I
TALKING OF OLD BOOKS
“Genius?” The tall old man with the fan-shaped beard looked eagerly at his companion, then settled back more heavily against the rows and rows of old books lining the walls to the ceiling on all sides of the room. “Of course Edgar was a genius, but in spite of being a gambler and a drunkard—in spite of it, I tell you!”
The other, a thin man of lesser years, his long, inquiring face meditative in the twilight, nodded.
“You are right,” he agreed. “But what difference did it make? The only question is, would ‘The Raven’ have been any greater without his gambling and drinking? I doubt it.”
The argument was on, and my uncle, Moses Polock, would lean forward now and again, waving his coatless arms—he handled books easier in shirt sleeves—in an effort to gain a point. His peculiarly young and penetrating blue eyes glistened. Opposite, George P. Philes, a noted editor and book collector, twirled a gray moustache and goatee while balancing in a tilted chair, listening calmly, and patiently relighting a half-smoked cigar which went out often as the verbal heat increased.
I would watch these two, dazed with their heated words concerning authors and their works; hear them make bookish prophecies, most of which came true. A favorite subject was their neurotic friend, Edgar Allan Poe. Both had befriended this singularly unfortunate and great writer, and each had certain contentions to make which led through the fire of argument to the cooler and more even discussion of reminiscences. But they did agree that it would take less than fifty years after Poe’s death to make first editions of his works the most valuable of all American authors.
It was in 1885, when I was nine years old, that I first felt the haunting atmosphere of Uncle Moses’ bookshop on the second floor of the bulging, red-brick building on Commerce Street in old Philadelphia. At that age I could hardly realize, spellbound as I was, the full quality of mystery and intangible beauty which becomes a part of the atmosphere wherever fine books are brought together; for here was something which called to me each afternoon, just as the wharves, the water, and the ships drew other boys who were delighted to get away from books the moment school was out. Whatever it was,—some glibly speak of it as bibliomania,—it entered my bones then, and has grown out of all proportion ever since. The long walk from the bookshop to my home in the twilight, the moon, just coming up, throwing long shadows across the white slab of Franklin’s grave which I had to pass, was sometimes difficult; but as I grew older I learned to shut my eyes against imaginary fears and, in a valiant effort to be brave, hurried past darkened corners and abysmal alleyways, inventing a game by which I tried to visualize the only touches of color in Uncle Moses’ musty, dusty shop—occasional brilliantly bound volumes. Running along, I also cross-examined myself on quotations and dates from books and manuscripts through which I had prowled earlier in the day, unwittingly developing a memory which was often to stand me in good stead.
My uncle’s appreciation of books showed itself long before he took over the publishing and bookselling business established in Philadelphia in 1780, just before the close of the Revolution. Throughout his youth books had been dear to him, and his father, noting this, encouraged him to keep together the volumes he prized most. Yet he gained local attention, not as a book collector but as a publisher, when with a certain amount of initiative he brought out the works of the first American novelist, Charles Brockden Brown. But I early had my suspicions of him as a publisher. It seemed to me that he used the publishing business as a literary cat’s-paw by which he might conceal his real interest and love—searching for, finding, and treasuring rare books.
After all, if one is in a trade, certain expectations are held by the public; and the older Uncle Moses grew the less willing he became to meet these expectations. To publish books and sell them was one phase; but to collect, and then to sell, he considered a different and entirely personal affair. A poor young man, Uncle Moses had acquired the business in an almost magical manner. Jacob Johnson, the original founder, began by publishing children’s books only. But in 1800 he decided to branch out, and took a partner, Benjamin Warner. Fifteen years later the firm was sold out to McCarty and Davis. After several successful years McCarty retired, and it was then that Moses Polock was employed as a clerk. They had spread out and were now publishing all sorts of books. Davis became very fond of his clerk, and when he died, in 1851, left him sufficient money in his will to purchase the business for himself. Luck was evidently with my uncle, for he made a great deal of money in publishing Lindley Murray’s Grammar and other schoolbooks of the time.
First as a publishing house and bookstore combined, Uncle Moses’ shop became a meeting place for publishers and writers. Here it was that the ill-fed Poe came in 1835 to talk modestly of his writings and hopes.
Such men as James Fenimore Cooper, William Cullen Bryant, Noah Webster, and Herman Melville might be seen going up or coming down the narrow staircase leading to the second floor. George Bancroft, the historian, came, too, and Eaton, who wrote the Life of Jackson; George H. Boker, a distinguished Philadelphia poet, Charles Godfrey Leland, of Hans Breitmann Ballads note, and Donald G. Mitchell, who wrote as Ik. Marvel, and many others—they found their way along the uneven brick sidewalks of Commerce Street. Gradually, however, it developed into a rendezvous for the more leisured group of collectors.
