across the Atlantic. Several years ago, while in England, I was invited
by a noted collector to inspect his library. We had been talking books
for hours, and as the twilight approached, did not think to turn on the
lights. I got up to leave and stumbled against a folio volume which
someone had carelessly left on the floor. I carried it quickly to the
window to see what it was. Opening the old calf binding in the fading
light, I read the written inscription on the title page: “This book
was used in the Trial of the Earl of Bellomont, Governor of New York.”
It was, to my astonishment, my uncle Moses’ old _bête-noir_, the very
rare _First Laws of New York_, printed by William Bradford in 1694. I
was extremely pleased with this volume, and suggested to the owner that
inasmuch as it was a New York book, and not particularly interesting to
him, he might care to part with it, which to my joy he gracefully did.
Printer Bradford has the distinction of being the first in both
Philadelphia and New York. His earlier works, published in
Philadelphia, loudly proclaim the hatred he had for some of the Quakers
of his day. He was constantly bringing out tracts against them. When
they threatened to jail him he found it necessary to leave the City of
Brotherly Love, and settled in New York. Several years ago I attended a
sale in Philadelphia and came across a book which no one seemed to know
anything about. I showed it to several other collectors, who pushed
it aside, believing it worthless, merely an old book. The name of the
printer or the place was not upon the title page; I recognized it,
however, as coming from Bradford’s famous press.
It was a scurrilous attack on one Samuel Jennings, Quaker, printed
by Bradford in New York in 1693. Entirely composed in rhyme, by John
Philley, it was lengthily titled: _A Paraphrastical Exposition in
a Letter from a Gentleman in Philadelphia to his Friend in Boston
concerning a certain Person who compared himself to Mordecai_. I
could not remember ever having seen an earlier-dated book published
in New York. Here, then, was a first, which was valuable from three
standpoints. It was the only copy known; it was probably the first book
printed in New York; it was the earliest poetical production of the New
York press. I am having a reprint made, so that it will be accessible
to all students of history.
I am sometimes given credit for discoveries which I am not in the
least entitled to. There are many old bookmen, true ferrets, who are
always on the lookout for unusual things. They often bring their finds
to me. In Paris there is a whole tribe of book seekers who infest
the quays along the Seine, where quaint volumes are occasionally
found. Collectors do not often have the good fortune to find great
rarities there, but my friend Mitchell Kennerley has the distinction
of making one of the greatest finds in bookish history. Many years
ago, while walking on the left bank of the Seine, he picked up, for a
few sous, Champlain’s first book on the Indians of Canada, entitled
_Des Sauvages_, issued in Paris in 1603. He kept it in his box at the
Lotos Club in New York for more than two years. The whole matter was
forgotten until someone, accidentally mentioning old books on the
American Indians, recalled to his attention the little volume resting
so quietly in its solitary nook. Mr. Kennerley put it into an auction
sale in 1907, and no one was more greatly surprised and elated than he
when it sold for $2900.
This leads me to remember one of the most colorful incidents of
my collecting career, an experience brought about through the
consideration of a fellow bookman. It happened when I was in Boston,
attending the dedication of the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library
in 1914. I had arrived on an early train, so I decided to spend several
pleasant hours on Park Street with my friend Charles Goodspeed. As
I entered his shop he came forward with the exclamation, “I have a
manuscript in which you will be interested, I am sure!” He disappeared
into the back of his shop, and I waited, filled with curiosity. After a
few moments he returned and handed me a small piece of paper. As I read
it I could hardly believe that this was the first draft of Benjamin
Franklin’s famous epitaph, which is so dear to every lover of old
books. At first I was suspicious that it might be a clever forgery. But
when Goodspeed explained that it came from the old and noted Aspinwall
collection, I needed no further assurance. It was absolutely authentic,
and eagerly I purchased it.
This was Franklin’s first attempt at writing his epitaph, dated 1728,
and differed slightly in the wording from the fair copy which has been
for many years in the Library of Congress in Washington. I brought
it back to Philadelphia in great glee and showed it to Eddie Newton.
In an ill-starred moment for him, and to his everlasting regret, he
refused it. This is the only time--with one exception, which is another
story--that I knew him to fall down. This epitaph has found its resting
place in the magnificent Franklin collection of William S. Mason, of
Evanston, Illinois.
