auction one day last year and saw with amused amazement a little volume
of book mysteries I once wrote. I felt self-conscious, uncomfortable,
and pleased, all rolled into one, when the bids on _The Unpublishable
Memoirs_ jumped up, and it finally sold for sixteen dollars. The joke
is that this volume is still obtainable at its published price of $2.50.
The enormous and ever increasing attendance at auction sales in the
established city auction rooms is caused by the hope that sometime a
real bargain will come your way. This is the lure, the real bait. It
has an appeal all its own. But for the young enthusiast it is often
a costly and dangerous game. It is wiser to begin your bidding under
the guidance of an experienced agent. There are several collectors
and owners of great private libraries in this country whose names are
entirely unknown in the auction room. They may enter the salesroom
incognito, to enjoy watching their agent at battle with others, but
they are careful not to run any risks themselves through careless,
inexperienced bidding. One of the greatest book collectors in the
world, Mr. Henry E. Huntington, never bid. In all the years during
which he was buying he never entered the lists to joust for himself.
[Illustration: THE BIBLIO-FIENDS
_Drawing by Oliver Herford for Dr. Rosenbach’s “Unpublishable Memoirs”_]
In the forty years I have been bidding I have found a new thrill in
every sale. From my earliest years at Henkels’s auctions to the most
recent sales in London, Paris, and New York, I have repeatedly known a
fine exhilaration. I sniff the air like an old war horse at the smell
of powder. How often have I felt my pulses race, my temperature rise
with the rising bids! But as I grow older I find I have to fight that
deadliest of maladies--conservatism. This is one thing in the world
that the collector should pray to be delivered from. Of course it is
awfully difficult to pay $500 to-day for a book that in your youth you
could have picked up for only twenty, or to buy a book for $1000 which
two years ago passed through your fingers for one third as much.
The late George D. Smith, a spectacular figure in the auction mart for
more than twenty years, was the only man I ever knew entirely immune
from conservatism. I can remember him at the Hoe sale in 1911-12.
There he was constantly bidding against the sharpest and most astute
members of both the European and the American book trade. How cool
and collected he was in the very midst of battle! The comments of his
competitors remained unnoticed by him when he paid what were then
considered extravagant prices for books and manuscripts. And his
judgment was right. To-day these same items can’t be bought for two or
three times the sums he paid. When he purchased, toward the end of the
sale, a Gutenberg Bible for $50,000, everyone said he had gone quite
mad. They did not realize that the same remarks were made sixty-five
years earlier, when, in 1847, James Lenox had given £500--about
$2500--for it. This copy is now in the New York Public Library. In my
opinion the Gutenberg Bible was then worth every dollar of the $50,000
which G. D. S. paid for it. Ten years from now it will be cheap at
$250,000.
There have been many notable auctions during the past twenty years, but
I shall never forget my first one in England, in 1907. A dear friend of
mine, and a most intelligent collector of exquisite taste, Mr. William
C. Van Antwerp, of San Francisco, had gathered together a small but
delectable library, which he decided to sell at Sotheby’s in March of
that year. I crossed on the Oceanic with Alfred Quaritch, who occupied
a commanding position in the book world.
I was but one of the small fry, out of college only a few years.
Quaritch and I had been drawn to each other by the magnet of books. On
the way over we talked of the sale, and I dwelt with especial emphasis
on the fine first folio of Shakespeare in Van’s collection. In a way,
I was sounding out Quaritch, for I knew instinctively that it would be
useless to bid against this giant of the auction room if he wanted the
folio himself. I grew very nervous as we sat in the smoking room one
evening when we were about five days out. I decided I had hemmed and
hawed long enough. Finally I worked up courage to ask him to execute a
bid for me on the folio.
[Illustration: SOTHEBY’S AUCTION ROOM IN LONDON]
He seemed surprised, and did not answer for some moments. Then he
asked me, “How much do you intend to bid? I warn you, if it’s too low
I’ll buy it myself.”
I answered weakly, “Five thousand pounds.”
He opened his eyes wide. “That _is_ a bid,” he said, “and I’ll get it
for you.”
