that books of all kinds, good as well as indifferent, lie hidden away in
obscure places, waiting the coming of some appreciative explorer who
will rescue them from the neglect of many years, and restore them to the
world from whence they came. It is no use advertising in these cases.
Every week, year in and year out, stereotyped advertisements appear in
all sorts of likely and unlikely journals, and nothing ever seems to
come of them. They are read, doubtless, by the very people whose goods
and chattels stand in need of a thorough overhauling; but they do not
know the real extent of their possessions, and usually have a fine
contempt for articles of small bulk--a by no means unusual circumstance,
be it said, even in educated circles, for it is on record that, when
Sion College was burned down, many priceless volumes in the library were
destroyed simply because the attendants, at the risk of their lives,
devoted all the time available to the rescue of folios.
Thus it came to pass that Prynne's miscellaneous writings were for the
most part saved, while other treatises, of far more importance, but
smaller in size, were licked up by the flames, and so perished. The
natural instinct of human beings is to place confidence in weight, and
to ascribe wisdom to bulk. For centuries this idea prevailed throughout
Europe, and doubtless prompted Nicolai de Lyra to write those hundreds
of folios of commentary on the New Testament which at one time were the
mournful heritage of thousands. So also the great Baxter reaped much
renown by reason of his seventy folios or quartos, causing Bayle to
remark, 'Perhaps no copying clerk who ever lived to grow old amidst the
dust of an office ever transcribed so much as this author has written.'
The real book-hunter of to-day is, however, fortunately free of the
ancient superstition, and knows very well that as a general rule the
scarcest printed books are those which are small in size. To the people
at large this is not so, and thus it is that pamphlets of extreme
rarity, small volumes which you can hold in your hand with ease, or
carry in an inner pocket with comfort, are neglected and eventually
forgotten, and doubtless destroyed in sheer ignorance, more often than
we care to think of. It was with the object of rescuing some of these
that the Forgotten Lore Society first saw the light seven years ago.
This, indeed, was not its real name, but the title is a good one, and as
descriptive of the objects sought to be attained as any other that could
be invented. The idea was to search the country for neglected books in
the hope that something at least might be discovered among the heaps of
ancestral rubbish that time and the elements are fast bringing to decay.
Now, I venture to state that the more anyone of impartial judgment
considers facts and probabilities, the more he must be satisfied that
this was no Quixotic scheme. In some instances it is plain that even
the most protracted and thorough search would be mere waste of time, as,
for instance, in the case of Byron's 'Fugitive Pieces,' 1806, which is
known to have been entirely destroyed, with the exception of three
copies, all of which can be accounted for. But, then, the operations of
the society were not confined to odd volumes, but to rarities of any
kind and in any number that Providence might see fit to throw in its
way. If not Byron, then Shelley, or Burns, or those older authors whose
very names are synonyms for extreme scarcity, such, for example, as
Brereton, Whitbourne, W. Hamond, Bullinger, and the scores who have
written seventeenth-century poems and composed old music to sing them
to. Have all practically vanished, or are they merely under the lock of
a combination of indifference and ignorance for a time? That was the
question.
With this society I was connected as an ordinary member, and allotted a
certain acreage over which to roam, on the distinct understanding that
any advantage was to accrue to the benefit of the members as a whole.
Elaborate rules were drawn up, and every imaginable contingency fully
provided for. There was no lack of money, and no want of enterprise or
enthusiasm; yet the project failed for the simplest of all reasons--but
one which had apparently never entered into the calculations of the
promoters. Spread over England, and some parts of Scotland and Ireland,
were over a hundred book-men, all of them thoroughly well versed in
literature of a certain kind, but, with few exceptions, rigorous
specialists, who affected particular authors or subjects, and knew
little outside the restricted circle they had made their own. Let any
one of these be drawn within the vortex of his favourite branch of
study, and I am sure that he would have acquitted himself admirably; but
what was wanted in a matter of this kind was a general and extensive
acquaintance with the market, and not a knowledge, however deep or
profound, of the lives of authors long since dead, and of what they
wrote, and the circumstances that attended the publication of their
works. This, unfortunately, was the information with which most of the
members set out to search the countryside, and the mistakes they made
would be sufficient to excite the laughter of even the tyro were they
but published. A perfect Iliad of woes tracked the footsteps of each
member of this society wherever he went, and it is not at all surprising
that it eventually languished and was finally dissolved. A few of these
mistakes may, however, be set down with the object of showing how easy
it is to tumble into error, and at the same time to be perfectly
satisfied that the mistake, if any, is on the wrong shoulders.