Nothing better reveals the great American, the man whose sayings have
helped the destinies of the New World, than this faded sheet of paper,
where the master printer gives, in the parlance of his trade, this
noble colophon:--
THE BODY OF B. FRANKLIN,
PRINTER,
LIKE THE COVER OF AN OLD BOOK,
ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT
AND
STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING & GILDING
LIES HERE
FOOD FOR WORMS.
BUT THE WORK SHALL NOT BE LOST;
FOR IT WILL, AS HE BELIEV’D
APPEAR ONCE MORE
IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION
REVISED AND CORRECTED
BY THE AUTHOR.
III
SOLD TO DR. R!
The gas lamps in Stan V. Henkels’s auction rooms in Philadelphia were
being extinguished. An exciting sale of books had just ended, and I was
left a rather bitter young man. The purchaser of the one book I had
so eagerly hoped to secure was a thin, wiry man, with a face of rare
charm. He was not an auction habitué, at least not at Henkels’s, or I
should have recognized him. One gets used to the same old faces in an
auction room. Earlier that evening I had noticed him two rows ahead of
me, a distinguished-looking person; but once the auctioneer’s hammer
had struck, giving him the final decision on his bid, I changed my
opinion, and he now appeared highly distasteful to me.
As I went to open the street door I passed him. He stood showing the
book to a group of other buyers. I would have died rather than ask
his permission to look at that ancient missal, which I felt he had
deliberately taken from me. And what a copy! As perfect as the day it
came from the scriptorium in Touraine nearly four hundred years ago.
More important still, it had belonged at one time to the exquisite and
altogether enchanting Gabrielle d’Estrées. She may have treated her
lovers negligently, but to her books she gave the gentlest care. If the
truth were known, she had a more tender regard for her books than for
Henry IV. Perhaps she abandoned him to find change and relaxation in
looking at the pictures in this volume. I was nineteen; the ephemeral
love affairs of great court beauties catch the imagination at that age
as they never do in later years.
[Illustration:
And lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them and the Glory of the
Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF HANDEL’S “MESSIAH”]
You see, I had been saving every penny I could lay my hands on to buy
this book. I had read about it in the sale catalogue. It is not exactly
clear to me to-day why I so desperately wanted to own this particular
missal. Perhaps it was one of those waxing obsessions which seize book
lovers at all seasons of the year. I remember it was a warm, languorous
spring. The night air was sweet. As I walked along I asked myself many
questions: What good had come of my hoarding every cent to purchase it?
Wasn’t it unfair of wealthy men who attend auctions never to give the
poor student a chance? I had gone to that sale with fifty-seven dollars
in my pocket. It was an enormous sum for me to invest in one book, and
I really doubted that anyone would want this particular volume badly
enough to pay more than fifty dollars for it. Imagine my surprise when
this stranger overbid me by three dollars!
Depressed, I wandered for some time along the ill-lighted street before
I was aware of quick steps behind me. It was my successful competitor.
And from another direction I saw a horse and cab drive toward me. A dim
street light revealed the blurred outlines of a rickety worn-out nag
whose driver slouched above on the box. It was Wee-hicle.
Now Wee-hicle was a coachman of local renown. His thin, emaciated, Don
Quixotic figure had always attracted my attention. Wee-hicle knew more
individuals of prominence in Philadelphia than did the mayor himself.
Further, Wee-hicle had vision. To be carried home in the early hours by
Wee-hicle boded good. In this way he had sponsored the early careers of
more youths who later became distinguished citizens than any Harvard
professor. This night he drove to the curb and recognized me. At the
same time the footsteps in the darkness quickened and an anxious voice
shouted, “Cabby!” Now I wanted to go home with Wee-hicle myself. With a
rude bound, I reached the cab door before the person behind me.
“Which way are you going?” he asked me as he came close to the cab. His
voice was clear and friendly, nor was the dark too thick to hide the
kindliness of his expression. With that forced reciprocal politeness
which often overtakes one in the heat of anger or disappointment, I
battled with a desire to grab the book and run off into the darkness.
“I can take you anywhere you care to go,” I answered. He heard the
vindictive note in my voice, as I meant him to. He looked at me
uneasily. Perhaps he feared I had been drinking.
