likened to literary jackdaws, or to what extent their tastes may be
criticised and compared with those of other people, they have a
virtue--and a great one--one undisputed virtue, which, like charity,
covereth a multitude of sins. This cardinal virtue is, that now, as in
past times, their primary aim is to appraise literature at its true
worth, and to make that the _raison d'etre_ of their enterprise. The
inevitable red herring may lead them, for the moment, away from the
pleasant places they have made their home, but it has never yet
prevented their return.
And this home is among time-tried and intrinsically valuable books, and
not among those which are temporarily in vogue. It is a home which
existed in Greece, and in Rome, and all through the so-called Dark Ages,
during the Renaissance, and down the centuries which succeeded right to
this present year of grace--a home furnished with genius and perfumed
with sentiment. Look there at Paul Lacroix snatching from a Paris stall
the very copy of 'Le Tartuffe' which had belonged to King Louis XIV.,
and later on sheltering not merely the great Pixerecourt founder of the
Societe des Bibliophiles Francais, but his whole library as well, until
such time as his creditors had drawn off their legions and departed.
Sentiment, as well as a passion for literature, was at the bottom of
these acts, for that very copy of 'Le Tartuffe' had been in Moliere's
coat-pocket, and Pixerecourt had a tale to tell of every scholarly
volume he possessed. You cannot manufacture genuine sentiment, nor is
the quality to be evolved from anything except genius.
Accordingly, we find that every book which excites the cupidity of the
true bibliophile derives its magic power primarily from within, and that
this power is often materially increased by reason of extraneous
considerations. The instances in which external matters have at any
time been capable of investing an inferior book with a halo of
importance or romance are so extremely rare that they might almost be
counted on the fingers. A mere fleeting craze cannot do it, and it is
the greatest mistake in the world to suppose that a scarce book would be
sought for, and prized when found, merely because it is scarce, and for
no other reason. As every book-collector is aware, there are hundreds
and thousands of volumes lying neglected on the book-stalls to-day which
would never be there if this were not so. Some are scarce in the sense
of being difficult to meet with when wanted, but, if that be their only
merit, it has never yet been acknowledged.
But fashion, though it can never make a bad book good, has the power to
subordinate one good book to another, notwithstanding, and to play
shuttlecock with the names of authors and printers alike. It was
fashion in excelsis which lived with the Elzevirs when men were saying
to one another, 'I have all the poets they ever printed. I have ten
examples of every volume, and all have red letters, and are of the right
date.' It was fashion, too, which assessed the value of Longpierre's
copy of Montaigne's 'Essais' (1659), with the buffalo's head on the
preface and at the commencement of each chapter, at 5,100 francs, and
only the other day (March 20, 1896) flung away a fine tall copy, bound
by Bozerian, for the paltry sum of L6 15s.
The same capricious mistress assessed Sir Walter Raleigh's 'Discoverie
of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana,' 1626, at a
comparatively low rate--L3 3s., if the late Mr. Henry Stevens is to be
believed, and no one had a greater knowledge of such books than he--in
1858, notwithstanding the fact that it must be credited to Shakespeare's
library, as the 'still vex'd Bermoothes,' and his knowledge of the
breaking of the sea on the rugged rocks by which the Bermuda Islands are
surrounded, sufficiently demonstrate. Thirty years ago Smith's 'Generall
Historie of Virginia,' published for M. Sparkes in 1625, could have been
got for a twentieth part of the sum that would be asked for it now, and
this too is by Fashion's decree.
But in these and any number of typical instances there is no change in
the estimation in which good literature is held; no lifting a book from
an abyss of mediocrity and placing it on a pinnacle of fame. Fashion
may swing men's minds to this or to that, and so indirectly and for the
time being cause those ups and downs in the book-market which are the
despair of everyone who has endeavoured to account for them, but further
than this she cannot go.