Every collector of Mr. Ruskin's works knows that on December 14, 1864,
he delivered a lecture at the Town Hall, Manchester, and that this
lecture was printed and published in that city, in pamphlet form, under
the title of 'The Queens' Gardens.' He is also aware that only three
copies of the pamphlet are known to exist, and if he is very well
informed indeed he will know who has them, and where they got them from,
and at what price. A portion of this information was in the possession
of a member at Bath, who, as he said, had accidentally discovered a copy
of the 'book' in a parcel of odds and ends that was to be sold by
auction the following day. In his letter he requested a reply by
telegram first thing in the morning saying to what price he was to go,
as he had reason to believe that other persons beside himself were aware
of the circumstance. There was no time for explanations, so the wire was
sent, though the word 'book' came with a very suspicious ring. It was
as well perhaps that the limit was intentionally put low, or there is no
telling to what absurd price the parcel of miscellanea might not have
been forced by his eagerness. As it was, it was bought for L2 10s., or
about six or seven times as much as it was worth, for 'The Queens'
Gardens' was not the coveted pamphlet at all, but the book known as
'Sesame and Lilies' (and not even the first edition of that), published
by Smith, Elder and Co. in 1865, which contains the reprints of the two
lectures (1) 'Of Kings' Treasuries,' (2) 'Of Queens' Gardens.' It was
evident that this sort of thing had only to become general and the
society would be ruined, for all payments came from the common fund.
When the error was pointed out, the member cavilled and argued, but
could not be convinced. He was certain that he had bought the true and
original 'Queens' Gardens,' and darkly hinted at secession.
On another occasion a member bought 'Friendship's Offering,' for 1840,
merely because it contains 'The Scythian Guest.' He, too, could not be
persuaded that the error was his rather than that of the bookseller who
sold it him. Times without number one edition was mistaken for another;
over and over again were imperfect or tattered volumes bought at prices
that would have been impossible but for the London treasury of this
secret society. 'No good comes,' says old John Hill Burton, 'no good
comes of gentlemen buying and selling'--a dictum which was manifestly
applicable here. Had the confident purchaser of 'Queens' Gardens' been
confronted with Nichols's 'Herald and Genealogist,' he would have been
in his element, for he was an adept in the lore of armorials and
pedigrees, and had a fine collection of volumes of that kind. Outside
these subjects he knew but little, which for all practical purposes is
infinitely worse than knowing nothing at all.
Another grievous error resulted in the purchase of Shakespeare's 'Venus
and Adonis,' 'The Rape of Lucrece,' 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' and
'Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Musick,' at a good round sum. The pieces
were bound up together in dilapidated calf, and as each had a separate
pagination there may have been just a shadow of excuse for the payment
of L2, which was the price demanded. But this book was merely Lintott's
first collected edition, a work which might have been manufactured
expressly for the behoof of innocent purchasers, so antiquated and
primitive does it look. Had it been Cote's collected edition of 1640,
instead of Lintott's comparatively worthless, and certainly very
careless, production, which he took good care not to date, all would
have been well; but this was never at any time likely to be the case,
for the price was dead against a supposition of the kind. Price is,
indeed, often a most valuable guide to the real worth of a book; though
this is not always the case, as the following anecdote of a circumstance
that happened to myself abundantly proves. I took the greatest pains to
trace every step in the history I am about to unfold, and know that the
details are true.
It is the custom of many booksellers to send out their catalogues in
alphabetical order, and had only my name been Abbot, or even Abrahams,
this account of an accident which can hardly fade from my memory would
probably have never been written. The Forgotten Lore Society would have
reaped most of the benefit certainly, but, on the other hand, I should
have been rich in the consciousness of having obtained for a mere trifle
one of the finest known copies of an extremely rare piece, and one of
the few of any quality that have ever come into the market at any price.