“I feel like having a bite,” he began. “I’d like to go to McGowan’s.
Perhaps you will join me.” Without waiting for a reply, he leaned
forward and called out our destination to Wee-hicle.
Those were the days when McGowan’s was an all-night meeting place where
convivial souls gathered to eat, drink, and to be quietly merry. It
was famous for its terrapin; in fact, it was at that time one of the
great restaurants of America. Situated at the corner of Fifteenth and
Sansom streets, it had an entrance on either side. When we arrived I
told Wee-hicle to wait.
After ordering supper my host picked up the Gabrielle d’Estrées volume
and exhibited it in a most tantalizing manner.
“You paid a very high price for that little missal,” I ventured.
He looked up, surprised. “How do you know?”
“I was there--at the auction.” At that moment the waiter brought two
long-stemmed glasses filled with a golden-brown liquid. It was bitter
and warming. “I was the underbidder,” I said.
“You bid me up?” The waiter replaced our glasses with others. We drank
silently. “So you wanted this book? Well, well! You love books?” I
nodded. His face seemed to soften. “And what would you have given
for it?” He handed the volume across the table to me and my fingers
trembled.
“All that I have in the world,” I said dramatically. “Fifty-seven
dollars.” The waiter came forward with our supper. It was a beautiful
repast worthy of the skill of Dennis McGowan himself.
As we ate I listened to my new friend through an ever-thickening haze.
He told me of his interest in books and manuscripts. He was not a
collector exactly, he explained, but a man who bought intermittently as
the desire came upon him.
[Illustration: PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF WAGNER’S “DIE
MEISTERSINGER”]
“And now,” said he, “since you wanted this book so badly, will you
accept it as a proof of our newly made friendship?” He leaned across
the table and I grasped his hand. He insisted upon my accepting the
volume as a gift! Then we talked of books and bookmen until far into
the night. We walked home in the early morning air.
The next day at noon, as I crossed the campus of the University of
Pennsylvania, I was aware of a familiar figure who waved and attracted
great attention with a coach whip. It was Wee-hicle.
“Say, young Rosenbach,” he holloed, “what do you mean, keepin’ me
waitin’ all night on Sansom Street?” He came toward me on a run,
accusingly. “Sneakin’ out on Fifteenth Street, you and your friend! I
want my money! I waited outside all night long. Twenty-five dollars,
night rates!” To quiet his shouting, I motioned him to follow me to my
room. I had forgotten him completely. Had the preceding night been a
dream or a nightmare? Surely it was neither, for there on my bookshelf
was the missal in its old gilt binding--the book which had been forced
so generously upon me. I paid Wee-hicle gladly and figured his services
cheap at the price. As to the gentleman who presented me with the
volume, it was Joseph M. Fox. He later became my partner in the book
business.
The auction business is an old, old game. Herodotus, somewhere in his
writings, describes the auctions which took place once a year in all
Babylonian villages. In those days, before the advent of the bachelor
girl, despairing parents hopefully offered their surplus maidens
in the auction mart, where they disposed of them in marriage to the
highest bidders. Then there were the auctions which followed military
victories. The Romans solved the problem of dividing captives and other
spoils of war in this popular manner.
But the first book auctions, as far as records show, began in the
latter part of the seventeenth century in Holland. The enterprising
Dutchman who originated the idea of selling literary works by
competitive bid, whether he was a book lover or interested only in cold
commercial hope of gain, should have his memory appreciatively marked
by periods of celebration down the years. Can’t you imagine every true
book lover bowing to the name of this fellow who brought a new and
sharp-edged enjoyment into the book game?
Of all the branches of the sport connected with book collecting, that
of attending book auctions is the greatest, the most stirring. I
presume some patient mathematician knows the number of facets of the
Koh-i-nur diamond, but no one will ever be able to count the emotional
reflections which take place during a book auction in the hearts and
minds of men and women who are enamored of books. The book auction is
an adventure. Other adventures may lose their glamour if you repeat
them, but each experience at a sale of books brings a delightful thrill
never to be duplicated.