Then came the day of the auction in London. I remember sitting next to
Quaritch, witnessing the battle of wits and bids at Sotheby’s. I was
shaking like the proverbial aspen leaf, to a degree that I have never
done since. The bidding on the folio opened at £500. After what seemed
an interminable length of time, it was knocked down to Quaritch for
£3600. I was so completely overcome with joy that I had to walk around
the block for air and refreshment to buck me up. This was a handsome
copy, bound in morocco by Bedford, a celebrated craftsman of the 70’s.
I recall, too, Harry Elkins Widener’s pleasure when this folio passed
finally into his possession. I think of all the books of his fine
collection, he valued this one the most. Years later, when we paid
£8600--a little under $43,000--at the Baroness Burdett-Coutts’s sale,
the record price for a Shakespeare folio, I received my brother
Philip’s cable, advising me of our luck, without a tremor.
Fifteen years had rolled by; much water had run under the bridge. Poor
Quaritch, my dearest friend in the book business, had passed away, only
forty-two years old when he died. His death was a great loss to the
world of rare books.
The price of a first folio indicates the trend of values in the English
market, just as the Boucher Molière, 1734, shows the state of the
French market, while the Dante printed in Foligno, 1472, tells the tale
of the Italian market. These books are always rising in value, and it
is the rapidity of their change in price that shows which way the wind
is blowing. To-day, when the condition of a book is everything and
collectors pay more attention to it than to anything else, fine first
folios of Shakespeare are judged by these three points: First, the
copy must have its full number of leaves, each page perfect, without
facsimile. Second, the binding. It is, of course, more desirable in
the original binding, or, next, rebound in the eighteenth century, or,
lastly, in a good modern binding. In years to come the original binding
will be the chief of all desiderata. Third, the folio must be of
adequate size, about thirteen by eight and a quarter inches. A quarter
of an inch one way or another can spell tragedy to the fanatical
collector. If you are lucky enough to find a first folio having all
three of these qualities, the gods are with you. I have been fortunate
to procure such an one, the celebrated copy from Sir George Holford’s
library. It is perfect in every detail. It is exceptional in having the
blank leaves, known in no other copy; its original old calf binding is
without a single blemish.
This is the finest first folio known to exist. It is the cornerstone
of a collection of Shakespeare’s works which I have been gathering
for many years. I remember the excitement when we exhibited in our
Philadelphia show window the four folios, each in its original binding,
the _Poems_, in a similar binding, and forty-one of the early quarto
plays. The passionate interest shown by the man in the street indicated
his never-flagging enthusiasm for anything pertaining to the greatest
writer the world has known.
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE WINDOW AT 1320 WALNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA]
In 1905, Mr. Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge, of Glasgow, sold four
Shakespeare folios in their original binding to Marsden J. Perry,
of Providence, Rhode Island. He doubtless believed he was using his
cunning Scotch wisdom to a high degree when he steadfastly held out for
£10,000. At this price he figured he was doing himself a neat turn,
because he had paid only £1700 for them six years before. But if he
had been a bit cannier, a little more patient, he would have received
two or three times the sum Mr. Perry paid him. When the balance of the
MacGeorge Library was offered for sale at Sotheby’s in July 1924, all
the bibliophiles in bookdom would have torn one another to bits to get
the Shakespeare folios at the old price. But I was lucky enough to
procure them when I purchased _en bloc_ the Perry Library, and to-day
they are in the library of Mr. Joseph Widener, at Lynnewood Hall, near
Philadelphia.
Thank goodness, they are at least near home, where I can look at them
to my heart’s content.
The history of the Shakespeare folios is an interesting one.
Shakespeare’s genius was so overwhelming that even the least of the
nitwits of his day appreciated him. His greatest contemporaries were
the most eager to preserve his works. Immediately after his death
in 1616 steps were taken to issue a complete edition of his plays.
His manuscripts were probably collected, but, alas, not saved, and
scholars of the time, many of whom had known him well, labored to
procure a perfect text.