And therefore, when I said that book-men are swayed by fashion, I meant
that their tastes and inclinations are capricious, and not that they
would, even if they could, enter upon the task of passing judgment upon
the verdict of the world. Fashion may and does make rules which cannot
be broken with impunity, so far as the pocket is concerned; it may even
create an extraordinary and exceptional interest in one author to-day,
and abandon him to-morrow, and do many other wonderful things to cause
our unsympathetic neighbours to blaspheme; but the romance of
book-collecting would be no romance were it stolidly kept at one dead
level of insensibility. To employ a homely illustration--Fashion may
decorate a house, it can neither build one nor raze one to the ground.
*CHAPTER VIII.*
*THE RULES OF THE CHASE.*
There was a time, and that not so very many years ago, when old books
were, if only you got out of the central mart, difficult to procure, and
by no means easy to store. They were frequently in folio, huge ponderous
works which, unless they were of the very best, challenged the courage
of all but veterans, as they looked down from their dark corners. There
was no escaping them, no getting away from their costly presence, and no
reading them either without sitting at a table; for 'literary machines'
were not then invented, and no one seemed to care about lingering with
arched back over a fire, with sixty or eighty pounds weight of paper on
his knees. Such a discipline would have been valuable, no doubt, but
learning grew lazy when it left the monasteries, and a table became a
virtual necessity for most folk. After a time folios were turned into
octavos, and the price cheapened. The 'extraneous Tegg,' as Carlyle
calls the well-known bookseller, and our friends Cooke, Walker, Bell,
and many more, commenced to cut the throat of the trade, and to ruin the
honest author, by printing favourite books at such a very cheap rate
that the public soon became totally demoralized. Cooke made an enormous
fortune--for a book-seller--and died amid the plaudits of the mob and
the curses of his competitors, for he had out-Heroded Herod in
prostituting 'Tom Jones,' a thing deemed impossible, by publishing the
text in numbers, _verbatim et literatim_, at a scandalously cheap price.
Then he approached other 'British novelists' in turn, and went through
the entire pantheon, winding up with a series of sacred classics. Cooke
was a man of immense resource, and no scruples; he got the author out of
the way (I don't say he murdered him), sold up his rivals, and
positively lived to an advanced age--three crimes which procured him
hosts of enemies, but nevertheless altered the whole system of
publishing, and solved for ever the problem whether it is better or
worse for the producer to sell fifty articles at a penny each, or a
single one of the same kind for four and two.
Now, Cooke's procedure, and that of the other booksellers who were wise
enough to follow his lead, not only had great influence in moulding the
character of the bibliophiles of that day, but is directly responsible
even now for many of those rules and regulations which their descendants
are sticklers in the preservation of. A folio had always been bound in
a manner suitable to its bulk, and in such a way as to render a new
binding unnecessary for a very long time, and there was, consequently,
little or no necessity for rules of any kind for its preservation. When
the folio was hoisted to its place, there it would stop, or, if taken
down, it would be with a considerable amount of caution.
Not so Cooke's cheap and easily handled productions. They were light
and airy, and bound in millboard, which, after a moderate use, never
failed to come to pieces. As a matter of fact, nearly all Cooke's books
met with on the stalls to-day show unmistakable evidence of honest
handling. They are thumbed, perhaps torn, and always very feeble in the
cover. Should it have been worth anyone's while to rebind one of these
cheap little volumes, we may be sure that it will show a stout leather
cover, and be scrupulously cut down to the headlines for the sake of the
shavings. This cropping of margins was no crime then, because there was
no rule to the contrary, and Cooke turned out his books in such numbers
that they were really of very trifling value at any time. Before his
day, it was a common practice for the publishers themselves to have
their books bound in leather, and for the binders to cut as much of the
margins away as they decently could.
For instance, let us revert to 'Tom Jones,' one of the first books
experimented upon by the first of really cheap publishers. When this
novel came out, in 1749, it made its appearance in six small volumes
bound uniformly in leather, with edges more or less cropped. This
cropping process seems to have pleased Fielding immensely, or at any
rate there is no doubt in the world that he preferred to see his
handiwork issued in the way common to folios, rather than in boards with
ragged edges, for a sample set of volumes was done up in the latter
style and rejected.