The society had not been in working order a month, when one of those
extraordinary strokes of luck which often fall to the share of the
gambler at the commencement of his career, and as certainly desert him
at the end of it, happened to me. It was brought late one evening by a
bookseller's catalogue which I, being much occupied at the time, threw
aside till a more convenient season. They say that strange
psychological influences often work out the destiny of men, although
they know it not, and some such influence must have been haunting me
then, for contrary to all custom, and notwithstanding the fact that to
catch the last post was a matter of imperative necessity, I found that
the catalogue had an altogether exceptional if not unique attraction.
Do what I might, I could not forget its existence, nor could I make
satisfactory progress with the work which had, whether I liked it or
not, to be finished and out of the house half an hour before midnight at
the latest. So the catalogue was opened, curiously enough, at a place
at which there was no reason it should open, for after a while I lost it
and had some difficulty in finding it again. It had opened, however, at
page 8, and the first entry that caught my eye was this, word for word
exactly:
114. Hornem (Horace) The Waltz: an Apostrophic Hymn. By Horace Hornem,
Esq.: 410., 1813, unbound. 3s. 6d.
Now, there are, of course, two early editions of 'The Waltz,' one the
quarto above-named, and the other an octavo published in 1821, and it
was quite likely, and indeed more than probable, that the bookseller,
with his mind's eye fixed on the excessively scarce issue of 1813, might
have unconsciously written it down instead of the comparatively common
octavo. Another hypothesis suggested itself, namely, that the entry was
designed to bring customers to his place of business, and that 'The
Waltz' of 1813 had no existence there in fact. Such devices for making
trade are not unknown, and this might very well be one of them.
Nevertheless, I determined to test the matter, and though the laugh is
greatly to my discomfort even at this distance of time, I do not mind
admitting that I was, metaphorically speaking, glued to the doorstep
long before the shop opened in the morning. To sit there in reality I
could not for shame, so I walked about Oxford Street within bowshot,
ready to besiege the door in case any other snapper-up of unconsidered
trifles should show an anxiety to forestall his brethren of the chase.
Even when the shop opened, I did not walk in immediately, nor when there
did I brutally ask point-blank for the coveted treasure. An uneasy
conscience pointed out that, if there were anything in the matter, too
great an anxiety might give rise to suspicion, and 'The Waltz' would in
that case be difficult to find. I bought another book, which I did not
want, and not till then suggested number 114.
'Gone,' said the clerk, looking at his copy of the catalogue.
'Gone?' said I.
'Yes,' he replied, 'sold yesterday.'
I thought at the time that a trace of a smile played about the corners
of his mouth as he said this, and I should not wonder if that were so,
for the bookseller afterwards told me that his place had been besieged
for many days by hungry bookworms, who had sauntered in one after the
other in the most careless manner imaginable, and asked for this very
'Waltz.' 'They positively danced on the pavement,' he said, 'when they
found it had gone,' and with this small joke he was fain to mollify
himself, for it was the literal truth that in an evil moment he had sold
a pearl of great price for the beggarly sum of 3s. 6d. He did not know
to whom; he had never seen the man before, and 'in all probability,' he
added with a sigh, 'I shall never see him again.'
The subsequent history of one of the finest, if not the finest, copies
of Byron's quarto 'Waltz' in existence is as follows: The original
purchaser sold it to a dabbler in books for 10s., and he in his turn
disposed of it for L4 to a man who, though not a bookseller,
occasionally acted as such, and was thoroughly conversant with every
move of the market. He had no difficulty in selling it by telegram, and
the price paid--L60--was not, under the circumstances, in the least too
high, for the copy was as fresh and clean as when it left the publishing
offices of Sherwood, Neely, and Jones more than eighty years ago, and
had not been tampered with in any way.
The suggestion that the price demanded for a book is often a test of its
real worth is both proved and avoided by this story. As I did not, as
it happened, secure the 'Waltz,' I feel sorry for the bookseller, and
would point out to him that it is impossible for anyone, bookseller or
not, to be acquainted with every volume and pamphlet that has ever been
published. He made a mistake of such grave consequences to himself that
he is not at all likely to make another of the same kind. His sin
merely consisted in either not knowing who 'Horace Hornem, Esq.,' really
was, or more probably in momentarily and yet irrevocably confusing that
pseudonym with some other which he may have had in his mind at the time.
