Not knowing much myself, I have found it wise not to try to beat the expert; it is like trying to beat Wall Street—it cannot be done. How can an outsider with the corner of his mind compete with one who is playing the game ever and always? The answer is simple—he can’t; and he will do well not to try. It is better to confess ignorance and rely upon the word of a reliable dealer, than to endeavor to put one over on him. This method may enable a novice to buy a good horse, although such has not been my experience. I think it was Trollope who remarked that not even a bishop could sell a horse without forgetting that he was a bishop. I think I would rather trust a bookseller than a bishop.
And speaking of booksellers, they should be regarded as Hamlet did his players, as the abstract and brief chronicles of the time; and it would be well to remember that their ill report of you while you live is much worse than a bad epitaph after you are dead. Their stock in trade consists, not only in the books they have for sale, but in their knowledge. This may be at your disposal, if you use them after your own honor and dignity; but to live, they must sell books at a profit, and the delightful talk about books which you so much enjoy must, at least occasionally, result in a sale. Go to them for information as a possible customer, and you will find them, as Dr. Johnson said, generous and liberal-minded men; but use them solely as walking encyclopædias, and you may come to grief.
I have on the shelves over yonder a set of Foxe’s “Martyrs” in three ponderous volumes, which I seldom have occasion to refer to; but in one volume is pasted a clipping from an old newspaper, telling a story of the elder Quaritch. A young lady once entered his shop in Piccadilly and requested to see the great man. She wanted to know all that is to be known of this once famous book, all about editions and prices and “points,” of which there are many. Finally, after he had answered questions readily enough for some time, the old man became wise, and remarked, “Now, my dear, if you want to know anything else about this book, my fee will be five guineas.” The transaction was at an end. Had Quaritch been a lawyer and the young lady a stranger, her first question would have resulted in a request for a retainer.
But I am a long time in coming to my old catalogues. Let me take one at random, and opening it at the first page, pick out the first item which meets my eye. Here it is:—
Alken, Henry—Analysis of the Hunting Field. Woodcuts and colored illustrations. First edition, royal 8vo. original cloth, uncut. Ackerman, 1846. £2.
It was the last work but one of a man who is now “collected” by many who, like myself, would as soon think of riding a zebra as a hunter. My copy cost me $100, while my “Life of Mytton,” third edition, I regarded as a bargain at $50. Had I been wise enough to buy it five and thirty years ago, I would have paid about as many shillings for it.
With sporting books in mind it is quite natural to turn to Surtees. His “Jorrocks’ Jaunts and Jollities” is missing from this catalogue, but here are a lot of them. “Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour” in full levant morocco, extra, by Tout, for three guineas, and “Ask Mamma” in cloth, uncut, for £2 15s. “Handley Cross” is priced at fifty shillings, and “Facey Romford’s Hounds” at two pounds—all first editions, mind you, and for the most part just as you want them, in the original cloth, uncut. My advice would be to forget these prices of yesteryear, and if you want a set of the best sporting novels ever written (I know a charming woman who has read every one of them) go at once to them that sell.
But while we are thinking of colored-plate books, let us see what it would have cost us to secure a copy of À Beckett’s “Comic History of Rome.” Here it is, “complete in numbers as originally published,” four guineas; while a “Comic History of England,” two volumes, bound by Riviere from the original parts, in full red levant morocco, extra, cost five guineas. I have tried to read these histories—it cannot be done. It is like reading the not very funny book of an old-time comic opera (always excepting Gilbert’s), which depended for its success on the music and the acting—as these books depend on their illustrations by Leech. It is on account of the humor of their wonderfully caricatured portraits of historic personages, in anachronistic surroundings, that these books live and deserve to live. What could be better than the landing of Julius Cæsar on the shores of Albion, from the deck of a channel steamer of Leech’s own time?
Did you observe that the “History of Rome” was bound up from the original parts? This, according to modern notions, is a mistake. Parts should be left alone—severely alone, I should say. I have no love for books “in parts,” and as this is admitted heresy, I should perhaps explain. As is well known, some of the most desired of modern books, “Pickwick” and “Vanity Fair” for example, were so published, and particulars as to one will indicate the reason for my prejudice against all books “in parts.”
In April, 1916, in New York, the Coggeshall Dickens collection was dispersed, and a copy of “Pickwick” in parts was advertised, no doubt correctly, as the most nearly perfect copy ever offered at a public sale. Two full pages of the catalogue were taken up in a painstaking description of the birthmarks of this famous book. It was, like most of the other great novels, brought out “twenty parts in nineteen,”—that is, the last number was a double number,—and with a page of the original manuscript, it brought $5350. When a novel published less than a century ago brings such a price, it must be of extraordinary interest and rarity. Was the price high? Decidedly not! There are said to be not ten such copies in existence. It was in superb condition, and manuscript pages of “Pickwick” do not grow on trees. All the details which go to make up a perfect set can be found in Eckel’s “First Editions of Charles Dickens.”