We think him foolish, because not very long ago the sample set was
discovered in an old farmhouse, and, after changing hands once or twice,
packed off to the auction-rooms, where it realized the handsome sum of
L69. A little bit of paper made an immense difference in this case, for
its presence was in conformity with an imperative rule that has grown up
since Fielding's day, and which lays it down that never--no, never--must
a book be denuded of its margins if you wish to make the most of it.
Whatever its quality, do not deprive it of the minutest fraction of its
legitimate area of paper. Of course, this drastic regulation came into
force when books began to be generally published, not in folio or
quarto, but in a smaller and more handy size.
Collectors, whether of books or anything else, are content at first with
a little. Their requirements are indeed boundless, so far as number is
concerned; but they have not yet become solicitous of technical or
minute distinctions. A book is a book, and a coin is a coin, and they
are satisfied without it, provided it is substantially the same as some
other copy of the same edition, or some other coin struck from the same
die, which they happen to have. After a while, however, a very natural
desire to excel produces its inevitable result, and all sorts of
arbitrary variations are catalogued and insisted upon by those who have
plenty of money, and at the same time pride themselves on their
discrimination and taste. Thus it is that a comparatively scarce book,
this first edition of 'Tom Jones,' for instance, may become excessively
scarce under exceptional circumstances. True, the collector who is a
terrible stickler for detail may, and probably will, be charged sooner
or later with being a fool for his pains; but that penalty he is content
to accept, happy in the consciousness, that, when everything is said and
done, he has chosen the better part, which in all these cases consists
in leaving well alone.
Not long ago a London newspaper, which ought to have known better, was
very angry with a collector of the circumspect school because he had
boasted that all the books in his library were 'uncut.' 'This shows,'
said the sage who wrote the article, 'that he has a hundred or more
books which he has never read, and, what is worse, has no intention of
reading.' He thought that 'uncut' meant 'not cut open,' and perhaps
thinks so still, for it was worth no one's while to teach him his
business, and so the matter dropped.
The cropping of books has, indeed, become as iniquitous as the old Star
Chamber practice of cropping of ears, or perhaps even more so, for some
at least of the delinquents who appeared to the usual Writ of Rebellion,
which it was the practice of that tribunal to issue from time to time,
richly deserved all they got. The proper way to deal with a book is to
burn it if it be wicked, and if not, to leave it alone; though, if this
fact had always been recognised, there would have been no scope for us
in the matter of broad expanse of margin, since what everybody has no
one craves for.
Fine bindings are a law unto themselves, and require separate
consideration; but there is a matter connected with bindings generally,
or, rather, with the advisability of binding at all, which has created a
considerable amount of scandal in times past. Let us take that scarce
book, 'The English Dance of Death,' which William Combe wrote in the
safe seclusion of the King's Bench Prison. It appeared originally in
1815 in parts, each with its wrapper, and afterwards was bound up in two
volumes, whereupon it at once lost, according to present-day ideas on
the subject, five-sixths of its value.
The 'Tale of Two Cities' when in the original eight parts is worth three
times as much, at least, as when in the publisher's cloth binding, and
nearly all Thackeray's more important works are subject to a very
considerable reduction under identical circumstances. Curiously enough,
the rule is imperative in certain specific instances, while in others it
has no application at all. The question whether to apply it or not
depends on the character of the book. We should insist upon the parts
being left unbound in the case of 'Bells and Pomegranates,' but not in
that of Trusler's 1833 edition of 'Hogarth Moralized,' for here the
twenty-six parts are a positive nuisance unless they are bound.
Trusler's melancholy production is not much good, bound or unbound, but
it will serve as an illustration, and certain it is that the cost of
binding will have to be taken into consideration when estimating the
worth of the numbers, in case anyone thrusts them upon a long-suffering
purchaser, and will not be denied.
'Fools you are!' says Sir Ensor Doone, under other circumstances, and
'Idiots!' adds the man in the street when he reads that somebody has
paid a large sum for 'Ask Mamma' in the 'original thirteen parts,' when
he could, had he been so minded, have got the entire book, nicely bound,
for a fourth of the money--plates, text, and all. This is the cry
whenever a sum which appears exorbitant on the face of it is paid for
anything.