MOSES POLOCK IN HIS BOOKSHOP
Men—and occasionally a woman—who owned many an interesting and valuable volume came to browse and talk. Silent or voluble, enthusiastic or suspiciously conservative, each had in mind some book, of Uncle Moses’ he hoped one day to possess. For it took something more than money and coercion to make this old man give up his treasures. Even when he occasionally fell to this temptation and sold the precious volume, in place of the original he would make a pen-and-ink copy of the book, word for word, so that it was typographically perfect. This would take weeks to do, and only when he needed money badly did he consent to part with the original. I have some of these copies and treasure them as curiosities. Not only months but very often years of tireless perseverance were necessary to make him sell a favorite volume. Equally interesting was that other group which came daily—a group composed of impecunious and peculiarly erratic book lovers, found in book haunts the world over: a poverty-stricken intellectual class, who in filling their minds often forget to provide for their stomachs as well.
All the memories of my childhood centre around the secluded and dusty corners of this shop, where I eavesdropped and prowled to my heart’s content. My uncle, at first annoyed at having a little boy about the place prying into musty papers and books, eventually took delight in showing me rare editions purchased by him at auctions and private sales. As he grew older he became somewhat eccentric, and, despite my extreme youth, insisted upon treating me as a book lover and connoisseur, his own equal. Although he lived to be a very old man, he retained the most marvelous memory I have ever known. He could tell without a moment’s hesitation the date of a book, who the printer was, where it had been found, any physical earmarks it might have, its various vicissitudes, and how it had reached its final destination.
Among the noted collectors who came to match their wits and learning with my uncle was a younger man, Clarence S. Bement, who developed into one of the greatest American book experts. Even at that time he had a wonderful collection, and I well remember his subtle efforts to add to it constantly. He would talk in a firm, low, rather musical voice, obviously toned with persuasion, hoping to make his friend part with some cherished volume he coveted. As I watched Uncle Moses refuse, I saw a curiously adamant and at the same time satisfied expression spread over his features; I noticed, too, the dignity of movement as he gravely took the volume from Bement’s fingers to look at it, with that expressive pride in ownership that verges on madness with many people to whom possession can mean but one thing—books.
Samuel W. Pennypacker, who in later years became governor of Pennsylvania, was another avid book collector and constant habitué of the old Commerce Street bookshop. His hobby was anything he could lay his hands upon from the Franklin press. He also collected all data relating to the early Swedish settlers of Pennsylvania and his German and Dutch ancestors, as well as any material concerning the development of the state. A large man he was, with serious eyes set in a rather square-shaped head. But his voice fascinated me most of all as it boomed about the shelves when he grew excited, and took on an unforgettable Pennsylvania-Dutch twang.
Pennypacker was a fervent admirer of George Washington, and he had once heard of a letter which General Washington wrote from one of the scenes of his childhood, Pennypacker’s Mills. He couldn’t seem to forget this letter, for he was always talking about it, hoping to trace it to its owner and eventually make it his own.
I shall never forget the day Uncle Moses told him he had found and bought this letter. He handed it to Pennypacker with a light of triumphant amusement in his eyes. After reading it, Pennypacker put it down on the table before him and, without raising his eyes, said in a peculiarly exhausted way, “Polock, I must have this letter. You can make any bargain you choose, but I must have it!” Hardly waiting for the other to reply, he rushed down the stairs, to return a few moments later with two books under his arm. My uncle’s blue eyes were but mocking questions as he pushed them aside after glancing at their title pages. They were two valuable books, but not unusually so. Pennypacker had by this time unbuttoned his coat, and I saw him take from an inner pocket a thin, yellow envelope.
“These”—Pennypacker pointed to his two books “and this.” He opened the envelope and gave my uncle its contents. It, too, was a letter from George Washington, yet no sign of emotion swept the old man’s features as he read. But the exchange was made rather quickly, I thought, and it would have been, difficult to decide which bargainer was the more satisfied. I have read both letters many times since. The Pennypacker’s Mills letter was dated September 29, 1777, and addressed: “On public service, to the Honorable John Hancock, President of Congress, Lancaster.” George Washington wrote in part:—
I shall move the Army four or five miles lower down today from where we may reconnoitre and fix upon a proper situation at such distance from the enemy as will enable us to make an attack should we see a proper opening, or stand upon the defensive till we obtain further reinforcements. This was the opinion of a Council of General Officers which I called yesterday.
I congratulate you upon the success of our Arms to the Northward and if some accident does not put them out of their present train, I think we may count upon the total ruin of Burgoyne.
The letter which my uncle received was written four years later from Philadelphia, in 1781, to Abraham Skinner, Commissary General of Prisoners, and was easily the more important, historically, of the two, as General Washington discussed throughout the surrender of Cornwallis and the exchange of prisoners at Yorktown. He instructed General Skinner not to consent to the exchange of Lord Cornwallis under any conditions.