Three years passed. Then, in 1619, the English public was surprised to
see issued a single volume containing nine plays. No one knows how many
copies composed this edition, but it is a strange circumstance that
but one copy is in existence to-day. I once owned it, but it finally
passed to Mr. H. C. Folger, of New York, who added it to his remarkable
collection of Shakespeareana. This one surviving copy is in its
original binding. It has an index, too, in the quaint old handwriting
of its first owner, Edward Gwynne, who proudly stamped his name in
gilt on the outside cover. Even though I should not care to be dubbed
a prophet in my own country, I do not hesitate to say that this book
would bring at least $200,000 if it were sold on the block to-day.
This 1619 volume was but a makeshift, playing for its sale upon the
magic name of Shakespeare. John Heminge and Henry Condell, both true
and tried friends of the great Bard, and fellow actors, mentioned in
his will, undertook to give the world a complete and correct edition of
his plays. William Jaggard and his son Isaac were responsible for the
printing, a laborious task when you consider that the volume consisted
of one thousand double-column pages. Thus, the great first folio
was finally issued in 1623, in a plain calf binding. It contained a
portrait of William Shakespeare, with a leaf of verses on the opposite
page by his famous contemporary, Ben Jonson. These are among the finest
lines ever written concerning Shakespeare, and perhaps the greatest
from Jonson’s pen. The original price of the first folio was five
dollars a copy.
One pound in 1623! And yet in the years between 1700 and 1750 it had
only advanced to ten, which reminds me of a good story. In 1790 the
copy belonging to John Watson Reed was offered for sale. That astute
collector, the Duke of Roxburghe, wanted it and commissioned an agent
to buy it for him. The bidding started at five pounds and rose to the
enormous sum of twenty guineas! Everyone was astounded. The duke’s
agent grew faint-hearted and passed a slip of paper to him suggesting
that His Grace retire from the contest. The duke replied with these
memorable and appropriate words:--
Lay on, Macduff;
And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”
The folio finally fell to the duke for thirty-five pounds. How often,
when I feel myself weakening at a sale, do I think of the old duke’s
quotation from _Macbeth_. It should be the motto of every auction
bidder.
The Duke of Roxburghe’s library was sold at Sotheby’s in 1812, and
it included the first folio. It brought an advance of almost three
hundred per cent, being purchased by the Duke of Devonshire for £100.
It can be seen now in the Henry E. Huntington Library. The sale of
this collection more than one hundred and fifteen years ago provided
a sensation which is still talked about, and was not equaled until
the auction of the Gutenberg Bible a year ago last February. As
Thomas Frognall Dibdin said, it reverberated around the world. The
Valdarfer Boccaccio was the high light in the Roxburghe sale. This
notorious volume was the only perfect copy of the first edition of the
_Decameron_. I have always thought that his flowery description of the
bidding which took place in that “grand æra of Bibliomania,” as he
was so pleased to term it, applies exactly to the tactics used in the
modern auction room. Dibdin wrote as follows:--
The room was crowded to excess; and a sudden darkness which came
across gave rather an additional interest to the scene. At length
the moment of sale arrived. Mr. Evans prefaced the putting up of
the article by an appropriate oration, in which he expatiated upon
its excessive rarity, and concluded by informing the company of the
regret and even “anguish of heart” expressed by Mr. Van Praet that
such a treasure was not at that time to be found in the imperial
collection at Paris. However, it should seem Bonaparte’s agent was
present. Silence followed the address of Mr. Evans. On his right hand,
leaning against the wall, stood Earl Spencer; a little lower down,
and standing at right angles with His Lordship, appeared the Marquis
of Blandford. The Duke, I believe, was not then present; but my Lord
Althorp stood a little backward to the right of his father Earl
Spencer. Such was “the ground taken up” by the adverse hosts.
The honor of firing the first shot was due to a gentleman of
Shropshire, unused to this species of warfare, and who seemed to
recoil from the reverberation of the report himself had made! “One
hundred guineas,” he exclaimed. Again a pause ensued; but anon the
biddings rose rapidly to 500 guineas. Hitherto, however, it was
evident that the firing was but masked and desultory. At length all
random shots ceased, and the champions before named stood gallantly
up to each other, resolving not to flinch from a trial of their
respective strengths.