A short time ago L445 was obtained for a fiddle by Stradivari; L798 for
an imperfect silver cup made by Jacob Frolich, master of Nuremberg in
1555; and L246 odd for a rose-point flounce of Venetian lace three yards
long. Nothing was said about the enormity of these sums, but let a
fiftieth part of the smallest amount be realized at any time for a book
'in parts,' and there is a chorus of disapprobation, for which, however,
it must be confessed, there is just a modicum of warrant.
It is really not at all easy to see why a series of numbers, liable at
any moment to injury, and always inconvenient to handle, should, the
quality of the plates, if there are any, and other accessories being
equal, be so greatly preferred to a volume bound in a proper manner.
Perhaps it is a matter of sentiment, perhaps of pure scarcity, or
perhaps the _bona-fide_ book-collector likes to give himself as much
trouble as he possibly can, by way of purifying his life and chastening
his soul. However this may be, there is no question that some books are
thought more highly of when in sections, and that the public in their
blindness fail to see the reason why.
Well, there is, at any rate, much less reason, one would think, in
paying L246 for a lace flounce wherewith to minister to the vanity of
some middle-aged dame than there is for incurring a fractional
obligation for classic works, which will outlast us by many a day, even
though they may have the fortune to be uncut and in parts as issued.
And besides, O shade of Mr. Burgess! did you not ignore in your lifetime
the rule that it were best to let well alone, and were not the
consequences terrible in the extreme?[#]
[#] The library of the late Mr. Frederick Burgess was sold by Messrs.
Sotheby on May 31 and three subsequent days, 1894. It consisted almost
entirely of then 'Fashionable' books, illustrated by Cruikshank and
other talented artists. Parts had been bound up, original cloth covers
removed, and expensive bindings substituted, not merely in a few
instances, but as a general rule. The collection, though an excellent
one of its kind, was disposed of at an enormous sacrifice.
Whether any regulations are really necessary for the proper preservation
of books old or new let the bibliophiles determine; but so long as they
exist it is folly to ignore them. Nay, further, to be as far upon the
safe side as possible, we must prefer to buy our books with due regard
to those rules and orders which our progenitors have in their wisdom
drawn up, selecting the very best copies we can afford to pay or obtain
credit for, and even going to the length of investing in 'parts' which
shall not shame us, or cause us loss when the inevitable hour of parting
arrives.
The cardinal rule of the game is triple-headed, and it is this: Buy the
best you can, spend what you find convenient without stint, and, above
all, keep to the track you have mapped out for yourself and have so far
followed. Then will it be well with you now and hereafter in all things
bookish. Act the contrary throughout, and every stiver you spend will
swell the total of your confusion; drop by drop the clepsydra of your
fortunes will run out to your bane.
But the rules which hem in the book-buyer, and direct his course, are
not solely confined to technical points and details such as those
mentioned. On the contrary, they are equally stringent in many other
respects, and in particular as to the description of book to buy, its
condition, and so on; for it is taken for granted that no man, or at
least no bookman worthy the name, would purchase a bad or inferior
edition when he could get a better, or a volume that was imperfect or
had been shamefully used by a succession of careless owners. Between
the quality of one edition and another there is often an immense
difference, as all the world knows, or ought to know. That edition of
'"Paradise Lost," a Poem in twelve books, the author John Milton,
Printed for the Proprietors and sold by all the Booksellers,' no date,
but about 1780, is one of the very worst that any misguided man ever
picked up from a street stall. The mistakes, not merely in punctuation,
but in spelling, are too gross and scandalous for mention; entire lines
are not infrequently missing, and whole sentences often perverted.
Contrast this with any copy of the first edition, no matter which
title-page may have heralded it into the world, and we have a different
book entirely. The rule says that, though an ordinary copy of the first
edition may be three thousand times as valuable in money as this gutter
abortion, you must nevertheless not be attracted by the latter because
it is cheap--no, not even though you should think it good enough for
everyday use.
