of people who plod along for years, then, through actual worth or
a turn of the wheel, suddenly blossom out, much to their friends’
astonishment. As material as it may sound, the increasing wealth in
this country is bringing about a new appreciation not only of books but
of old prints, paintings, and antique furniture. Books are the final
appeal; when the collector is through with the things that decorate his
house, he turns to the things that decorate his mind--and these last
forever.
[Illustration: LETTER OF DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON TO DAVID GARRICK,
SUGGESTING AN EPITAPH FOR HOGARTH WHICH LATER, WITH CHANGES, WAS
ENGRAVED ON HOGARTH’S TOMB]
The formation of university libraries and historical societies also
adds to the value of books. They take them out of reach of the
individual collector and place them in their ultimate home. No wonder
these libraries are considered tombs by the ardent gatherer of books.
New seats of learning, such as Duke University at Durham, North
Carolina, will certainly need adequate libraries. Book clubs, too,
are adding fuel to the flames. The Grolier Club of New York has a fine
library; the Elizabethan Club at Yale is the enviable possessor of a
tiny volume that ranks among the great books of the world. It is a
first edition of Bacon’s _Essays_, printed in London in 1597. Fifteen
years ago, at the Huth sale, it brought £1950--more than $9000. If it
were offered for sale to-day it would bring at least $25,000. There are
only about five copies of this edition known. One is in the British
Museum, Cambridge University has two, and a fourth is in the Huntington
Library. Thus, no private collector has the good fortune to own a
single copy.
Even though many rare volumes have retired permanently from the
salesrooms, it has always been a peculiarity of the collector that he
lives in hope. Just as there has always been a great search for ancient
manuscripts, so there always will be an endless hunt for important
early books. If there were wonderful discoveries in the past, why not
others of equal importance in the future? Within twenty years after
the invention of printing--about 1475--books became so accessible that
even the poorest scholars could afford them. Tracts of various kinds
were marketed for a few pennies which at first had sold for pounds.
There was so much printing done that some printers were ruined because
the supply quickly outgrew the demand. The best printers in Germany
perfected their craft and went southward into Italy, where their work
took on an added beauty. The city of Venice became a regular hotbed of
printing.
When, in the latter part of the fifteenth century, Italian noblemen saw
how common printing had become, they regarded it as vulgar. Although
they had at first been the patrons of printing, now some of them
ignored it and endowed scriptoriums, in the hope that printing would
fall into disfavor. In these scriptoriums men worked tediously on
illuminated manuscripts, trying to make them finer than printed books.
But of course printing went on, continuing its tremendous strides.
Hope springs eternal in the book collector’s breast. He will never
allow himself to believe that the wonderful old volumes of hundreds of
years ago have all been found. To-day, to-morrow, or next week, he must
surely unearth some unrecorded book.
What is known among book lovers as the greatest little find in history
occurred at Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire, England, in 1867. Charles
Edmunds, a London bookseller, while visiting Lamport Hall, the ancient
seat of the Isham family, accidentally came upon the old lumber room.
His curiosity was immediately aroused, for among the piles of wood
and discarded furniture he beheld stacks and stacks of dust-covered
books. There were hundreds of them of various sizes and dates; some
were chewed to bits, having furnished banquets for generations of mice,
descendants of which scampered about as Edmunds searched and hoped for
something interesting. Just as he was beginning to believe that they
all were valueless, he chanced upon a copy of Shakespeare’s _Venus and
Adonis_. Imagine his surprise when he found it to be a hitherto unknown
edition dated 1599, and “Imprinted at London for William Leake,
dwelling in Paule’s Churchyard at the signe of the Greyhound.” Inclosed
within the same vellum cover were _The Passionate Pilgrim_ and Davies’s
and Marlowe’s _Epigrams and Elegies_. The only other copy known of the
former is in the Capell collection at Trinity College, Cambridge. The
third tract in this volume was also an entirely unrecorded edition.