“A thousand guineas” were bid by Earl Spencer--to which the Marquis
added “ten.” You might have heard a pin drop. All eyes were turned,
all breathing well nigh stopped ... every sword was put home within
its scabbard, and not a piece of steel was seen to move or to glitter
save that which each of these champions brandished in his valorous
hand. See, see! They parry, they lunge, they hit; yet their strength
is undiminished, and no thought of yielding is entertained by
either.... “Two thousand pounds are offered by the Marquis.” ...
Then it was that Earl Spencer, as a prudent general, began to think
of an useless effusion of blood and expenditure of ammunition--seeing
that his adversary was as resolute and “fresh” as at the onset. For
a quarter of a minute he paused; when my Lord Althorp advanced one
step forward, as if to supply his father with another spear for the
purpose of renewing the contest. His countenance was marked by a fixed
determination to gain the prize--if prudence, in its most commanding
form, and with a frown of unusual intensity of expression, had not
bade him desist. The father and son for a few seconds converse apart;
and the biddings are resumed.
“Two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds,” said Lord Spencer. The
spectators are now absolutely electrified. The Marquis quietly adds
his usual “ten” ... and there is an END OF THE CONTEST! Mr. Evans,
ere his hammer fell, made a due pause--and indeed, as if by something
præternatural, the ebony instrument itself seemed to be charmed or
suspended “in midair.” However, at length down dropt the hammer ...
and, as Lisardo has not merely poetically expressed himself, “the
echo” of the sound of that fallen hammer “was heard in the libraries
of Rome, of Milan, and St. Mark.”
The name Dibdin has come to be almost synonymous with “bibliomaniac.”
Although Pennypacker, twenty-five years ago, said that the true
bibliomaniac was a rarissimo,--nearly as scarce as the dodo,--a new
generation of Dibdin men is springing up. There are young men to-day
who find it as difficult to pass an old bookstore or a junk shop
as did those in years gone by; young fellows who will travel miles
to enrich their knowledge of books. I’m afraid it’s the old-timer,
though, who lives among his books, sleeps among them, surrounded by
folios, quartos, books of every size, who thrives in an atmosphere
that is musty, who frowns upon cleanliness as a vice. Of course, such
peculiarities are hardly necessary or desirable, but such men have
lived. The modern Dibdin takes a course in bibliography at college
and attends all book sales. He marks down prices, learns the various
methods experienced bidders use, thus supplementing his college
training with all that he learns in the auction room.
Many years ago I knew a young married man who lived in Orange. He was
auction mad. One New York sale we both attended continued for twelve
evenings. On the twelfth his bride appeared with him and he introduced
her to the other maniacs. In those days it was quite unusual for a
woman to appear at a book auction.
“Why did you bring Mrs. Blank to-night?” I inquired.
“Oh,” said he, “it came to the point where I just had to prove there
were such things as book auctions!”
Although the following tale has nothing to do with book auctions, I am
reminded of it because it has distinctly to do with wives. And wives,
there is no doubt about it, have their niche in the book world, if
only for the influence they have upon their book-mad consorts.
A small man with a shy, walruslike look came to see me one day in
Philadelphia. His meek appearance was in marked contrast to the
determined manner with which he greeted me. He introduced himself as a
piano tuner from Harrisburg.
“I have here, doctor,” he said, pulling out of an inner pocket a
blue envelope, “something which will interest you. I found it in a
secondhand-furniture store among a bundle of papers on its way to
the pulp mill. I rescued it.” He opened the envelope and drew out a
pamphlet in brown paper wrappers. It was Poe’s _Prose Romances. No. I.
Containing The Murders in the Rue Morgue_, published in Philadelphia in
1843. There are only three or four copies known to exist.
“What do you want for it?” I asked him.
“Three thousand eight hundred,” he said quite calmly. Naturally I was
surprised that a man who made his living tinkering with refractory
pianos should know the value of this work. In answer to further
questions, he told me that he spent all his evenings and some of his
days browsing in secondhand stores, in the hope of making a book find.
“And now my dream’s come true. I’m always picking up old books. It
makes my wife wild. She always nags me. Wasting time and throwing away
good cash, she calls it!”
