V
AMONG OLD MANUSCRIPTS
The First Folio had lain idly at anchor for two long, sultry days. Then, as a miniature gale swept the threatening clouds of a summer storm across Corson’s Inlet just before twilight on the second day, I bowed to the will of the fisherman’s god, whoever he may be, and hurried down the beach. Ordinarily I am not the sort of fisherman who waits for the psychological moment, but here it was upon me. After such weather, fish were sure to strike.
As I rowed out to my boat, I heard the telephone bell ring in the house I had just left. It had been an exhausting week for me; every bibliomaniac in the vicinity of Philadelphia had had a book to show and sell me, and my office had telephoned upon the slightest provocation. So when I heard that bell I pulled for the First Folio as though the devil were after me, and carefully rounding the bow, drew up on the port side away from the shore. Once aboard, the captain started the engine and made for the open sea. Even then I could not avoid seeing my man Harrison waving frantically from the beach.
LETTER OF FRANKLIN FROM PHILADELPHIA, 1775
Only the born Izaak Walton knows that lazy defiance of the world’s demands which comes with a rod and reel in one’s hand. Soon I was fishing; forgotten was the realm of books and manuscripts, forgotten the boring persistence of telephone bells, forgotten poor Harrison on the shore—forgotten everything in the world except the delight of a strike, the thrilling moments of playing my catch, and the breath-taking suspense of reeling in. How long I fished I don’t know. The sun emerged again in time to set, as the wind died out completely. I refuse to tell the number of fish I caught, for no one would believe me; but with the advent of a fine six-pounder I felt quite satisfied. I walked to a low deck chair and sat, resting. Perhaps I dozed for a few minutes; I don’t know. Suddenly I heard my name. I opened my eyes and was surprised to find the shore close by. We had forgotten to anchor and were drifting in.
“Doctah—doctah!” Harrison’s voice lost its slow drawl in excitement. “Mistah Lawlah done phone all dis afternoon! Why fo’ you don’ answah me, doctah? He say he done fin’ ole Mistah Franklin’s work book.”
How often had hopeful bookmen dreamed of one day discovering this work book of Benjamin Franklin! From my earliest days of collecting, I myself had persistently followed all rumors or clews concerning its whereabouts. None of them led anywhere. I even doubted that it still existed.
“Harrison,” I replied, “you can tell Mr. Lawler that I am not exactly partial to a fool’s errand on a hot day. Besides, I want to fish.” He went indoors, shouted my words over the telephone, then bolted down to the shore again.
“Oh, Lawdy, doctah, do come to de telephone! He sho am mad if you don’t.”
When I reached the house I explained once more to the manager of my Philadelphia place that I wished to be left alone to fish.
“Fish!” Mr. Lawler’s tone was derisive. “Why, if you’ll take the next train and meet me in Camden, I’ll show you where you can land a fish bigger than anything you could ever pull out of Corson’s Inlet!” This was bait for me, if not for the fish, and I asked for fuller information.
It seemed that after months of patient search Mr. Lawler had located the proprietor of an antique shop at Mount Holly, New Jersey, who owned an old copy book which he claimed was the original in which Franklin kept his accounts. Mr. Lawler had already seen it, and believed it to be authentic; and though I rather dreaded being disappointed once more, there was the chance of a find. I left for the station immediately; there I found no train due for hours. This was doubtless just the obstacle I needed to egg me on. I quickly hired an automobile and motored the seventy miles to Camden. Mr. Lawler met me. He seemed nervous and in a great hurry to make the final lap of our pilgrimage. We had twenty miles farther to go, and as we sped along we discussed the printer’s long-lost work book.
Franklin had mentioned its existence in various writings and letters. He had said that when he was a printer he kept all the records of his business in it.
At last we came to Mount Holly, and as we followed a quiet country street to its end I regretted the trip. The heat of the summer night was oppressive, and the entrance of the shop before which we stopped was the same as a thousand others scattered over the country. A dull light reflected against the usual sign, “Antiques,” hanging above the doorway. As I entered, a sensation of futility came over me. The rosewood whatnots holding their bits and pieces of glass or china depressed me; broken-down Windsors, old ships’ lanterns, hooked rugs, maple chests, and mahogany bureaus—was this atmosphere conducive to hope? I doubted it, and looked at Mr. Lawler with an accusatory eye. But so great was his excitement now that he had forgotten my existence. Suddenly his face lighted.
The proprietor of the shop, a calm, middle-aged man, came forward. He greeted me, smiling kindly. I must confess this smile revived hope. He seemed sure of himself in a quiet sort of way. I began to think that perhaps I hadn’t come on such a wild-goose chase after all. He was at his desk now, an old desk littered with papers. As his fingers searched through them I watched closely. Then, when he finally drew a long narrow book from beneath a pile of letters, I caught my breath.