Even I, with but a short experience as a mere onlooker in the collecting game, realized its greater value. After my uncle’s death this Washington letter sold for $925, and it rests to-day as one of the treasures in the Pierpont Morgan collection.
THE INFANT BIBLIOPHILE
A few years ago I bought back the Pennypacker’s Mills letter for $130 from Governor Pennypacker’s estate. Because of the incident it recalls I would never part with it.
When I was eleven years old I began book collecting on my own. My first purchase was at an auction in the old Henkels’s auction rooms on Chestnut Street. It was an illustrated edition of Reynard the Fox, and was knocked down to me for twenty-four dollars. My enthusiasm rather than my financial security swept me into this extravagance, and after the sale I had to go to the auctioneer, Mr. Stan V. Henkels, and confess that I was not exactly solvent. At the same time I explained I was Moses Polock’s nephew, instinctively feeling, I suppose, that such a relationship might account for any untoward action concerning books. I had hardly got the words out of my frightened mouth when Mr. Henkels burst into a fit of laughing which—although I was too young, too scared and self-conscious to realize it at the time—was the beginning of a lifelong friendship between us.
When he ceased laughing, he looked down at me, a sombre little boy with a book under his shaking arm, and said, “I’ve seen it start at an early age, and run in families, but in all my experience this is the very first baby bibliomaniac to come my way!” With this admission he kindly consented to extend credit, and trusted me for further payments, which I was to make weekly from my school allowance. Giving him all the money I possessed, ten dollars, I marched from the auction room, feeling for the first time in my life that swooning yet triumphant, that enervating and at the same time heroic combination of emotions the born bibliomaniac enjoys so intensely with the purchase of each rare book.
Stan V. Henkels—no one dared to leave out the middle initial—was a remarkable man. Even in his young days he resembled an old Southern colonel, the accepted picture we all have, a man of drooping moustache, rather patrician nose, and longish hair which he decorated with a large-brimmed, rusty black hat of the Civil War period. He insisted he was an unreconstructed rebel and was always willing to take on anyone in a verbal battle about the Civil War.
By profession an auctioneer of books, Mr. Henkels was the first person to make the dreary, uninteresting work of auction catalogues into living, fascinating literature, almost as exciting reading as fiction. Previous to this, anyone wanting to find out what was in a collection had little luck when searching through a catalogue, beyond discovering names and dates.
Observing this, and that certain items whose contents were of exceptional interest did not sell well, Henkels decided to find out for himself what was between the covers of the books he sold, and to learn what was often told so confidentially in the literary manuscripts and letters, and then to print the most interesting data he could find about each item. This was a great work in itself, and how he found the leisure to give to it was a mystery. Thus he brought in color and life, a human-interest setting, which added thousands of dollars yearly to his business, and which awakened feelings of gratitude in many collectors.
STAN V. HENKELS
Seven years after buying Reynard the Fox on the installment plan, I made my first valuable literary discovery. I was studying then at the University of Pennsylvania, and books enthralled me to a disastrous extent. I attended book sales at all hours of the day and night; I neglected my studies; I bought books whether I could afford them or not; I forgot to eat, and did not consider sleep necessary at all. The early stages of the book-collecting germ are not the most virulent, but nevertheless they make themselves felt!
This night I went to the Henkels’s auction room several hours before the sale. I looked at many of the books with great delight, sighed when I estimated the prices they would bring, and was beginning to feel rather despondent, when I happened to see a bound collection of pamphlets in one corner of the room.
Now for some unknown reason pamphlets, even from my boyhood, have been a passion with me. I cannot resist reading a pamphlet, whether it has value or not. The potentialities between slim covers play the devil with my imagination. It is true that books are my real love, but pamphlets flaunt a certain piquancy which I have never been able to resist. One might call them the flirtations of book collecting. I crossed to the corner, disturbed that I had not seen the volume earlier in the evening, that I had so little time to devote to it. But hurried as I felt,—it was almost time for the sale to begin,—I came upon a copy of Gray’s Odes. It was not only a first edition, but the first book from Horace Walpole’s famous Strawberry Hill Press, printed especially for him. Walpole had a weakness for gathering fame to his own name by printing the works of certain famous contemporaries. Delighted at finding this, I observed the title page of a pamphlet, which was bound with it. I could hardly believe my eyes! For in my hands I held, quite by accident, the long-lost first edition of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s famous Prologue, which David Garrick recited the opening night of the Drury Lane Theatre in London in 1747. Although advertisements in the General Advertiser and Gentleman’s Magazine of Doctor Johnson’s day announced the sale of this work for the modest sum of sixpence, no one had ever heard of a copy of this original edition being in existence before or since. Boswell made an allusion to it in his Life of Johnson, but that was all that was known of this first issue of the little masterpiece of “dramatick criticism.”