This is a very common source of error, and very probably accounts for
the incident. On the other hand, the action of the intermediate holder
in selling the book for L4 is inexplicable and inexcusable. Had he said
10s. 6d., and thus made 6d. on the transaction, he would have had the
excuse of absolute ignorance in his favour, but L4 is such a curious and
yet significant amount that there can be no question that he at any rate
knew sufficiently well what he was about to make the absence of proper
inquiry on his part a positive crime. Any such value as L4 placed on a
pamphlet of twenty-seven pages is in itself such an indication of value
that no anxious would-be purchaser of any scarce and yet
insignificant-looking book dare offer anything like the amount for it.
He must either pay the full price or near it, which is more honest, as
well as more satisfactory in the long-run or swallow his principles and
tender next to nothing with a nonchalant air.
Personally I feel sorry that the gotten Lore Society had such a small
measure of success, for it deserved well. The management was too
vicarious for the times, and, moreover, its object was not the buying
and selling of books, which one man, if he have sufficient capital, can
do as well as twenty. To rescue mean-looking but valuable literature
from certain destruction was its one and only study, and the realization
of its dreams was only accomplished very partially because, as I have
hinted, the members of the association were specialists moving in narrow
grooves. The few successes that can be placed to its credit would,
however, have been its curse had it dealt hardly and uncharitably with
the ignorant people who on more than one occasion parted with small
fortunes (to them) for the price of a day's subsistence. To buy a
perfectly clean copy of Thackeray's 'Second Funeral of Napoleon' for 2s.
was a work of art, for the old woman who sold it, in order to buy tea,
as it subsequently transpired, wanted more, and yet was so thoroughly
saturated with suspicion that she would probably have refused to sell at
any price had more been offered. The book was acquired for that sum, as
I have said, after much discussion and with many misgivings, at least on
one side; but when bought, the circumstances altered, and she found
herself possessed of more money than she had had the control of at one
time in her life before, for it is, I think, to the credit of the
Forgotten Lore Society that it voluntarily paid into the Post-Office
Savings Bank a sum of L10 to the order of the seller a few days after
the transaction was carried through. Such finds as these were, however,
few and far between. In nearly every case such books as the ignorant
are possessed of are very inferior, and, what is perhaps not surprising,
assessed by their owners at ridiculous prices.
It was part of the business of the society to advertise for books in
country journals, and to while away a few moments I give the gist or the
actual text of some of the replies received. One correspondent wrote to
say that he hadn't got no books, but would sell us a fox-terrier pup, if
that would do instead, and then he proceeded to enumerate at great
length what he called its 'pints,' concluding with the remark that he
had sent it off that very evening by passenger, train. It turned up,
sure enough, in the morning, sorrowful of countenance, a snarling,
disreputable cur, which we were only too glad to feed and return to its
home without delay.
This was an instance, fortunately very rare, of the wilful substitution
of one article for another of a totally different kind; but nearly every
letter we took the trouble to answer proved to be misleading in one way
or another, and not a few contained a series of palpable untruths. There
would be no advantage in reproducing many of these epistles, and,
moreover, the circumstances surrounding them are not of sufficient
interest to warrant more than a passing notice. Suffice it to say that
they were mere vendors' glosses, not to be taken _au serieux_. The
number of books with 'magnificent plates' or in 'splendid condition'
that turned out on inspection to be the tramps and tatterdemalions of
bookish society was very surprising. Some few, however, were very
curious, and others so quaint in diction that I have no hesitation in
copying them either wholly or in part. Here is one:
'Deer Sur i begs to state as ou i ave sume bukes their is Boosey
anecdoates of fishin for wich five bob and a lang his hanglin skeches
hopen to hoffers stackhouse new history of the Holy Bibel to pouns an a
lot moar to order deer Sur if you be willin and i wil sen to luke at for
2L on the nale your respectabul----.'
A 'bob,' I may explain for the benefit of my American readers, is the
slang equivalent of a shilling, or twenty-four cents.