[Illustration: ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF OSCAR WILDE’S SONNET, “ON THE
SALE BY AUCTION OF KEATS’ LOVE-LETTERS”]
[Illustration: CHRISTOPHER MORLEY]
I had to have this book. While I wrote out the check I asked him why he
wanted this peculiar sum, and what he would do with it. He answered
without hesitation.
“The first thing I’ll do,” he said, “is to hand over $800 of it to the
missus and let her go to Europe, like she’s always wanted to do. I told
her I’d fix her one day! I guess she won’t nag me any more!”
I recall the crowd present at the sale of the collection of that great
editor of Keats, J. Buxton Forman, in 1920. Students, collectors,
poets, seers, bookmen were there. Suddenly the auctioneer announced
that the next item was a love letter of Keats to Fanny Brawne.
Whereupon my friend Kit Morley was inspired and wrote this exquisite
sonnet, which he dedicated to me:--
IN AN AUCTION ROOM
Letter of John Keats to Fanny Brawne, Anderson Galleries, March 15, 1920
TO DR. A. S. W. ROSENBACH
“_How about this lot?_” said the auctioneer;
“_One hundred, may I say, just for a start?_”
Between the plum-red curtains, drawn apart,
A written sheet was held.... And strange to hear--
(Dealer, would I were steadfast as thou art),
The cold quick bids. (_Against you in the rear!_)
The crimson salon, in a glow more clear,
Burned bloodlike purple as the poet’s heart.
Song that outgrew the singer! Bitter Love
That broke the proud hot heart it held in thrall,
Poor script, where still those tragic passions move--
_Eight hundred bid: fair warning: the last call:_
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
_Sold for eight hundred dollars--Doctor R.!_
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
[Illustration: LETTER OF KEATS TO FANNY BRAWNE]
IV
SOME LITERARY FORGERIES
“I cast my bread upon the waters, and it came back to me after many
days!”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked the tall white-haired man who sat
opposite me in his luxurious library. The room was an enormous one,
and thousands of fine books lined the walls from floor to ceiling.
My friend seemed in a confidential mood, and I expected to hear
something startling. This Gothic room, with its early Spanish religious
sculptures, had the very atmosphere of a confessional. My companion had
had a somewhat weird career, and as I watched him through the heavy
smoke of our cigars I recalled many strange stories of his youth. Once
he had been a lawyer’s clerk, but now he was a director in many banks,
with financial interests all over the world. The variegated stages by
which he had risen to such eminence, not only in business but as a
collector of pictures and books, were not always clear to the friends
of his later years.
He told me that he had been so poor as a boy he had often known
hunger; that, as a scrivener in the lawyer’s office, he had eked out
a most pitiable existence copying deeds and other legal documents. In
1885 he happened to read in the newspapers of famous auction sales
of autographs in London, and of the first arrival in this country of
representatives of the English book houses. For instance, Bernard
Quaritch was holding his first exhibition in New York at the Hotel
Astor. General Brayton Ives, Robert Hoe, and other great collectors of
the glaring ‘80’s were beginning to form their libraries. My friend
was fascinated, and as he had no capital to invest in great rarities
himself, he thought he would make a few. He determined to try his hand
at imitation.
Just about that period there was an awakened interest in the ill-fated
Major André, who had suffered death as a British informer. In his
grimy boarding house on Grand Street my friend practiced imitating
André’s handwriting. He finally manufactured a splendid letter in
which Major André wrote to General Washington requesting that he
be shot as a soldier and not hanged as a spy. As he described his
youthful fabrication his mouth lighted with a smile of pleasure, and
he confessed that he had been very proud of this forgery; it had been
a work of art! He finally actually sold this pseudo-André letter for
$650! Those were the days when unpedigreed rarities were more easily
disposed of, as there were not so many autograph sharks around as there
are to-day.
Thirty years elapsed. My friend had grown in riches and in reputation.
Now he was a noted collector; forgotten were the peccadillos of his
youth. In 1915, during the Great War, he noticed the advertisement of
a sale in London containing an André letter. He cabled an unlimited
bid, as was now his custom. The letter was bought for him for £280. A
few weeks later, upon opening the package which he received from the
custom house, the inclosed autograph letter looked familiar to him. A
closer scrutiny revealed the fact that he had bought back, at three
times what he had received for it, his own fabrication!