This _Venus and Adonis_ was a fourth edition. It sold at the Britwell
Court sale at Sotheby’s, in 1919, for £15,100--about $75,000. George
D. Smith bought it for Mr. Huntington, and it was the highest price
ever paid for a book up to that time. Whenever a great sale such as
this one is held, prices reverberate throughout the world. Immediately
there follows a cleaning out of old attics, a thorough brushing of odd
closets; cupboards and lumber rooms are scoured; and a general sorting
over of places where odd things have been relegated for years takes
place. Naturally, the enormous price of the _Venus and Adonis_ caused
a sensation when it was sold in London. News of this sale quickly
appeared in every paper in England.
A pretty story is told of how, one afternoon, two young Englishmen were
playing archery on an estate near Shrewsbury. Perhaps they didn’t have
a target, or if they did they mislaid it. Anyway, they picked up an old
book they found somewhere in one of the buildings on the place, and
stuck it against the lower branches of a tree to use for a bull’s-eye.
About to draw his bow, one of them was not quite satisfied with the
angle at which they had placed their target. So he walked forward
and turned it around. As he did so, some of the pages fell back, and
he read the magic name, “Venus.” Looking at the volume further, he
exclaimed to his companion, “I believe this old thing is similar to
that book which sold for £15,100 yesterday!” It soon sold privately for
more than £10,000, or about $50,000. Mr. H. C. Folger of New York, the
greatest collector of Shakespeareana, was the buyer.
With these stories indelibly impressed on my mind, my delight was
unbounded when I espied on the library shelves of Dorchester House,
London, the residence of Sir George Holford, a matchless copy of
_Venus_ in the second edition, 1594, five years earlier than these
famous “fourths.” Only three other copies were known. Be assured that
this was one of the first volumes I selected when, the following year,
I purchased the greater part of his collection. From a monetary point
of view this is the most valuable book that has ever been sold.
To bring these stories down to date, an almost equally interesting
find was made after the sale of a signature of Button Gwinnett, at the
Anderson Galleries in New York last winter, for which I paid $22,500.
Gwinnett was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence
from Georgia. His signature is very rare, as his life was snuffed out
suddenly in a duel with General Lachlan MacIntosh in 1777, when he was
still young. There are but thirty-three of these signatures known. I
bought my first Gwinnett, incidentally the first to be sold in many
years, in Philadelphia two years ago for $14,000. Some wag figured,
at the time, that it was worth exactly $1000 per letter. Mrs. Arthur
W. Swann, of New York, happened to read about my purchase in a morning
paper, and began to think over the various items of a collection of
autograph letters which her grandfather, Theodore Sedgwick, had made,
and which she inherited. The more she thought about it, the more
significant a hazy remembrance became; she believed her grandfather had
secured a Button Gwinnett similar to the one I bought. After carefully
searching through the collection she found, much to her surprise and
delight, a most beautiful example of Gwinnett’s signature. In November,
1926, she sold the entire collection, and I bought the Button Gwinnett
for $28,500. This was then a record price for any signature in the
world’s history, the young signer’s autograph having jumped to $2000
per letter! After a while, selling a famous man’s handwriting by the
letter will be as common as selling antique silver by the ounce.
About four years ago a firm of auctioneers in London was requested to
sell a great mass of ordinary music belonging to the estate of a late
English noblewoman. The manager and his assistants were not very keen
about it, as the music was unsorted and on its face almost worthless.
But they finally agreed to do it on the condition it should not require
sorting. During the sale a dealer bought one of the bundles. Later he
sold some of it to other dealers, saving several sheets for himself to
take home. Some time passed and one night he chanced to glance over the
titles of these songs, catches, and other musical compositions. As
he turned one of the pages he fairly started from his seat. He could
hardly believe his eyes. A quarto pamphlet it was, and most probably
had been placed there years and years before--perhaps as a bookmark--by
someone who did not realize its worth. It was a copy of _Posthumous
Fragments of Margaret Nicholson_ by Shelley! The author’s name was not
mentioned, but it was edited by “Fitzvictor,” one of Shelley’s pen
names. Here it lay before him, in the original wrappers in which it
was first published. Of course, the news of the discovery spread like
wildfire. Later, this work sold for £1210, approximately $6000.