I closed my eyes in an effort to steady myself, leaning heavily against the wall. I wanted to buy this pamphlet more than I had ever wanted anything in the world. A wealthy and noted collector entered the room. I gave up hope. Again I looked at the pamphlet, and as I read Doctor Johnson’s famous line on Shakespeare, “And panting Time toil’d after him in vain,” I wished that I might be weak enough to take something which did not belong to me.
Suddenly my plans were made. I would have the Prologue! I would do anything honorable to obtain it. Having nothing but my future to mortgage I desperately decided to offer that, whoever the purchaser might be.
Mr. Henkels announced the usual terms of the sale and I gazed cautiously about the room; every member of the audience was just waiting for that volume of pamphlets, I knew. Finally it was put up, and the very silence seemed to bid against me; when, after two or three feeble counter bids, it became really mine for the sum of $3.60, I sat as one in a trance. The news soon spread among the experts of the exceptional find I had made, and I had many offers for it. Several years later, during my postgraduate course at college, when I needed money very badly, a noted collector dandled a check for $5000 before my eyes. It was a difficult moment for me, but I refused the offer. In my private library I retain this treasured volume.
One day previous to this I was in the auction rooms when a white-haired negro said Mr. Henkels had something interesting to show me if I would go to the top floor. I found him standing by an open window fronting Chestnut Street, exhibiting to several curious customers a small gold locket which had belonged to George Washington. It had been authenticated by his heirs, and also the gray lock of hair enclosed within it. As I joined the others, Mr. Henkels opened the locket and held it out for inspection. At that moment an unexpected gust of wind blew into the room, and, sweeping about, took the curl very neatly from its resting place. So quickly did it happen it was a moment or so before we realized that the prized lock had been wafted out of the window. Then suddenly we all ran to the stairs and raced four flights into the street below. Up and down, searching the block, the gutters, and the crevices of stone and brick, we sought the lost lock of the Father of our Country. After an hour, or so it seemed, we gave it up as useless. As we returned to the entrance of the rooms the old negro employé came out.
“Wait a minute!” Henkels exclaimed, as an idea came to him.
He grabbed the ancient and surprised servant by the hair. Selecting a choice curly ringlet, he clipped it off with his pocketknife, then placed it carefully in George Washington’s locket, closing it tightly.
Several days later I saw the locket put up for sale. The bidding was brisk, and the buyer later expressed himself as being exceptionally lucky. But Henkels, who was the soul of honor, could not listen quietly for long. He told of his, as well as Nature’s prank with the original lock of hair, and offered to refund the money. The purchaser refused, saying he had given no thought to the contents anyway; that his interest lay only in the locket.
It is almost incredible, the number of stories that circulate about the civilized world containing misstatements and garbled information about the values and prices of old books. I am sometimes amused, at other times annoyed, to read in the daily papers statements of prices I and other collectors are supposed to have bought and sold books for. Reporters who descend upon us hurriedly to verify the story of some unusual sale can be divided into two classes—overenthusiastic and bored. The former often exaggerate the amount paid for a book and its value; the latter are likely to be careless about details and set them down incorrectly.
When I bought a Gutenberg Bible for $106,000 last spring, I was careful to read and correct the original announcement made of the purchase. Such an event was too important in the history of book collecting to be misstated. Even then, many papers carried a story which gave the impression that this was the only Gutenberg Bible in existence, when there are about forty-two known copies—differing in condition, of course. But collectors themselves have often been at fault for the broadcasting of misinformation, for they seldom take time to go out of their way to correct wrong impressions.
It is only in the past few generations that collectors have taken great care of their treasures—a lucky change, too, for had they all pawed books about, wearing them to shreds in the scholastic manner, few rare volumes would have been saved for us to-day. Acquisitiveness, that noble urge to possess something the other fellow hasn’t or can’t get, is often the direct cause of assembling vast, extraordinary libraries.
Book lovers who were contemporaries of Moses Polock treated him as though he would live forever. It has been noted that those who collect things outlive people who do not. No one notices this so much, perhaps, as the collector himself who has his eye on the collection of another, or the book collector who cannot sleep well at night for the thought of a valuable first edition he would like to own. Book collectors, I make no exceptions, are buzzards who stretch their wings in anticipation as they wait patiently for a colleague’s demise; then they swoop down and ghoulishly grab some long-coveted treasure from the dear departed’s trove.
Two years before my uncle’s death I gave up my fellowship in English at the University of Pennsylvania to enter professionally the sport of book collecting and the business of selling. Uncle Moses was extremely pleased to have me as a competitor. He often said he believed I had all the necessary requisites for collecting, an excellent memory, perseverance, taste, and a fair knowledge of literature. Alas, all requisites but one—money! He thought if I were fortunate enough to acquire that, I would also have the other virtue—courage: the courage to pay a high price for a good book and to refuse a poor one at any price. And I was fortunate. Two gentlemen whose interest in books was as intense as mine made it possible for me to establish myself as a bookseller. The first, Clarence S. Bement, possessed a glorious collection over which he had spent years of constant study and search. All collectors were eager to secure his volumes, each being fine and rare. As a silent partner he was invaluable to me in many ways, and with the second, Joseph M. Fox, spurred me on to collecting the choicest books and manuscripts as they came on the market, pointing out the fact that at all times there is a demand for the finest things. Mr. Fox, one of the most lovable of men, lived in a very old Colonial house called Wakefield, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, in which he had discovered wonderful Revolutionary letters and documents.