I took it from him and went to the dim light. As I opened the battered covers I immediately recognized the work book of “the first civilized American,” as a recent biographer has so aptly called him. Not a page had been tampered with; it was entirely as it had been kept for Franklin, except that it was somewhat yellowed by its hundred and eighty years of age. Very carefully he had listed each work printed by his press. The title of every book, the number of copies made, and the quality of paper used, all commercial details, the costs and selling prices, were methodically written out. Other expenses, too, were set down.
PAGE OF FRANKLIN’S WORK BOOK
I looked at Mr. Lawler gratefully, and he, inwardly gloating, acted as though the finding of historically invaluable account books was all in an evening’s work. Of course, I could not leave without it, and I lost no time in buying it from the owner. Ten minutes later two jubilant bookmen climbed into the waiting automobile outside, making a triumphal exit as they carried off their treasure from the town of Mount Holly.
It was impossible to realize, when I purchased it, the full historical worth of Franklin’s account book. Not until I returned home, where I found leisure to study every word, to compare the contents with published facts concerning Franklin, did I recognize its true import and value to all students of printing in this country. But how did it happen to be in Mount Holly after all those years? This question obsessed me for a long time. The former owner, from whom I purchased it, could tell me nothing. I began searching through the records of Franklin’s career as a printer, and found he was in business with David Hall until 1766, at which time they dissolved their partnership. Then it was that he requested his great friend, James Parker, a noted printer in New York, to audit the accounts for him. Later Parker moved to Burlington, New Jersey, probably taking this account book with him. As Burlington is but a few miles from Mount Holly, it is not difficult to imagine how it might have been carried there by some one of Parker’s descendants.
Many people imagine they own things of great worth, especially if these things are old. They become excited when they run across a letter in some trunk which has not been opened for years. They are sure they have found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They are severely shocked, however, when the experienced dealer’s appraisal of the ancestral letters is extremely low. Indeed, the dealer is quite different from the law courts of England, which consider a man innocent until he is proved guilty. Every expert is more or less suspicious of any proffered autograph, especially if the so-called originals are supposed to have been written by celebrated figures of a century or so ago.
The false scent and the fruitless hunt, these the skillful buyer learns to avoid. Sometimes the letters are genuine—sometimes! But it is amazing, too, what tales otherwise honest men and women will fabricate in their eagerness to sell an autograph letter or document. They will swear to heaven that they remember that auspicious day, “over forty years ago, when I was but a mere child,” when the letter was first shown them. I have had many such experiences. Several times I have recognized straight forgeries, letters which were actually written quite recently, and clumsily made to appear old and important. However, there are times when one is due for a delightful surprise. What you believe to be idle vaporings turn out to be something delightfully different.
One day some years ago an old gentleman called upon me in New York. I happened to be walking through my reception room when he arrived, and did not catch his name. But in deference to his extreme age—he appeared to be more than ninety—I immediately invited him into the library. He was very plainly dressed, almost dingy in appearance. I entered into conversation with him and he seemed remarkably well informed. Every celebrity of the past sixty years he appeared to know intimately. We talked of prominent literary figures, of great political and financial leaders. He knew them all!
He even told me of an incident which occurred one evening at Windsor Castle when he dined with Queen Victoria. I looked at him queryingly, deploring that exaggerated ego which is the pleasure and consolation of old age. He continued with anecdotes of Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, and Lord Salisbury. Lincoln had been his friend, he said, as well as all the Presidents from Lincoln’s time; and every corner and crevice of the White House was known to him. I thought to myself that here was certainly an old liar, if ever there was one. A regular Baron Munchausen!
Then I naturally turned the conversation to old books and manuscripts. I mentioned a famous volume, and he said he owned it. I mentioned another; he owned that too! If he had been a younger man I should have had it clearly understood that I no longer cared to be taken for a credulous fool. But being a Philadelphian, of course I could not resist mentioning Benjamin Franklin. The syllables of his name had hardly left my lips when my visitor announced, with something of regret in his voice, that he had once owned the manuscript of Franklin’s famous Autobiography!
With unbelieving amazement I stared at him. Then it dawned upon me that the gentleman before me was a distinguished American diplomat and everything he said was the truth! As Minister to France many years ago, he had handled with extraordinary tact several serious political situations; one time editor of the New York Evening Post, he was also an essayist and historian. I leaned forward and said in a voice which made no attempt to disguise either my surprise or my pleasure, “Have I the honor of addressing the Honorable John Bigelow?”