Other experiences in your life may have been exciting, and you will
always shrink from repeating them, in the fear, perhaps, that they
may lose some one quality. But the book auction, which includes the
sale of literary manuscripts and letters, continues to offer those
very elements which first fascinated you. Don’t be surprised when
you find yourself one of the habitual adventurers. Unsympathetic,
misunderstanding friends may accuse you of being a book-auction fiend,
but you will listen indulgently and let it go at that.
Most of the great books of the world have found their way to the
auction room at one time or another. Bibliophiles of renown have
sat restlessly out front bidding against one another. It is these,
rare books and the buyers of them, who have given to the auction its
illustrious background. Nearly every collector enters the auction field
to enjoy its seductive pleasures some time during the period of his
fever.
When you first go to an auction you firmly believe that prices are at
their highest. The complaint of high prices is as old as the auction
game itself. The morning after every sale you read the same old story
in your newspaper, of the “crazy,” “mad,” and “exorbitant” prices which
were paid. Present prices always seem high. If you keep a record of
them you will find, in ten years’ time, that these prices are extremely
low. As a matter of fact, prices will never be lower than they are
to-day. Certain items may fluctuate, but in general the great classics
of all literature can be revalued upward every ten years. Very often
you may have the feeling that you paid too much for some book--in other
words, you were stung; and it may be so. But the beauty of it all is
that an auction holds fair play for all sides. Even the experienced
buyer is liable to get stung. You are in good company. And joy of
joys, the auctioneer, your arch enemy, sometimes gets charmingly stung
himself! For who can say when some bargain will drop unexpectedly into
the collector’s maw?
[Illustration: BOOK AUCTION AT THE ANDERSON GALLERIES, NEW YORK, WITH
DR. ROSENBACH ATTENDING]
I remember a case in point. It was during the third part of the Hoe
sale in April 1912. In the catalogue a celebrated autograph play by
Lope de Vega was listed. Entitled _Carlos V_, it had been written in
Toledo and was dated November 20, 1604. Now manuscript plays by this
famous Spanish writer are extremely desirable. Although the greatest
book dealers and collectors of England, France, Italy, and Germany
were present that night, they either slighted or forgot its value. I
purchased it on my first bid, $125.
A collector in Philadelphia had given me a bid of $7500 on it! He was
even then sitting at his telephone impatiently waiting to hear if I had
secured it for him. The above story is at the expense of a New York
house. My next will be on a British concern, in order to balance honors.
At the sale of the Britwell Court Library in London in 1923, I noticed
a little book lying sandwiched between Paice’s _Fortune’s Lottery,
or How a Ship of Bristoll Called the Angel Gabriel Fought Against
the Spanish_, and Pallinganius’s _The Zodyacke of Lyfe_. It was
Philip Paine’s _Dailey Meditations, or Quotidian Preparations for and
Consideration of Death and Eternity_, printed at Cambridge by Marmaduke
Johnson in 1668. As it was passed around the room all my bookman
friends looked at it and shook their heads. Of value, they thought,
comparatively slight. Only a dull theological work. As I reread the
lengthy title something back in my brain made me concentrate more
carefully upon it. Somewhere those printed words struck a vaguely
familiar chord in my memory. All during the sale I kept turning forward
to that page in my catalogue where it was listed. Suddenly I knew!
Marmaduke Johnson it was who printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the
first Holy Scriptures issued for the North American Indians--the Eliot
Indian Bible.
The little book was put up for sale and I asked leave to examine it
again for a moment before bidding. I knew at once it was printed in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and not England. This made it tremendously
rare, because it was the only known copy, hitherto unrecognized, of
the first volume of verse printed in North America. Those present took
it for granted from the catalogue description that the little work
was printed in Cambridge, England, and as such, was certainly worth
less than the price at which it was soon knocked down to me, fifty-one
pounds. After the sale several people, including a great Americana
expert and the auctioneer, met me and rather twitted me for paying $250
for a stupid old religious tract worth but a few shillings. They were
amazed that I had shown such a lapse of judgment.
When I informed them what the book really was, the auctioneer sadly
asked, “Doctor, what would you really have given for it?”
When I said £8000 or £9000--between $40,000 and $50,000--he was not
any too happy. During the following year, when the little tract by
Baxter in the Indian dialect appeared for sale, they catalogued it
Cambridge, Massachusetts! Thus listed, it sold for $34,000, as I have
mentioned before.
