The discovery by Dr. Rosenbach of this Prologue shows that the days of romance in book-hunting are not over. It is not to be found in the British Museum. So far as we know, it is the only copy in existence. Rosy has declined to sell it, though tempting offers have been made, for he is a booklover as well as a bookseller.
That he is a rare judge of human nature, too, is evidenced by a little card over his desk on which is printed the text,—
“It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his way then he boasteth.”—Proverbs xx. 14.
That is exactly what I did when I secured from him my “Robinson Crusoe,” the first edition in two volumes, with the third, which may not be Defoe’s. It lacks one “point” perhaps: the word “apply,” the last word on page 1 of the preface, is correctly spelled, not spelled “apyly,” as in some copies I have seen. The matter, I believe, is not clear. The type may have been correctly set at first and have become corrupted in process of printing, or a few copies may have been so printed before the error, being noted, was corrected.[6] After page 304, of Volume 1, the paper is of thinner and poorer quality than in the pages preceding it. The three volumes are clean, the binding contemporary calf, the folding maps immaculate, and the first two volumes were once the property of “Mr. William Congreve.” Altogether it is a book of which this collector “boasteth.”
For some unexplained reason I have never been able to buy as many books from Walter Hill of Chicago as I should like. He is one of the most amiable and reliable men in the business. His catalogues issued from time to time are delightful. He once put me under an obligation which I have not yet repaid and which I want to record.
Several years ago I met him in the streets of Philadelphia and said to him, “Hello! what are you doing here? Are you buying or selling?”
“Both,” said he; “I bought some nice books only a few minutes ago at Sessler’s.”
“Don’t tell me,” I cried, “that ‘Oliver Twist,’ that presentation copy to Macready, was among them.”
“It was,” said he; “why, did you want it?”
“Want it!” said I; “I have just been waiting for my bank account to recover from a capital operation, to buy it.”