Propagandist pamphlets written by Shelley are extremely rare, and have
turned up in the most extraordinary places. They were generally of an
inflammatory or seditious nature, and he and Harriet had the habit of
throwing them from the windows wherever they might be staying at the
time, in the hope of hitting sympathetic targets. I should like to be
struck by one of those missiles!
Shortly after the War began I was informed of a letter written by
Amerigo Vespucci, to be offered in the Morrison sale in London. It
was the only known letter written by the man who gave his name to two
continents. Previous to its finding, the only record of Vespucci’s own
writing was a receipt bearing his signature. Now, the early stages of
the Great War were not exactly propitious times for auctions or any
other sales. The buying public of England, as well as auctioneers,
dealers, and collectors, all found their minds preoccupied with but one
subject--war. _Objets d’art_, books, and manuscripts were put aside
as playthings of a leisured hour; nor were they to be considered when
relatives and friends were fast becoming a part of the war machinery
daily departing for France. So prices did the logical thing--tumbled.
Although I was aware of the situation, I believed it impossible that
this Vespucci letter could go for a low figure. Here was an unusual,
magnificent autograph more than four centuries old. War? Why, it had
known a hundred wars! With little hope and less expectation, I cabled
a bid of £2500--about $12,500. The arrival of a reply a few hours
later caused me pangs of fear. I tortured myself a few moments with
delectable suspense. Was the letter mine or not? A momentous question!
At last I gathered courage and read words which were too curt, too
few, to seem true. Not only was I the possessor of this most precious
historical letter, but at what a price--a measly £395! It was almost
impossible to realize that I had secured for less than $2000 one of the
greatest bargains in history.
[Illustration: BOOKROOM AT 273 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK]
I was under a constant nervous tension until its arrival. When it
finally came I went with it into my library, locked the door, and
settled down to decipher the old and decorative handwriting. Vespucci
had written in Latin a somewhat grave and formal filial epistle to his
father. He was in Trivio Mugelli at the time, October 18, 1476. He
comments on a commonplace book, belonging to his uncle, Giorgio Antonio
Vespucci. These commonplace books were frequently kept in the fifteenth
century. They were used to note down Greek and Latin quotations, the
common information of the period. I had hardly finished reading this
before some mental click went off in my mind. I left my comfortable
chair and walked suddenly to a corner of my bookcase. Quickly I picked
out an old manuscript in a fifteenth-century binding. I held in my
hands an ancient commonplace book. There on the title page was the
written name--Giorgio Antonio Vespucci!
Side by side in my library were Amerigo’s only letter and Uncle
Giorgio’s commonplace book! I was thrilled by it all. In something of
a daze I placed the two on the table before me. Separated for nearly
five hundred years, they were again together. Where had they been those
five centuries? What had they seen and heard? If someone had thrown
a diamond into the middle of the ocean, to recover it years later,
it could not have been a greater miracle than this almost impossible
literary remating. Now the letter and the volume are in the Pierpont
Morgan library, united forever.
Some collectors, to my eternal amazement, are completely satisfied with
small libraries. This desire for a limited number of exquisite books
originated in France centuries ago. Many of the wealthiest and most
meticulous book lovers went in for what is known as cabinet collecting.
They liked small books which they could handle easily, and found no
interest in the first edition of even an important classic if it were
large. Diane de Poitiers was one of the first cabinet collectors. The
beloved of Henry II, she would doubtless be forgotten by collectors
to-day if she had not, like Cardinal Wolsey, loved her books more
than her king. When she became a widow, Diane immediately stamped her
volumes with a laurel springing from a tomb, with the motto, “I live
alone in grief.” But when she began her friendship with Henry she
suppressed both the tomb and the legend.