The following reply, full of facetiousness and loaded with cunning, came
from a village near Kirkby Stephen, in Westmoreland:
'SIR
'Seeing your advt in the Gazete I hasten to copie out the titles of some
books which have been in my family for I dont know how long. A
Bookseller come up from Lancaster last Toosday and wanted to have them
sore but as I could see he wanted to cheat me I thought it better tell
him so in plain English which is the way of yours truly who is a
wrestling man and champion chucker out of these parts round about. Am
open to good offer for the lot but will sell any at following and no
discount. Ellicot Lectures on J. Christ, 10s. Durny Histoir de Romans,
vol. 4, 6s. Stock Exchange year Book for 1884, 7s; Ante Baccus a choise
volume bound in calf, 17s. 6d. Scrope Days and Nights of Fishing 1843,
12s. The Female Parson 4s, and plenty more too numerous till I see what
you are made of. Please write at once if you want any.
'Yours truly----.'
The upshot of this was that we said we should like to see Scrope and the
'Female Parson,' but our bellicose correspondent refused to part with
either till he got the money, for he did not, he said, intend to trouble
himself about useless references. So the money was sent, and in due
course the books arrived, carriage not paid. The 'Female Parson,' which
we had never heard of before, proved to be worthless, but Scrope's
'Salmon Fishing' was really a beautiful copy of the first edition in the
original cloth, and this it was that had doubtless tempted the Lancaster
bookseller.
Then there was a lady in Somersetshire who kept up a correspondence for
over a month. She had a splendid copy, so she said, of Sturm's
'Reflections,' which she was ready to sell for 15s. In vain was she
informed that the book was not of a kind to interest us; she knew
better, and persistently lowered the price, 1s. at a bid, till her
letters had in sheer desperation to be put in the waste-paper basket.
We found ladies, as a rule, distressing correspondents, who flatly
refused to be put off with a courteous negative. With them it was
simply a question of price, and had we been persuaded by their
blandishments, we should soon have had a cellar full of sermons, Gospel
Magazines, and all the rubbish that Time refuses to annihilate and men
to buy.
One of the most extraordinary letters we ever received came from a
clergyman in the Midlands, whose disgust for Pierce Egan and his school
was so great that he had determined to sacrifice 'Tom and Jerry' for
20s.:
'DEAR SIR,
'I much regret troubling you with a book which has, to me, been a source
of grievous disappointment, and positive danger to my children. How
anyone could have written such a wicked history of debauchery and human
extravagance is indeed surprising, and I have thought many a time of
consigning it to the flames, so that in a measure it might follow its
disreputable author. I allude to "Life in London; or the Day and Night
Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn, Esq., and his Elegant Friend, Corinthian Tom,
accompanied by Bob Logic, the Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees
through the Metropolis," by Pierce Egan. This work has, I regret to say,
been in my family for very many years--more than I care to count--and I
would willingly part with it, although there is nothing I dislike so
much as severing old associations, however much to my distaste they may
be. If you like, I will dispose of the book for L1, which perhaps, from
a marketable point of view, it may be worth.
'I am, dear sir,
'Yours very truly----.'
There is, of course, no denying that the morality of Jerry Hawthorn,
Esq., and his elegant friend would have to be searched for in case its
existence were seriously disputed; but it seems passing strange that so
small a sum as 20s. should be able to smooth away all remembrance of the
orgies of Drury Lane and the crapulence of its dirty gin vaults, cider
cellars and night-houses, which had so mortally offended the worthy
clergyman.
He was indeed quite right in removing the book from the reach of his
children; but what about our morality, and that of the person to whom,
for anything he knew to the contrary, we might sell Pierce Egan's free
and easy romance? The book came, and proved, as was half suspected, to
be Hotten's reprint of 1869, with which lovers of this class of
literature will have nothing whatever to do.
Such are a few of the experiences of the Forgotten Lore Society in its
efforts to rescue good but unfortunate books from the apathy of neglect.
The object was a good one, though the reward was practically nil. Let
us reflect for a moment that even the few books of antiquity which have
come down to make us richer are for the most part imperfect, and we
shall see the necessity of taking extreme care of the important ones
that are written now, and of doing everything in our power to prevent
their destruction at the hands of unappreciative owners.