Another point to be remembered is that the price of a book depends, not only on its scarcity, but also on the universality of the demand for it. And once again I may take the “Vicar” as an example of what I mean. The “Vicar” is not a scarce book. For from six to eight hundred dollars, dependent upon condition, one could, I think, lay his hands on as many as ten copies in as many weeks. It is what the trade call a bread-and-butter book—a staple. There is always a demand for it and always a supply at a price; but try to get a copy of Fanny Burney’s “Evelina,” and you may have to wait a year or more for it. It was the first book of an unknown young lady; the first edition was very small, it was printed on poor paper, proved to be immensely popular, and was immediately worn out in the reading; but there is no persistent demand for it as there is for the “Vicar,” and it costs only half as much.
In reading over whatever I have written on the subject of the prices of rare books, I am aware that my remarks may sound to some like a whistle—a whistle to keep up my courage at the thought of the prices I am paying. But so long as the “knockout” does not get a foothold in this country,—and it would immediately be the subject of investigation if it did, and be stopped, as other abuses have been,—the prices of really great books will always average higher and higher. “Of the making of many books there is no end,” nor is there an end to the prices men will be willing to pay for them.
V
“WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN”
ON a cold, raw day in December, 1882, there was laid to rest in Brompton Cemetery, in London, an old lady,—an actress,—whose name, Frances Maria Kelly, meant little to the generation of theatre-goers, then busy with the rising reputation of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. She was a very old lady when she died—ninety-two, to be exact; she had outlived her fame and her friends, and few followed her to her grave.
I have said that the day was cold and raw. I do not know certainly that it was so; I was not there; but for my sins I have passed many Decembers in London, and take the right, in Charles Lamb’s phrase, to damn the weather at a venture.