
But amounts which we venture to think unduly extravagant have of late
years been obtained at Christies's rooms for certain books, such as
Lady Elizabeth Tirrwhyt's _Prayers_, 1574, bound in gold, and said to
have belonged to Queen Elizabeth (1220 guineas);[4] Henry VIII.'s
_Prayers_, 1544, printed on vellum,[5] and enriched with notes by the
King, the Queen, Prince Edward, and Princess Mary (610 guineas, as
above mentioned); and a third folio Shakespeare, 1663-64, with both
titles, but represented as being almost unique in that state, L435.
What a contrast to the old prices! Even in our time and memory, the
first folio could be had in fine state for L50 or L60, the second for
L5, 5s., the third for L50, and the fourth for L5, 5s. George Daniel,
we are informed by his representatives, gave about L220 for his first
Shakespeare to William Pickering, and Mr. Corser kept his 1632 book in
his dining-room at Stand Rectory among the commoner volumes, although
it was a fine copy. A middling set now fetches L600 or thereabout.
The earlier standard both for English and foreign rarities was
undoubtedly much lower. In Osborne's Catalogue for 1751, the _Toledo
Missal_, described as the scarcest volume in the world, was valued
only at L35. In the Heber, and even in the Bright sale, from L10 to
L25 secured some of the greatest gems in ancient English literature.
At the Frere auction at Sotheby's, 1896, however, the realisation of
the Fenn books beat every record, considering that the copies were
generally so poor; and it was hard indeed to see where the value was
in a Herbert's Ames accompanied by an extra volume of typographical
fragments, of which many were mutilated and many were worthless
(L255).
The _Book of St. Albans_, 1486, as it is usually designated, has
descended a little from its original rank as a first-class rarity
owing to the successive discovery of unknown copies. The romance
connected with the acquisition of the Grenville one has been more than
once printed; but the _Chronicles of England_, from the same press,
especially on vellum, maintains its reputation for the utmost rarity,
although there were two impressions; and the same may be said of the
issues by William of Mecklin, Caxton, and Gerard de Leeu, all and any
of which could not, if complete, fail to command very high prices even
on paper.
L4900 for the second edition of the Mainz Psalter, 1459, appears (as
we have observed) to be the largest sum ever paid in this country for
a single work; and the vellum copy of the Gutenberg Bible follows,
L900 behind; at least at the price of L4000 it fell to Mr. Quaritch at
the Ashburnham sale in 1897. But for the _Manesse Liederbuch_, a
thirteenth-century MS. of national ballads, carried away by the French
from Heidelberg in 1656, and found among the Ashburnham MSS., the
German Government practically paid in 1887 L18,000. What may be termed
a bad second was the Duke of Hamilton's Missal, sold to the German
Government in 1887 for L10,000; but that also belongs to the
manuscript class.
It must be an absolute truism to state that at the present moment the
American is a material factor in influencing the book-market. He is
less so, perhaps, in the sort of way in which he assisted the
booksellers of a bygone generation in reducing or realising their
stocks; but he has come to the front more than ever as a competitor
for the prizes. There was a day when countless Transatlantic libraries
were in course of formation; but they are now fairly complete, and,
moreover, they have the means at hand, not formerly available, of
filling up the gaps at home.
Our American kinsfolk have undoubtedly become masters of an almost
countless number of bibliographical gems, and have been content to pay
handsomely for them. We do not hear of any sensible reflux of old
books from the States, but that might happen hereafter under the
influence of financial depression. At the same time, there is perhaps
nothing on the other side of the Atlantic which is not represented in
duplicate here, unless it be in an instance or two, as, for example,
the perfect Caxton _Morte Arthur_, 1485; and even those volumes, which
are of signal rarity, are almost without exception in repositories
accessible to all.
Returning for a moment to the commercial aspect of our present topic,
the Transatlantic acquirer at any cost makes the fixture of high, even
ridiculous, prices for certain books impossible. Beyond the _maximum_
there is a higher _maximum_ still. Who would have dreamed of a first
edition of Burns, although uncut, bringing, as it did just lately
(February 1898) in an Edinburgh auction-room, L572, or a sixpenny
volume on Ploughs by one Small, L30, because it bore on the title,
_Rob^t. Burns, Poet_, in the great man's own hand, as well as a
holograph memorandum attached to flyleaf? In the case of the
Kilmarnock Burns of 1786 the sole excuse of the purchaser was its
uncut state, for it is a comparatively common book. It was acquired by
Mr. Lamb of Dundee, a hotel-keeper, of one Mr. Braidwood for L60. A
second copy in paper covers, also uncut, exists; but the general
condition is not so good.