Mr. Bigelow then told me how in an off moment he had been induced to sell, at what was then considered a high price, but which would be a mere trifle now, the immortal Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. He disposed of it through a New York firm of booksellers to E. Dwight Church of Brooklyn, and it is now in that bookman’s paradise, the library of Mr. Henry E. Huntington, at San Marino, California.
Speaking of manuscripts recalls a rather pretty story of how I unexpectedly secured an autograph essay by a favorite modern.
I remember one day in London, when I was calling upon my dear friend, H. W. Massingham, the beloved editor of the Nation. His editorial offices in Adelphi Terrace were directly beneath George Bernard Shaw’s apartments in the same old Georgian building. Knowing he was a good friend of Shaw, I asked if he had any of his manuscripts. Massingham looked at me oddly for a moment, as though my request had brought to his mind an entirely new train of thought, then replied, “Oh, yes!” He ran his hand to the bottom of an enormous waste-paper basket under his desk; it was filled to overflowing, as though it had not been emptied for days. He drew out a manuscript which he had thrown away, written in a familiar hand—Shaw’s article on the censorship of the press! He offered it to me as a present, and you will well understand that I accepted it eagerly. This little story should delight Bernard Shaw himself.
To-day it is unfortunate that almost all manuscripts are typed. There are, however, rare exceptions. The late Joseph Conrad was one of the very few authors who worked almost entirely in longhand. When I bought the manuscript of his book, Victory, at the Quinn sale in New York in 1924, I paid the highest price—$8100—ever given at auction for the manuscript of a living author. It was closely written on sheets that fill two bulky cases.
The average writer nowadays, after he has corrected the final draft of his work, has it copied by a competent stenographer and then makes any further correction on it he wishes. Many writers find it easier to create their stories directly upon the typewriter, while others dictate. The typewriter—what a curse it has become to the collector! A century from now it will be almost impossible to find the original autograph manuscripts of writers of to-day who stand the test of time. Who knows but that the styles will have changed, and the machine upon which a masterpiece was brought to life will be considered even more precious!
PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF CONRAD’S
“VICTORY”
PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF CONRAD’S
“LORD JIM”
No one knows exactly why there is hardly a scrap left of the original manuscripts of most of the writers of the Elizabethan period. Perhaps publishers in those days had one fault that is prevalent to-day. They may have been too close to their writers to be able to appreciate the value of the original draft, or perhaps they had scrap baskets like Massingham’s. Of Shakespeare’s writing only six or seven signatures are known, and these are attached to his will and other legal documents. They are priceless, and have been kept with great care at Somerset House and at the Record Office in London. How unfortunate it is that not a single line of his original work remains. What would collectors not give now for just one page of Hamlet, or even a short note in Shakespeare’s own handwriting! Surely, $500,000 would not be too much. Nor is there any manuscript left of either of his noted contemporaries, Christopher Marlowe and Robert Greene. Of these two, who opened the way for the greatest dramatist of all time, not even a signature remains. I was successful this year, however, in obtaining a letter of John Fletcher, who very probably collaborated with Shakespeare in the writing of Henry VIII. Fletcher addressed this rhymed epistle to the Countess of Huntingdon. For years it had been in an old English muniment room neglected and unsung; and it is really the nearest approach to Shakespeare I have been fortunate enough to find. When you think that hitherto not a signature of Fletcher’s had been known, it makes this find the more remarkable. There are, however, many relics of his great contemporary, Ben Jonson, early drafts of his celebrated plays, and many books are known in which he inscribed comments and notes.
ONLY UNCUT SHAKESPEARE QUARTO KNOWN, PUBLISHED IN
SHAKESPEARE’S LIFETIME
THE
Historie of Troylus
and Cresseida.
As it was acted by the Kings Maiesties
seruants at the Globe.
Written by William Shakespeare.
LONDON
Imprinted by G. Eld for R Bonian and H. Walley, and
are to be sold at the spred Eagle in Paules
Church-yeard, ouer against the
great North doore.
1609.
I have always been deeply interested in all that remains of the literary lights of the Elizabethan era, and especially in Edmund Spenser, another of the great masters of Shakespeare’s magnificent day.
Last year, when I was crossing to England on the Berengaria, another bookseller, truly a friendly enemy, met me on deck one morning, and by way of greeting, said: “Speaking of association copies, what would you give to own a presentation copy of the first edition of The Faerie Queene?”