MOSES POLOCK
It is difficult to know at what moment one becomes a miser of books. For many years preceding his death, Uncle Moses kept a fireproof vault in the rear of his office, where he secreted rarities no one ever saw. His books were as real to him as friends. He feared showing the most precious lest he part with one in a moment of weakness. One of the amusing incidents of his life was that he had sold a copy of the Bradford Laws of New York, published in 1694, to Doctor Brinley for sixteen dollars, and many years later he had seen it sell at the Brinley sale for $1600. The money consideration did not cause his regret so much as the fact that he had felt an affection for this volume, which had rested upon his shelves for more than thirty years. By an amusing turn of the wheel of chance, which my uncle might have foreseen, the same volume would be worth to-day $20,000!
At the death of my uncle, in 1903, I came into possession of some of his wonderful books; others were purchased by private buyers and are to-day parts of various famous libraries. I was greatly thrilled when, as administrator of his estate, I entered his secret vault for the first time in my life. In the half light I stumbled against something very hard on the floor. Lighting a match, I looked down, to discover a curious bulky package. Examining it more closely, I found it was a bag of old gold coins. A reserve supply cautiously hoarded, no doubt, to buy further rarities.
My uncle’s estate included several books from the library of George Washington, the finest of which was a remarkable copy of the Virginia Journal, published in Williamsburg, which I still have. Washington was one of the three presidents who collected books in an intelligent manner. There have been presidents who loved books—the late Theodore Roosevelt, for example—but who were not real collectors. It is always interesting to hazard a guess at a great man’s personal likes by noting the titles in his library. In the past years I have bought other books from Washington’s collection. There is The History of America by William Robertson, in two volumes, Brown’s Civil Law, Inland Navigation, Jenkinson’s Collections of Treaties, eight volumes of the Political State of Europe, a four-volume course of lectures by Winchester on the Prophecies That Remain to be Fulfilled—in this last Washington wrote: “From the author to G. Washington.” These are a heavy literary diet, somewhat one-sided when placed next to Epistles for the Ladies, which was also his. Each volume has the signature on the title page—“George Washington”—with his armorial bookplate pasted inside the front cover. There were doubtless book borrowers in those days, too, whose memories and consciences might be jogged at sight of the owner’s name. Another, a gift to Washington, is a collection of poems “written chiefly during the late war,” by Philip Freneau, one of the few very early American poets whose work has survived. On the title page in Freneau’s hand, with his signature, is written: “General Washington will do the author the honor to accept a copy of his poems, as a small testimony of the disinterested veneration he entertains for his character.”
The books belonging to Martha Washington are few, merely because she was not a great reader, and the common-sense title of the one book of hers which I have—Agriculture of Argyll County—would lead one to think of her as a practical woman rather interested in rural activities.
The collecting passion is as old as time. Even book collecting, which many believe to be a comparatively recent development, can be traced back to the Babylonians. They, with their passion for preserving records on clay tablets, could hardly go in for all the little niceties, such as original paper boards or beautifully tooled bindings, but they were collectors nevertheless.
Among the early individual book collectors such colorful names as Jean Grolier, De Thou, Colbert, and the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin shine forth. Jean Grolier, a collector of the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century, now considered the patron saint of modern book collectors, showed unusual vision in selecting his books. Though many libraries of that time are both remarkable and valuable, their worth varies. But every collector is keen to possess a Grolier volume, and at each sale the prices increase. He evidently read what he selected, and his taste showed that he had education and discernment. Aldus Manutius, the most famous printer of that day, dedicated books to him and printed certain works for him on special paper. Aldus was the first to popularize the small-sized book, and that is why many from the Grolier collection are easier to handle than the more gross volumes from other early libraries.
Grolier’s generous disposition is indicated by the fact that he has either written in, or had stamped on the outside of the truly exquisite bindings, “Io Grolierii et Amicorum”—his books were for himself and his friends too. Many people have since copied this inscription on their bookplates. The Grolier family were book lovers, and his library was kept intact for three generations. Not until one hundred and sixteen years after his death was it sold, and although many were bought by other famous collectors, old records show that some disappeared entirely. It is just such knowledge that keeps the true bibliophile living in hopes—a long-missing Grolier might turn up any time, anywhere.