You see, we are always reading of record prices and it is very rare to
hear of the valuable things that slip through unobserved. It is these
latter that give book auctions their zest. And the auction houses, if
they only knew it, benefit also by the chance bargain, for it is this
very thing that attracts the public.
On the other hand, the most experienced buyer never knows when he will
have to pay a really high price. It is the average, after all, that
counts. Yet here is a phenomenon which has always seemed peculiar to
me. When times are bad and prices in Wall Street are tumbling, when
Steel sells far below its worth and the oils go begging, rare volumes
continue to command an ever-increasing price. In 1907, the year of the
panic, books sold for record sums at auctions, while so-called standard
securities dipped sharply in a helpless market. Two years later,
when national finances were again wobbly, when the bears were having
a picnic with the lambs, old books went for higher prices than ever
before.
In the Henry W. Poor sale, held in New York in this same year, record
prices were established, despite the prediction of the wiseacres,
who said that prices must go down. It is for this reason that some
of the most discerning men in Wall Street purchase rare books as an
investment. I know many a captain of industry who quietly hides away in
the secrecy of his strong box rare little volumes, such as Shakespeare
quartos, small pamphlets by Shelley, and even first editions of Joseph
Conrad. These rich men realize--and rightly, too--that such treasures
will always sell at a premium, even though the market is tumbling and
Wall Street is in a panic. Owners of precious books always find they
do not have to wait for the chance buyer. Their volumes can be sent to
the auction mart at any time, where they will realize, as a rule, their
full value.
America has had two really great auctioneers: Stan V. Henkels, of
beloved memory, and the late Thomas E. Kirby. The latter in many
respects exerted the greatest influence of any person in the auction
world of this country. He was the founder of the American Art
Association, and his opinions on objects of art were accepted as gospel
by the most meticulous collectors, including the late P. A. B. Widener,
William A. Clark, and Henry C. Frick. He was really brilliant on the
block, and his remarks were frequently the wittiest imaginable. I
remember as a youth going to his auctions and being fascinated by his
repartee and the rapidity with which he sold.
Stan V. Henkels was the only auctioneer who catalogued every work
himself and cried his own sales too. His humor was irresistible, and
the audience would often break out in guffaws of laughter at his many
bright sallies.
[Illustration: THOMAS E. KIRBY ON THE ROSTRUM]
In 1902 I attended a sale at Henkels’s where the price of a certain
volume caused the book world to hum for months afterward. I was late,
and entered the room as the bidding began on a little book which was
placed in full view of the audience. I asked one of the employés for
its number in the catalogue and found that it was _The Dying Words
of Ockanickon, an Indian King_, and was published in London in 1682.
It did not seem to be a volume of much importance. I was acquainted
somewhat with its history. The highest price it had ever brought was
$52.50, at the Barlow sale in 1890. I leaned forward to whisper to a
friend in the row ahead of me and he said $200 would be an enormous
price for it.
Suddenly the air seemed charged with electricity, and I looked about to
see who was bidding. On one side of the room sat a man I knew, A. J.
Bowden, who represented George H. Richmond and Company, of New York.
On the other I saw Mr. Robert Dodd, of Dodd, Mead and Company. Both
were experienced auction bidders, with the set expression of the mouth
and the feverish, alert look. I did not know at the time that both had
received instructions to buy this particular work at any price. Each
had that most dangerous weapon of the auction game, the unlimited bid.
From sixty dollars the price rapidly jumped. Stan V. Henkels, colorful,
suave, provocative, naïve, and humorous, kept egging them on. Up and
up the price went, until it reached the $900 mark. Then a murmur of
consternation swept the room, followed by a hush. Robert Dodd broke
the silence with a $100 raise. Bowden followed with another $100 and
Dodd added $100 more. When Bowden finally shouted, “Thirteen hundred
dollars,” Dodd smiled.
“Fourteen hundred,” he said sweetly.
Just at this moment poor old Bowden exhibited his first sign of
weakness. He stopped bidding in hundreds and raised the bid twenty-five.
Dodd saw his chance and brought up his battalion with a crash. Little
_Ockanickon_ was wrested from Bowden at the freak price of $1450. When
Richmond read in the paper next morning the price at which he had so
nearly bought _Ockanickon_, he fell out of bed!