“Why talk nonsense?” I replied. “It’s impossible. It doesn’t exist.” About two weeks later an eminent scholar who has made many great and outstanding discoveries in early English literature called at my hotel to see me, and invited me to go with him to inspect his fine collection. He spoke of one book in particular, which he was sure would interest me, but purposely neglected to say what it was. I arrived at his home and had hardly got beyond the front door when he placed in my hands a volume in its original binding of old calf. It was Spenser’s own copy of The Faerie Queene, dated 1590, with an inscription in his handwriting on the title page in Greek: “From the author to himself.” He had also presented this volume to Elizabeth Boyle, whom he married four years later. On a blank page toward the back of the book he gallantly wrote in French, “A sa mistresse,” and under this elegant heading had inscribed the complete first sonnet from his glorious Amoretti, beginning:—
Happy ye leaves when as those lilly Hands
That houlds my life in hir dead-doing might,
Shall handle you and hold in Love’s swete bandes
Like captives trembling at ye victors sight.
The Amoretti was not published until five years later, in 1595.
As I stood looking at The Faerie Queene I became quite speechless with surprise and delight, as no other presentation copy of Spenser was known to me. Almost before I could regain my equilibrium my host handed me another, a smaller volume. This was bound in old vellum, a quaint little English travel book. With a gasp I read upon the title page a presentation address to Gabriel Harvey, the poet’s dearest friend, and incidentally, the bitter literary enemy of Ben Jonson. It read: “The gift of Edmund Spenser, clerk to the Archbishop of Rochester, 1578.” What enhanced its preciousness was that Harvey had made notes throughout, commenting upon his happy friendship with Spenser. After such a startling introduction to his collection, I looked upon my friend, this learned book lover, with even greater admiration than before; and if he had further offered me a presentation copy of Hamlet I should not have been amazed. To-day these marvelous mementos of the Elizabethan era are treasured among the outstanding volumes in my library.
PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION TO ELIZABETH BOYLE
IN “THE FAERIE QUEENE” IN THE AUTOGRAPH OF
EDMUND SPENSER
One week later my friend the American bookseller called upon me at the Carlton Hotel in London.
“Hello,” I began. “You’re just the man I want to see. I’ve found a presentation copy of The Faerie Queene.”
“You unholy liar,” he said, not knowing whether to believe me or not.
“Yes,” I replied; “it is at your hand.” His hands trembled as he lifted the book from the table, and I could see his face change color as he read the magic lines in Spenser’s autograph.
An author’s manuscript will reveal just how his work was planned and built, as well as the fluid state of his mind at the time. Very often it reflects his attitude toward his subject, whether he wrote meticulously, carefully, or with assurance and ease. The early manuscripts of great writers are curiously alike in that they seldom show any large amount of correction or rewriting. When these men are young their very passion sweeps them along. But as they grow older they develop a certain attitude of critical acuteness which study brings, the experiences of life itself also cause them to be less sure. Very often they become the worst faultfinders, and tear their work to pieces to build and rebuild glorious phrases that later become household words. The bugaboo of rewriting comes with the years, accompanying the stern virtues of maturity.
In his later manuscripts you can almost see the author at work, bending over his pages, writing lines, whole paragraphs, then deleting them. These later manuscripts of noted men and women show not only blotted lines but entirely new readings. However, the notable phrase in the verses prefixed to the first folio of Shakespeare by his editors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, dated 1623, does not apply to most of the modern manuscripts. “And what he thought,” they wrote, “he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot on his papers.”
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF WALT WHITMAN’S
“BY EMERSON’S GRAVE”
There is also some impalpable quality in a great man’s handwriting which draws one to it; people who have never dreamed of collecting, who never heard of the collecting mania, will suddenly react to old letters and documents. They are mad to own them. Some human attraction exists in the written word of other years quite different from the appeal made by printing. This appeal is primarily emotional, rather than intellectual. Especially is this true of autograph letters. They naturally hold a more personal message, in that they interpret the spirit and reflect the period of the writer, who in informal letters is off his guard, quite unlike the mood that an author brings to his work when he knows it may be published. I have known people to weep with delight at the sight of one of those charmingly familiar letters written by Bobbie Burns. Indeed, I once became rather dizzy with joy myself, when I bought the Harry B. Smith Library, which included that famous letter of Charles Dickens about the inception of Pickwick, which he writes to his publishers, Chapman and Hall. It is dated 1836, and was written one Thursday evening from Furnival’s Inn, London. It says:—
Dear Sirs:—
Pickwick is at length begun in all his might and glory. The first chapter will be ready tomorrow.
I want to publish The Strange Gentleman. If you have no objection to doing it, I should be happy to let you have the refusal of it. I need not say that nobody else has seen or heard of it.
Believe me (in Pickwickian haste)
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
PAGE FROM MANUSCRIPT OF DICKENS’S “PICKWICK PAPERS”
This great letter is now in the collection of that famous man of affairs, fast becoming equally well known as a bibliophile, Mr. Owen D. Young.