In her boudoir in the Château d’Anet, just outside of Paris, long
after her death a small case was found filled with the most precious
volumes, all in beautiful bindings of red and citron morocco, decorated
with the crescents of Diana the book huntress. This little nest of
bookish nuggets was not found until 1723, but was in perfect condition.
The diversity of its contents was amusing. The fathers of the Church
nestled close to some of the most risqué stories of that time, and the
poets stood side by side with treatises on medicine and the management
of the household. It has always been of interest to me that in the
small collection of Diane de Poitiers were two books relating to this
country, thus making her one of the earliest collectors of Americana.
The first was Servete’s edition of Ptolemy’s _Geography_, dated 1541,
and the other, _Les Singularitez de la France Antartique autrement
nommée Amerique_, brought out seventeen years later.
Perhaps the man who makes a covenant with himself to buy only a small
number of books, imitating the French collectors, is the happiest and
wisest of us all. He knows in his mind the location of every volume on
his shelves. At least he runs little chance of finding himself in the
position which was forced upon me several years ago. I had purchased
a first edition of Defoe’s _Robinson Crusoe_, published in 1719,
for which I paid $2500. Along with thousands of other volumes on my
shelves, I had not thought for months of poor old Crusoe and his man
Friday.
One day, however, a stranger came to see me, announcing with a great
air of assurance he had a really fine book which he knew would delight
me. Just how much, neither of us realized until it was removed from its
brown-paper wrapping. Then I recognized the binding, and that it was
my own _Robinson Crusoe_! I concealed my surprise as I asked for its
history and how he had come by it. With charming facility he explained
that it was left by his father-in-law to his wife, and I became furious
when he wound up with the worn tale of its having been in his family
“for over one hundred years.”
After he had finished his finely embroidered story I excused myself
from the room for a moment to telephone police headquarters. Returning,
I directly accused him of having acquired the book dishonestly. Looking
me in the eye, more in sorrow than in anger, he stood by his guns. But
when he heard the echo of heavy footsteps beyond my study door he broke
down, and told me a sordid hard-luck story which made me feel rather
sorry for him. I learned then that he had also bought other volumes
from a man who had been employed by me some months before. He paid a
few dollars for each book--I asked him for the names of the others,
and was relieved that they did not compare in value to the _Robinson
Crusoe_--and they were delivered to his junk shop. There was some
wistful quality about this fellow; aside from his dishonesty, he spoke
of books as though he loved them. I could not prosecute him. Again I
left the room, this time to tell the two detectives who were waiting
that I would not press the charge. And it did seem most unfortunate for
him that he came to me, of all people in the world, with that _Robinson
Crusoe_!
The modern book lover who gratifies his taste with a small collection
usually starts off with what he calls a logical reason for his fixed
policy. Some men will collect everything they can find which has been
written by or associated with an author they love, generally some
writer who has had a definite influence upon their lives. Thus there
are men who gather every edition, pamphlet, manuscript, autograph, or
personal relic of Burns, Shelley, Thackeray, or Dickens, to mention
only a few. Other sentimentalists must have every line of verse by
the poet whose rhythmic genius has struck sparks of music or passion
in their own souls. On the other hand, a practical person, such as an
Arctic explorer, will hunt out every known document mentioning the
Arctic, while his colleague, the African explorer, follows suit with
his desires for all works concerning his favorite quarter of the globe.
For years I have had a charming customer who is a romanticist if ever
there was one. Her enthusiasm is for books on those idealistic lands
beyond the mountains or behind the moon about which English writers of
all centuries have delighted to weave strange fantastic tales, such as
Sir Thomas More’s _Utopia_ and Sir Philip Sidney’s _Arcadia_. Then
there is another customer, with his vivid remembrance of old vintages,
whose standing order since the passing of the Volstead Act has kept us
busy gathering all editions and early works mentioning ardent spirits.