About the time of the discovery of America a book came out called The Ship of Fools, by one Sebastian Brant. In it was an attack on the book fool: a satire on the passion of collecting, in which the author said that the possession of books was but a poor substitute for learning. That phrase which the layman reader asks the book collector so often with a smirk of condescension, “So you really read them?” undoubtedly originated then. The real book collector, with suppressed murder in his heart, smiles acquiescence, assuming an apologetic air for his peculiar little hobby. His invisible armor is his knowledge, and he has been called a fool so often he glories in it. He can afford to have his little joke. So much for this threadbare gibe.
GROLIER BINDING
Cardinal Richelieu, according to history, sought relaxation from the cares of state in his love of books. His huge library was got together in many ways. Sometimes he bought books; he sent two learned men on the road, one to Germany and the other to Italy, to collect both printed and manuscript works. Often he would exchange volumes with other collectors, and one can imagine the covert smile of satisfaction on this ecclesiastical politician’s lips whenever he got the better of a bargain.
Of course there was always a way to get a rare work, whether the owner cared to part with it or not, by an off-with-his-head policy of intimidation. After the taking of La Rochelle the red-robed Richelieu topped off the victory by helping himself to the entire library of that city. Even though he was something of a robber, his ultimate motive was good—he planned to establish a reference library for all qualified students. Yet it was his nephew, the inheritor of his library, who carried out these plans posthumously. He willed it to the Sorbonne, with a fund to keep up the collection and to add to it according to the needs and progress of the times.
Cardinal Mazarin had the appreciation of books instilled in him from his boyhood, when he attended a Jesuit school in Rome. Following in the footsteps of the famous Richelieu, it was necessary to carry out many of his predecessor’s policies. One of these was to weaken the French nobles, who ruled enormous country estates, by destroying their feudal castles. Thus Mazarin, a great but wily character, took his books where he found them. Eventually his library grew to be a famous one, which he generously threw open to the literary men of the day. Fortunately the men who followed Mazarin kept his collection intact, and to-day, in Paris, one may see the great Mazarin Library on the left bank of the Seine.
Colbert, first as Mazarin’s secretary, and later a great political leader on his own account, also collected a fine library in perhaps a more legitimate manner than his patron. He arranged for the consuls representing France in every part of Europe to secure any remarkable works they might hear of. Colbert not only offered the use of his collection to such of his contemporaries as Molière, Corneille, Boileau, and Racine, but pensioned these men as well.
De Thou, also a Frenchman, of the latter half of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century, had the finest library of his time. His thousands upon thousands of volumes included many bought from the Grolier collection, and collectors’ interest in them has never lessened. De Thou was the truest type of book lover. He had not one but several copies of each book he felt a particular affection for; he ordered them printed on the best paper obtainable, expressly for himself. His bindings are richly beautiful, of the finest leathers, exquisitely designed. They are easily recognizable, as his armorial stamp, with golden bees, is on the sides, and the back is marked with a curious cipher made from his initials. Most of the contents treat of profound but interesting subjects. He was a real student, and wrote an extensive history of his time in Latin. Here is an example of inherited passion for books. His mother’s brother and his father were both book lovers.
It is a general belief that books are valuable merely because they are old. Age, as a rule, has very little to do with actual value. I have never announced the purchase of a noted old book without having my mail flooded for weeks afterward with letters from all over the world. Each correspondent tells me of opportunities I am losing by not going immediately to his or her home to see, and incidentally buy, “a book which has been in my family over one hundred years.”
I receive more than thirty thousand letters about books every year. Each letter is read carefully and answered. There are many from cranks. But it is not hard to spot these even before opening the envelope, when addressed, as one was recently from Germany,“Herrn Doktor Rosenbach, multi-millionaire, Amerika.” Indeed, the greater number of letters about books are from Germany. One man in Hamburg wrote me of a book he had for sale, then ended by saying he also had a very fine house he would like me to buy, because he felt sure, if I saw it, his elegant garden would appeal to me for the use of my patients! Many people write me, after I have purchased a book at a high price, and say they have something to offer “half as old at half the price!”
Yet one out of every two thousand letters holds a possibility of interest. I followed up a letter from Hagenau not long ago, to discover—the copy was sent me on approval—a first edition of Adonais, Shelley’s lament on the death of Keats, in the blue paper wrappers in which it was issued. There are only a few copies known in this original condition. I bought it by correspondence for a reasonable price. It is worth at least $5000. On the other hand, I have often made a long journey to find nothing but an inferior copy of a late edition of some famous work. I once heard of a first edition of Hubbard’s Indian Wars, in Salem, Massachusetts. When I arrived there the family who owned it brought out their copy, unwrapping it with much ceremony from swathings of old silk. Immediately I saw it was a poor reprint made in the nineteenth century, although the original was printed in 1677.
But luck had not deserted me entirely that day. As my train was not due for an hour, I wandered about the city. In passing one of the many antique shops which all New England cities seem to possess by the gross, I noticed a barrow on the sidewalk before it. In this barrow were thrown all sorts and conditions of books. Yet the first one I picked up was a first edition of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, worth about $150, which I bought for two dollars.