When I read Dickens’s wonderful living message,—isn’t there a tremendous thrill in those words: “Pickwick is at length begun in all his might and glory,”—I never dreamed I should one day own all that is left of the original manuscript of the master’s greatest work, the Pickwick Papers. This, which Dickens wrote when he was but twenty-four years old, is without doubt the most valuable modern manuscript in existence. An earlier owner, the late Mr. W. A. White, abstracted from it a single leaf and presented it most generously to the British Museum. What a gracious tribute this was from an American collector!
When so many of the great English treasures have come to this side of the water, how ingratiating was so splendid a gift! There the Pickwick page lies, in a glass show case, in the British Museum, and any day one may see Dickens’s never-failing admirers crowding in front of it to read and thrill to the broadly penned words, now browned and a bit faded. How rapidly the words seem to fly across the pages of this manuscript! You can’t but feel, as you read, that Dickens was almost divinely chosen to give to the world a fount of humor which in its very humanity will delight man, woman, and child throughout the years. All that is left of the manuscript is thirty-two leaves, which Dickens himself arranged into two chapters. When I read them I feel the closest union with Dickens the author; in these pages the period just before the coronation of Queen Victoria is made alive and vivid to us, bridging the world of yesterday to that of to-day.
The Pickwick Papers first appeared in serial form in 1836, issued monthly. I think he became weary writing them, although, heaven knows, there is nothing in the story which would give the reader the slightest inkling of this. But prefixed to my manuscript is a hitherto unpublished verse. Dickens marks it “Private and Confidential,” and it is written for the benefit of one Mr. Hicks, as follows:—
Oh, Mr. Hick
——S, I’m heartily sick
Of this sixteenth Pickwick
Which is just in the nick
For the publishing trick,
And will read nice and slick,
If you’ll only be quick.
I don’t write on tick,
That’s my comfort, avick!
July 26, ’37
DICKENS’S RHYME TO MR. HICKS, PREFIXED TO THE
MANUSCRIPT OF THE “PICKWICK PAPERS”
At the auction sale of the library of the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts in 1923, in London, I paid £3700 for the manuscript of Dickens’s The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain. He had given it, the fifth and last of his series of Christmas books, to the baroness in 1850. Ten years after Pickwick, Dickens wrote this story, and the manuscript demonstrates what I have said earlier about the painstaking and less spontaneous work of an author as he grows older. The manuscript of The Haunted Man is filled with blottings, deletions, and corrections. It is now in the choice collection of Mr. Carl H. Pforzheimer of New York.
OWEN D. YOUNG
I do not hesitate to prophesy that in time the works of Dickens will be the most valuable after Shakespeare. He is one of the few English authors whose appeal is universal. Even in translation his works are wonderful, and they have been translated into almost every language, keeping their peculiar raciness, though they must sacrifice their English idiom. Dickens will be read always, by the man in the street as well as by the scholar.
LAST LETTER WRITTEN BY CHARLES DICKENS
Speaking of the generosity of Mr. White in presenting the Pickwick leaf to the British Museum recalls to my mind the magnificent gift of Mr. John Gribbel of the Glenriddel Burns manuscripts to Scotland. The great liberality displayed by this Philadelphian should do much to cement international relations. All the friends of Bobbie Burns in Scotland—and they are legion—gave up hope when these manuscripts were purchased by Mr. Gribbel, believing them lost to the homeland forever. You can imagine the thrill in every Scotchman’s heart, from Sidney to Edinburgh, when the stirring news came, hot over the cable, that they were to be returned to their native land.
“THE DYING CLOWN”: ORIGINAL DRAWING BY ROBERT
SEYMOUR FOR DICKENS’S “PICKWICK PAPERS”
(Seymour committed suicide after finishing this drawing)
When Mr. Gribbel bought this collection in 1914, I was naturally disappointed that I did not secure the Glenriddel manuscripts myself. But I was as delighted as any bra’ laddie directly descended from the celebrated ploughboy when I learned of Mr. Gribbel’s gift.
However, there are always compensations in this game if you have the patience to wait. I recently secured probably the greatest collection of Burns manuscripts, the one formerly belonging to that fine student and most charming of men, Mr. R. B. Adam, of Buffalo, New York. I had known of this collection all my life, but never dreamed that I should one day own it.