There are in London and other English centres, however, American
export and commission agents, independently of those houses which make
shipments to the States a collateral branch of their business. It has
been the cry, ever since we can recollect, that our cousins were
draining the old country of its books, and yet the movement
continues--continues with this difference, that the Americans have now
plenty of ordinary stock, and are more anxious to limit their
acquisitions to rarities. The number of public and private libraries
has become very considerable; the most familiar names are Lenox,
Carter-Brown, Tower, and Pope, the last the purchaser of the _King
Arthur_ printed by Caxton in 1485, and formerly in the Harleian and
Osterley Park collections. There is an occasional reflux of
exportations, and we should like to hear one day of the _Arthur_ being
among them.
One not very pleasant aspect of American and other plutocratic
competition has been to convert most of the _capital_ old English
books from literature into _vertu_. What else is it, when two
imperfect Chaucers bring L2900, and a Walton's _Angler_, L415, and
where for the second and third folio Shakespeares persons are found
willing to give a profit on L500 or L600?
The Transatlantic buyer, or indeed the buyer at a distance anywhere,
has no option in employing an agent on the spot to acquire his
_desiderata_, and he is practically in his hands. So long as your
representative is competent it is well enough, and on the whole the
American agencies in London are, we think, both that and
conscientious. But the frequenter of the salerooms cannot fail to note
a very unsatisfactory aspect of this business by proxy, where an
inexperienced amateur with a well-lined purse employs an almost
equally inexperienced person to act on his behalf--that is to say, one
who is a bookseller by vocation, but who enjoys no conversance with
bibliographical niceties. His principal consequently scores very
poorly by buying _wrong_ things at the _right_ prices; but if he is
satisfied, who need be otherwise? And his error, if his property is
not realised in his lifetime, never comes home to him! Nevertheless,
to buy with other people's eyes and judgment is not, after all, the
best form; all that can be pleaded for it is, that it is the sole
resource of the individual who has no time to devote to the practical
side, or who, if he has, distrusts his own knowledge; and as
everything has its compensation, such are the customers on whom the
trade mainly leans. If the amateur expert were to be too much
multiplied, the professional bookseller would inevitably be a grave
sufferer.
Those are in the safest hands, perhaps, who are in their own. But in
the case of books, as of all analogous property, the next best thing
to acting for oneself is to employ a high-class dealer, or, if the
line is very special, one who enjoys a reputation for conversance with
the particular branch of inquiry. Where a collector who does not
possess personal knowledge, and takes into his service a bookseller
who is not much more informed, or who has not studied certain classes
of literature, it is bound to be an exemplification of the blind
leading the blind, and one, at all events, unless he has a very long
purse, falling into the ditch.
Under any circumstances, it is unquestionably beneficial to any
private buyer to take some pains to arrive at at least a general
knowledge of values, as well as of the bearings and extent of the
field which he may choose. He should not be a puppet in the hands of
his representative, if he can help it. Where he cannot, he is apt to
buy in one sort of market and to sell in another. Not the worst policy
is to hand a commission to one's strongest opponent, if he will or can
take it. It disarms him. But some firms dislike agency, as the profit,
though sure, is often so narrow, particularly where the person
employed is a specialist in the line, and would have given for
purposes of re-sale in the ordinary way twice or thrice as much as the
item fetches, his personal opposition withdrawn. Hence it is not
unusual among commission-agents at book-sales to charge, not on the
price realised, but on the figure given by the client. The latter
authorises his representative to bid up to L10 for this or that lot;
it drops at L2; the fee for buying it is a percentage, not on the
lower, but the higher amount. A commission of L6 was given by the
present writer for a volume of John Leland's Tracts; it dropped at
2s.; his agent charged him 10s. brokerage.
Some hand their orders direct to the auctioneer, and this may be done
within certain limits; but if the practice becomes too habitual, the
dealers retaliate by bidding against the rostrum. "All is fair in love
and war."
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Now in the British Museum by the munificence of the late Sir
Wollaston Franks (Department of Antiquities).
[5] Said to have been purchased for Lord Amherst.