Speaking of this copy of Moby Dick reminds me of another, a more valuable one, which I prize in my private library. One day about five years ago John Drinkwater, the English poet and dramatist, and I were lunching at his home in London. Talking of books and the ever-interesting vicissitudes of collecting them, he told me of his Moby Dick, found one day, by chance, in a New York bookstore for but a few dollars. It was a presentation copy from the author to his friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom the book was dedicated, and had Hawthorne’s signature on the dedication leaf. When Mr. Drinkwater told me of this I became restless; I wanted this copy as much as I had ever wanted any other book, and there was nothing for me to do but tell him so. I offered him twenty times what he had paid for it, and to my surprise and delight he generously let me have it.
Why age alone should be thought to give value to most collectible objects, including furniture, pictures, and musical instruments, I don’t know. However, it is a great and popular fallacy. The daily prayer of all true collectors should begin with the words, “beauty, rarity, condition,” and last of all, “antiquity.” But books differ from other antiques in that their ultimate value depends upon the intrinsic merit of the writer’s work. A first edition of Shakespeare, for instance, will always command an ever-increasing price. The same is true of first editions of Dante, Cervantes, or Goethe. These writers gave something to the world and to life—something of which one always can be sure.
Very often the greatness of an author, the value of what he has written, is not realized until years have gone by. Vital truths are sometimes seen more clearly in perspective. A first folio of Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies was sold in 1864 to the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who paid what was considered an enormous price—£716—for it. Yet only fifty-eight years later my brother Philip bought the same folio for me at Sotheby’s in London for £8600, Shakespeare’s writings having increased in value more than twelve times in a little more than half a century.
The fallacy of thinking that age is of major importance in judging a book should be corrected by every book lover. Age? Why, there are many books of the fifteenth century which command small prices in the auction rooms to-day, while certain volumes brought out a decade ago are not only valuable but grow more so with each passing year. A first edition of A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young, printed two years ago, is already more precious than some old tome, such as a sermon of the 1490’s by the famous teacher, Johannes Gerson, the contents of which are and always will be lacking in human or any other kind of interest.
The inception of any great movement, whether material or spiritual, is bound to be interesting, according to its relative importance. The Gutenberg Bible, leaving aside the question of its artistic merit and the enormous value of its contents, as the first printed book is of the greatest possible significance. But it so happens that this wonderful Bible is also one of the finest known examples of typography. No book ever printed is more beautiful than this pioneer work of Gutenberg, the first printer, although it was issued almost five hundred years ago. It has always seemed an interesting point to me that printing is the only art which sprang into being full-blown. Later years brought about a more uniform appearance of type, but aside from this we have only exceeded the early printers in speed of execution. Enormous value is added to some of these earliest books because they are the last word in the printer’s art.
The first books printed on subjects of universal interest are the rarest “firsts” of all for the collector. These include early romances of chivalry, of which few copies are found to-day. They are generally in very poor condition, as their popular appeal was tremendous, and they were literally read to pieces. They were really the popular novels of the period. The ones which come through the stress of years successfully are extremely rare. For instance, there are the Caxtons.
William Caxton was the first printer in England, and the first to print books in the English language. When he brought out the second edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in 1484, with its fascinating woodcut illustrations, it was literally devoured by contemporary readers. This and other publications of Caxton were very popular—he evidently had a good eye for best sellers—and now a perfect Caxton is difficult to find.
One of the finest Caxtons in existence is Le Morte d’ Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, published in 1485. This perfect copy, this jewel among Caxtons, sold at the dispersal of the library of the Earl of Jersey in 1885 for £1950, approximately $9500. Now this is an excellent example of a book increasing in value for its pristine, perfect state as well as for its alluring contents. Twenty-six years later it brought $42,800 at the Hoe sale. It is now one of the treasures adorning the Pierpont Morgan Library.
The first editions of books which have that quality so glibly called to-day sex appeal, such as Boccaccio’s Decameron, and his Amore di Florio e di Bianchafiore—a wicked old romance of the fifteenth century, truly the first snappy story—are firsts of which there are but few left for our edification. They are extremely precious to the collector, no matter what their condition. The first book on murder; the first book on medicine or magic; the first Indian captivity; the first music book, the first newspaper, the first published account of lace making, or the comparatively modern subject, shorthand—the first book on any subject marking the advance of civilization, is always valuable.