It includes the original manuscripts of the great poems of Burns that are enshrined in the souls of every lover of true poetry. Perhaps the foremost is the original draft of “Tam o’ Shanter,” written on twelve leaves, which Burns presented to Cardonnel Lawson in 1790. There is also the appealing “There Was a Lass and She Was Fair”; the beautiful poem, “The Last Time I Came O’er the Moor”; the exquisite lyric, “To a Woodlark”; and that lovely characteristic poem, “Wilt Thou Be My Dearie,” in which Burns himself especially delighted. Indeed, these original drafts truly give Burns “an immortal life in the hearts of young and old,” and when I read and reread in the poet’s own hand Burns’s “On Hearing a Thrush on a Morning’s Walk,” the magnificent “Address to Edinburgh,” and the sonorous “Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots,” I am thrilled to the marrow.
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF ROBERT BURNS’S POEM,
“BANNOCKBURN”
It is difficult to describe the emotions aroused when I read the original of that stirring battle song, the address at Bannockburn of Robert Bruce to his troops, which begins, “Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.” This manuscript the poet presented to his sister-in-law, with the inscription, “To Mrs. G. Burns, from her brother, the author.” Burns used to wander through Leglen Wood, supposed to be the haunt of Wallace, and confessed having visited it “with as much devout enthusiasm as ever a pilgrim did the shrine of Loretto.”
My collection contains poems of noble sublimity and heart-melting tenderness, such as the first poem known to have been written by Burns, and one of his most charming, entitled, “Once I Lov’d a Bonnie Lass.” There are two, however, which make a terrific appeal to me. One is the poem in which he was inspired by the American Revolutionary War, beginning:—
No Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
No lyre Eolian I awake,
’Tis Liberty’s bold note I swell,
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take.
The other is in some respects the favorite one of all lovers of Burns, the magnificent “For a’ That and a’ That.” I keep this collection and the poet’s priceless letters under lock and key in my vault in New York, lest the whole Scottish nation awaken one day, rise up, and demand them.
It is sad that Burns received very little money for his poems when he was alive. How surprised he must be, and with what irony must he observe, if his spirit walks this way, the great sums which have passed from one hand to another in the exciting exchange of his manuscripts.
Our own Mark Twain always wrote under the greatest pressure. Like many other artists, he was in constant need of money, but unlike them, he held to a remarkably consistent gait in his writing. His manuscripts are unusual, they show but few changes and corrections. His stories came as “trippingly on the tongue” as his vital conversation, which was characteristically free and easy. I have the original manuscripts of Tom Sawyer Abroad, Pudd’nhead Wilson, and A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court. The second was written by the author under the title of “Those Extraordinary Twins,” and the last one was originally called “The Stranger’s Tale.” The few corrections made by Mark Twain do not seem especially happy ones to our modern eyes. In my opinion it would have been better if he had left alone the thoughts which God first gave him. There are whole scathing paragraphs in A Connecticut Yankee which were never published, but should be published.
VAULT AT 273 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK
PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF MARK TWAIN’S
“TOM SAWYER ABROAD”
Lovers of manuscripts all succumb to the magic beauty of those of Edgar Allan Poe. Most of them were written on long folio sheets in an exquisite and unaffected hand. So perfect and so fine is the rise and fall of the pen that his writing seems an imitation of copperplate in its evenness. I had an amusing experience, many years ago, after I bought one of the three known autograph copies of Poe’s poem, “Annabel Lee.” A dealer in Boston wrote to me, asking if I could come there to view this most interesting Poe manuscript. I made the appointment, arriving on an early morning train. When I reached the dealer’s shop he said he would not have the manuscript to show me until one o’clock. I decided to pass the time walking, to think out clearly just what I should pay him for it when the question of price came up.
As I wandered about the city I thought $1000 would be about right; I then imagined that this copy must be an especially beautiful one, and decided that $2000 was a fairer figure. But the more I considered it the more I coveted it, so I jumped to $3000, then $4000, and finally made $5000 my limit. When I returned to the shop he showed me a truly lovely autograph. I asked him what he wanted for it. He replied he would take $500, plus a ten per cent commission! It seemed preposterous to me, but I was so pleased I paid quickly, took the manuscript and returned to New York.
Some time later I went West with several very fine first editions. I also took the manuscript of “Annabel Lee.” The train rushed through the night and I found it difficult to sleep. This time I considered what price I should ask for this manuscript, and the sum a customer would pay for it. When the train reached Harrisburg I thought $1000 would be a very nice price, giving me a profit of about one hundred per cent. At Pittsburgh, thinking of the beauty of the poem, I ran my price up to $2000. Then I fell asleep. A jerky stop woke me at Fort Wayne, and immediately the Poe manuscript came to my mind. In the narrow confines of a Pullman berth I felt sure it was worth $3000. After all, what I had paid for it should be left out of the question, for it was a magnificent lyric, one of the finest productions of his genius. At last I reached Chicago, and up it went again, this time to $4000.