He smacks his lips with gusto when he obtains a particularly rare
one. Another great amateur’s favorite subject is everything relating
to tobacco. English authors from Ben Jonson to Charles Lamb allowed
their love of tobacco to permeate their works, and it is therefore a
delightful task, especially to an inveterate smoker, to pick up, here
and there, old books in which the authors endearingly mention perique
and “cigars of the Havana.” I recently owned a rare little volume
on which Charles Lamb had spilled some ale, and in which were found
remnants of tobacco. This might have caused a battle royal between the
two friends above mentioned, and, as I could not divide the volume, I,
like King Solomon on a more famous occasion, sold it to a collector who
was interested in gentle Elia for his dear self alone.
Very often these specialists have a change of heart. Their tastes
broaden and they develop into the maddest collectors of all. Perhaps
they suddenly realize the limited span of even a collector’s life, and
find they are missing many enchanting bypaths along the highroad of
books. When Richard Heber, the greatest bibliomaniac who ever lived,
began his library, he was interested only in purely classical works.
This English gentleman, although he has been dead for nearly one
hundred years, still survives, enshrined in every true bookman’s heart.
To recognize in oneself the symptoms of becoming “the fiercest and
strongest of all bibliomaniacs”--so Heber is described--what secret joy
and satisfaction! Heber’s library grew to enormous proportions, and
when he died he left more than one hundred and fifty thousand volumes.
Like Earl Spencer, it was necessary for him to have many houses, just
to hold his books. Eight establishments there were, on the Continent
and in England, each overrun with books. It was he who started the
craze for duplicate copies, explaining that no one could afford to be
without three copies of a book: one for show, the second for use, and
the third for borrowers!
Everybody knows it is never quite safe to lend an umbrella, even to
one’s dearest friend; the very act of lending seems to demoralize the
borrower, who thinks not of the rainy days to come. If there is scant
hope of ever seeing the umbrella again, how much less is there for a
borrowed book--unless it happens to be a rare one! In that case it may
be discovered several generations later, when the worried and loving
owner, who by this time is reclining in some bookish Nirvana, cares
little for earthly treasures. How many great literary finds have been
made as a result of careless borrowers, I wonder!
[Illustration: PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF CHARLES LAMB’S “THE
TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE”]
There is the case of a certain Englishman who, several years ago,
“borrowed” some early English books, printed by Caxton and Wynkyn de
Worde, from the libraries of Lincoln and Peterborough Cathedrals.
Lest they should be missed immediately, he left behind him the covers
of the books, stuffed with newspapers and replaced on the shelves;
the contents he carried away in his pockets. But one day someone
browsing about chanced to take down these skeleton books. The fraud was
discovered and reported to all book dealers and collectors in England,
so they should be on the lookout. Some of the volumes, minus bindings,
have already turned up at various sales, but where they all are no one
knows. They may be discovered again somewhere, some day.
One day before the War a stranger called on Quaritch, one of the most
celebrated and astute booksellers in London, to whose shop many rare
books, in those days, naturally drifted. This man said he had an old
book, but didn’t know its value. Quaritch looked at it, and immediately
recognized it as the long-lost and valuable edition of the laws of
Massachusetts, known to collectors as _The General Laws and Liberties
of Massachusetts, collected out of the Records of the General Courts_,
and printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1648. Inquiring of the
owner what he thought he should receive for it, the man would not say;
he desired Quaritch to make him an offer.
Quaritch was known far and wide for his fair dealing. Now he took into
consideration various facts, the most important of which was that he
might have to keep the volume for some years before reselling it. He
therefore offered what he felt to be a perfectly fair price--£2500.
The man looked at him in “wild surmise,” then gasped. He would have
accepted fifty pounds for it! But now, he said, as he put on his hat,
with the layman’s suspicious look in his eye, he would have to think
it over. He was too frightened to make up his mind just then. He never
went back to Quaritch, but shopped around a long time, selling it
eventually for £5000--a little less than $25,000. Alfred Quaritch told
me that it was this experience which cured him forever of making offers
on books.