One of the rarest and most interesting books is the first sporting book, The Book of Hunting and Hawking, printed at St. Albans, in 1486, by an unknown man, called, for convenience of classification, the Schoolmaster Printer. Women were sports writers even in those days, for this record was written by a woman, Dame Juliana Barnes, sometimes known as Berners. A copy was sold in the Hoe sale in 1911, for $12,000, to Mr. Henry E. Huntington, who formed one of the few great collections of the world. Nearly all of the few existing copies of this work are now in this country. Another one, the Pembroke copy, which I now own, sold for £1800 in 1914. As it is the last one that can ever come on the market, heaven only knows what it is worth to-day. Like some other famous firsts, it has several novel merits, being one of the first books to contain English poetry, and the first English book to be illustrated with pictures printed in color. This and Walton’s The Compleat Angler are the two greatest sporting books of all time. Yet, because there are more copies of the latter in existence, a fine copy of the first edition in the original binding is worth not more than $8500 to-day.
Another tremendously rare book is the much-read Pilgrim’s Progress. No work, with the exception of the Bible, has enjoyed greater popularity all through the years than this powerful imaginative and moral tale. I have almost every edition of it, in every language. A best seller for years after the author’s death, and a very good seller to-day, too, the early editions were really read to bits. So it is hardly surprising that only six perfect copies of the first edition exist. A few months ago a copy sold at Sotheby’s in London for £6800. The most beautiful one in existence is that famed copy I purchased eighteen months ago from Sir George Holford. I believe if one of the half-dozen perfect first editions were offered in public sale to-day it would easily bring from $40,000 to $45,000.
About five years ago the illness of an English barber’s wife brought to light a first edition of Pilgrim’s Progress which was in good condition, except that it lacked two pages. In the little town of Derby lived this barber, daily plying the trade of his ancestors. Between the lathering and the gossiping he found little time and inclination to read, but sometimes when business was not so brisk as usual he listlessly ran through a small stack of books which he inherited along with the shop. Old-fashioned in text, some with odd pictures, and leaves missing, he thought them rather funny, and occasionally showed them to customers who shared his amusement. One day someone suggested the books were interesting because they were old, and—following the popular fallacy of which I have spoken—must be valuable. He had heard of a man who once paid two pounds for a book!
But the barber shrugged his shoulders and said he had plenty to do without chasing about trying to sell old, worn-out books. Then came a day when his wife took to her bed and the doctor was hurriedly sent for. While waiting for him the barber tried to think of some way he might amuse his wife. As he went into the shop his eyes fell first upon the books on a low shelf. When the doctor arrived he found his patient’s bed loaded down with books, and she was reading a copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The doctor was a lover of books in a small way; he felt there was something unusual about this copy. He insisted it should be sent to Sotheby’s in London for valuation. Even then the barber believed he was wasting both time and money.
Finally Sotheby’s received a package accompanied by a letter, painstakingly written in an illiterate hand, with small i’s throughout, and guiltless of punctuation. He was sending this copy, he wrote, because a friend was foolish enough to think it might be worth something. Of course it wasn’t. He had inherited it from his people, and his people were poor. They couldn’t have had anything valuable to leave him. If, as he believed, it was worthless, would they please throw it away, and not bother to return it, or waste money answering him? I don’t know what his direct emotional reaction was when they replied saying his old book was worth at least £900—more than $4000—and that they would place it in their next sale. Perhaps he was stunned for a time. Anyway, weeks passed before they received a rather incoherent reply. I happened to be in London when it was sold, and I paid £2500—about $12,000—for the copy. I later learned that the barber was swamped for months with letters from old friends he had never heard of before, each with a valuable book to sell him.
As collectors grow older, they find it is better to buy occasionally and at a high price than to run about collecting tuppenny treasures. There is seldom any dispute about the worth of a rare book. Many collectors, however, feel collecting has a value other than monetary; it keeps men young, and as the years pass it proves to be a new type of life insurance.
The late Mr. W. A. White of New York, until his death a few months ago, was as vigorous at eighty-three as he had been thirty years before. He combined a quality of youth with his extraordinary knowledge of books and literature. His wonderful library would take away the load of years from a Methuselah. Even to read over the partial list of his treasures, which was recently published, would have a distinctly rejuvenating effect. Mr. Henry E. Huntington was another successful man who practically gave up his business interests to devote himself to the invigorating pastime of book collecting. He collected so rapidly that no young man could follow in his steps! Even my uncle Moses grew younger and younger as he sat year after year surrounded by books.
Rare books are a safe investment; the stock can never go down. A market exists in every city of the world. New buyers constantly crop up. The most ordinary, sane, and prosaic type of business man will suddenly appear at your door, a searching look in his eye, a suppressed tone of excitement in his voice. Like the Ancient Mariner, he takes hold of you to tell his story—for he has suddenly discovered book collecting. And if it happens to be at the end of a very long day, you feel like the Wedding Guest, figuratively beating your breast the while you listen. He returns again and again, enthralled by this new interest which takes him away from his business. If he is wealthy, he already may be surfeited with luxuries of one sort or another; but here is something akin to the friendship of a charming and secretive woman. He takes no risk of becoming satiated; there is no possibility of being bored; always some new experience or unexpected discovery may be lurking just around the corner of a bookshelf.