My customer lived in a suburb, and by the time I had reached his home I knew I could not part with “Annabel Lee” for less than $5000! This was the price I had been willing myself to pay for it. After selling him some very attractive books I showed him the “Annabel Lee.” His eyes glistened; he asked me the price. I bravely said, “Five thousand dollars.” He jumped at it quickly, just as I had at the $500 in Boston several months before. I was awfully amused, and told him about my journey and the workings of my mind; about my original purchase of the manuscript and the sum I had given for it, and how the price had progressed geographically.
He burst out laughing, took hold of my arm, and said, “I suppose I have something to be grateful for, at that! Thank God, I don’t live in San Francisco!”
What would this manuscript be worth to-day?
LETTER OF POE SUBMITTING “EPIMANES” TO THE “NEW ENGLAND
MAGAZINE,” WITH PART OF ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT
Another, a unique manuscript which came into my possession, is the original of Poe’s “Epimanes.”
This precious draft is now happily in the library of a collector whose taste is exquisite and faultless. The author has prefixed to the story a letter to the editor of the New England Magazine. Poe writes in part:—
I send you an original tale in hope of your accepting it for the N. E. Magazine. It is one of a number of similar pieces which I have contemplated publishing under the title “Eleven Tales of the Arabesque.” They are supposed to be read by the eleven members of a literary club, and are followed by the remarks of the company upon each.
This manuscript, too, is beautifully, clearly written, except that the letters are very small. It was not until some time after I bought it that I discovered one of the most tragic sentences I have ever read. Poe had folded over his manuscript several times. There are three tiny words inscribed in the lower left corner. One of the greatest masters of all time appeals to his editor, saying desperately, “I am poor.” These few pathetic words are enough to tear at the heartstrings of any collector.
A deadly malady which attacks all collectors at one stage or another is catalogitis. Here is a disease which will defy science as long as books and their ilk remain to be collected. In the beginning the symptoms are not grave. You will quietly open your mail one morning to find a pamphlet, perhaps from some local auctioneer, enumerating certain books he is offering for sale. From time to time other sales lists will be sent you, and one day when you have started to arrange your desk neatly you will be surprised that there are catalogues in nearly every drawer. You quickly decide to throw them out. But something, the most insidious germ of the disease, stays your hand. You have fallen a victim, merely in keeping them.
PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF JOYCE’S “ULYSSES”
Then follows what Leigh Hunt, more than half a century ago, called “one of the loftiest pleasures of the imagination,” hours spent with a pencil in hand and catalogues scattered about, as you read over, memorize, and check up the names of books and manuscripts you would like to buy if you could afford it—and sometimes do anyway. Catalogitis is never a waste of time. Collectors are rewarded sooner or later by an intensive study, especially of new catalogues hot from the bookseller. It is a great point of vantage to secure an advance copy, thus being in a position to forestall one’s fellow collectors. For years I have been desperately ill with catalogitis. Indeed, I am a hopeless case. I have reached a peculiar stage. I even order my overcoats made with an extra and unusually large pocket. A sort of literary marsupial, I carry my young—and old—catalogues in my pouch, never sure into what they may develop, as I bound from sale to sale.
I shall never forget the time when an English book dealer mailed me a catalogue which brought me luck immediately. Quite daft at the sight of it, I studied every item mentioned, then my eyes fell upon the description of a Benedict Arnold letter. According to the catalogue, this was the letter in which Arnold gave for the first time a truthful account of his treason, mentioning the £6000—less than $30,000—paid to him by the British. The letter was listed at only thirty pounds. I quickly cabled my brother Philip, who has a remarkable and unerring taste for fine things. He was in London at the time and was fortunate enough to secure it for me.
Arnold wrote rather complainingly to Lord North, the English prime minister, as follows:—
Your Memoralist, Influenced by Sentiments of Loyalty to the King and Attachment to the British Constitution, has sacrificed a handsome property in America ... and at the most Eminent hazard of his Life, Co-operated with Sir Henry Clinton, Commander in Chief of the British Army in America, which will appear by his official letters to Lord Sackville. But his Intentions and measures being discovered before they would be brought to a happy issue, which bid fair to put a fortunate end to the War in America. He was obliged to fly, and very narrowly, but fortunately, escaped from the Americans, and having joined the British Army in New York, the Commander in Chief was pleased to confer upon him the Rank of Brigadier General, which was approved by the King.... And your Memoralist begs leave further to observe that in Consideration of his Corps and Services, he has received from Government only six thousand pounds sterling, one thousand pounds of which he has expended in raising his Regiment.