Naturally enough there are free-lances among book-men, people who are a
law unto themselves, and insist upon doing precisely as they like, but
it will be noticed that they very rarely fly in the face of any rule in
important cases. Your free-lance has the courage of the Seven Champions
of Christendom when face to face with Stackhouse's 'History of the
Bible,' but let him, for example, come across 'Tamerlaine, and other
Poems, By a Bostonian;' not Herne Shepherd's London reprint, but the
original tract which Calvin F. S. Thomas printed at Boston in 1827. Let
us suppose also that it is in its original tea-tinted paper covers, just
as Edgar Allen Poe sent it forth into the world. What would our
free-lance do? Have it rebound in defiance of the rule? Hardly, for if
he did he would reduce the importance of his exceptionally fortunate
find, and therefore its value, to such a considerable extent that even
he would hesitate long before committing himself to an act that could
never be recalled. Moreover, he would have direct evidence with regard
to a copy of this very Pamphlet before his eyes, for a collector once
really did pick one up for a few pence. In the first place, let it be
stated that only three copies of 'Tamerlaine' can now be traced. One is
in the British Museum, which acquired it from the late Mr. Henry Stevens
for one shilling. A second was found on a stall in America for the
equivalent of something less, and it is this latter copy which furnishes
the evidence referred to. The fortunate finder sent it to Messrs. C. F.
Libbie and Co., the auctioneers of Boston, who sold it by auction in
1893 for the equivalent of L370 to the agents of Mr. George F. Maxwell,
of New York, who had the pamphlet rebound in magnificent style by Lortic
Fils, at a cost of several hundred dollars. Moreover, the covers were
bound in, and the edges left untrimmed. No expense was spared;
everything was done in proper order according to rule of thumb. Yet in
April, 1895, when Mr. Maxwell's valuable library was sold by the same
auctioneers, this copy of 'Tamerlaine,' vastly improved as one might
think, dropped to L290, showing a clear loss of L80, irrespective
altogether of the amount paid for binding, auctioneers' commission, and
so on.
It may, of course, be said that it is a common thing for the same book
to bring different amounts at different times, even when the sales take
place within a few months of each other. A bookseller, dissatisfied
with the amount bid for some scarce work he has put on the market, will
frequently buy it in and offer it again later on with satisfactory
results.
But 'Tamerlaine' is an altogether exceptional piece, and, moreover,
where were the gentlemen who respectively bid L360 and L365 on the
occasion when Mr. Maxwell secured it for a slightly larger sum?
Wherever they were, they seem to have been fully alive to the fact that
'Tamerlaine' was not as it was when Poe sent it out for review ever so
many years ago. 'Ah, broken is the golden bowl,' and it is to be feared
by that talented binder, Lortic Fils. If ever I find 'Tamerlaine,' I
shall keep every binder at arm's length, and not be tempted to paint the
lily--no, not even though Derome himself should rise from the dead and
offer to array it gratuitously in morocco, tooled to a heavenly pattern,
and powdered all over with the fleurs-de-lys of imperial France. In
this spirit let us reproduce the title-page of 'Tamerlaine,' as a
Frontispiece to this Romance, so that we shall know it on the instant if
the gods should only guide our feet to where a fourth copy lies hidden
away. Then let us remember the rule to let well alone, and be thankful,
for it is a rule of gold, the first and foremost of them all.
Never to outrage sentiment, always to identify one's self with the
author as far as possible, is to respect both the living and the dead,
and to make life comparatively easy, even though its path be strewn with
flints and cobble-stones. May the person who has the maximum of respect
for the private life and character of one of the greatest of modern
poets eventually acquire the shabby copy of 'The Eve of St. Agnes' which
the luckless half-immortal thrust into his pocket as the _Don Juan_ was
sent to the bottom of the Gulf of Genoa. It will come with a train of
associations that will on the instant forbid the elimination of a single
stain, or the slightest repair of its sea-swept cover.
The book-hunter who has the feelings and aspirations of an ancient race
properly diffused through his system would almost give his head for a
relic such as this, for his passion is not to be stifled. He likes to
think that the books he reads and handles have a pedigree, that they
come to him laden with the fears and aspirations of the past, that they
are ghost-haunted, and that they who wrote them, though dead, yet speak,
not as man to man, but as soul to soul.
*CHAPTER IX.*
*THE GLAMOUR OF BINDINGS.*