Your Memoralist has not only sacrificed his fortune, but is deprived of Four Hundred and Fifty pounds sterling per Annum, which he was intitled to receive from Congress, as also a large tract of land, and by the decided part which he has taken, his Family have been Banished from America, and he has sacrificed his prospects for providing for them there, which were undoubtedly of equal if not of greater Importance to them than his Fortune, which with that of others has been given up by the late Administration for the desirable purpose of obtaining Peace.
The next day the London dealer received seventeen cabled offers for it. When Mr. Henry F. DePuy came into my library in New York soon after, I told him the story of the Benedict Arnold letter. One of the most generous of men, he asked me to place a price on it. I replied frankly that the price I paid for it was nothing short of ridiculous good fortune, that I believed if it were sold at auction in this country it would bring at least $1850. He offered to buy it from me at that figure, and we immediately closed the bargain. Three years later, when Mr. DePuy held his sale, I was pleased to see my judgment verified. The Benedict Arnold letter sold for $2850. It is now in the Huntington collection.
If you once make a find like this you become wedded to the reading of catalogues. The finest private collection of catalogues in the world is in Paris. It is the result of the tireless and exhaustive study of my friend Seymour de Ricci. He has gathered complete files of auction catalogues dating from the seventeenth century, from France, Germany, and England. Every room of his large apartment on the Rue Boissière is filled from floor to ceiling. He has even compiled a catalogue of catalogues. This stupendous work comprises more than forty thousand items. Commercial pamphlets are generally thrown into the wastebasket, but I doubt if book catalogues are ever thrown away. True collectors guard them as zealously as they do their rarest literary finds. I like to look back at some of the catalogues I have issued, and note the marked increase of price since certain items have left my hands. How I would like to buy back many books and manuscripts at the prices I sold them for!
STANZAS FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF “THE RUBÁIYÁT
OF OMAR KHAYYÁM” BY EDWARD FITZGERALD
This purchase of the Benedict Arnold letter was the beginning of a mad chase for American documents and historical papers which has become more frantic with the roll of years. Although great papers dealing with the history of England have always interested me intensely, those of American interest are dearest to my heart. It is a great and exciting adventure to collect noble relics of our country’s past. The chase is often more fascinating than the wildest exploits of the most experienced huntsman; sometimes the bag proves remarkable, far beyond one’s hopes and expectations. When I first started to collect Americana it did not enjoy its present vogue. In the early days you could buy amazingly important historical papers for a mere song. Nowadays everyone is seeking things American, from old New England bedsteads to Pennsylvania whiskey flasks. The spell seems to be on the nation, and this craving for Americana is extending to every collector.
The greatest purchase I ever made was an original certified copy of the Declaration of Independence. It is the only official copy extant, with the exception of that famous instrument now deposited for safekeeping in the Library of Congress. It was in 1911, when I was attending an afternoon session of the remarkable sale of the Robert Hoe collection in New York. In the midst of the bidding an attendant entered the room saying I was wanted at the telephone. It was my brother calling from Philadelphia, and his voice sounded so excited that I feared he had ill news for me.
A cable had just come from Berlin, he said, offering us this certified copy of the Declaration of Independence. It was the one sent to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in order that the independence of the American colonies should be recognized officially in that part of the world. It was signed by Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, Commissioners Plenipotentiary. Included in the lot was the only signed and attested copy of the original Articles of Confederation of the United States, the first provisional government of the colonies. I, too, was tremendously impressed, and my only question was: Were they authentic? In reply my brother told me they were to be sold by a direct descendant of Baron von Scolenberg, the minister of Frederick the Great, and that their authenticity was undisputed.
Although the price was high, we felt that we could not allow manuscripts of such tremendous national importance to escape us. Then my brother, with his usual business acumen, immediately cabled our agent to pay the money forthwith. Our excitement was intense until we received a reply confirming our purchase. Neither my brother nor I could sleep until the news was flashed over the wires the next morning. We did not realize the extent of our good fortune, however, until one of our competitors informed us he had sent a special messenger from London to Berlin to secure this great document. His disappointment was terrific when he learned that these precious papers had already been sold.
I do not think the price of $260,000 excessive for these great cornerstones of our country’s history. Some day they will be beyond the computation of dollars. What adds a further glamour to this tale is that only a few days later someone came to our office and offered us the original letter arranging for the transfer of Independence Hall from the State of Pennsylvania to the City of Philadelphia. The transfer of ground was for the historic building and the piece of land known as Independence Square, on which was erected the clock tower that then contained the most precious memento of our independence, the famous Liberty Bell. It gives the purchase price of this most hallowed building and ground at only $70,000.
When I think of the historic papers and documents, and the great literary manuscripts that have passed through my hands into those of our customers, I recall the words from Proverbs xx, 14, which is the motto of our house:—
“It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his way, then he boasteth.”