Very often these specialists have a change of heart. Their tastes broaden and they develop into the maddest collectors of all. Perhaps they suddenly realize the limited span of even a collector’s life, and find they are missing many enchanting bypaths along the highroad of books. When Richard Heber, the greatest bibliomaniac who ever lived, began his library, he was interested only in purely classical works. This English gentleman, although he has been dead for nearly one hundred years, still survives, enshrined in every true bookman’s heart. To recognize in oneself the symptoms of becoming “the fiercest and strongest of all bibliomaniacs”—so Heber is described—what secret joy and satisfaction! Heber’s library grew to enormous proportions, and when he died he left more than one hundred and fifty thousand volumes. Like Earl Spencer, it was necessary for him to have many houses, just to hold his books. Eight establishments there were, on the Continent and in England, each overrun with books. It was he who started the craze for duplicate copies, explaining that no one could afford to be without three copies of a book: one for show, the second for use, and the third for borrowers!
Everybody knows it is never quite safe to lend an umbrella, even to one’s dearest friend; the very act of lending seems to demoralize the borrower, who thinks not of the rainy days to come. If there is scant hope of ever seeing the umbrella again, how much less is there for a borrowed book—unless it happens to be a rare one! In that case it may be discovered several generations later, when the worried and loving owner, who by this time is reclining in some bookish Nirvana, cares little for earthly treasures. How many great literary finds have been made as a result of careless borrowers, I wonder!
PAGE FROM ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF CHARLES LAMB’S
“THE TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE”
There is the case of a certain Englishman who, several years ago, “borrowed” some early English books, printed by Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde, from the libraries of Lincoln and Peterborough Cathedrals. Lest they should be missed immediately, he left behind him the covers of the books, stuffed with newspapers and replaced on the shelves; the contents he carried away in his pockets. But one day someone browsing about chanced to take down these skeleton books. The fraud was discovered and reported to all book dealers and collectors in England, so they should be on the lookout. Some of the volumes, minus bindings, have already turned up at various sales, but where they all are no one knows. They may be discovered again somewhere, some day.
One day before the War a stranger called on Quaritch, one of the most celebrated and astute booksellers in London, to whose shop many rare books, in those days, naturally drifted. This man said he had an old book, but didn’t know its value. Quaritch looked at it, and immediately recognized it as the long-lost and valuable edition of the laws of Massachusetts, known to collectors as The General Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts, collected out of the Records of the General Courts, and printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1648. Inquiring of the owner what he thought he should receive for it, the man would not say; he desired Quaritch to make him an offer.
Quaritch was known far and wide for his fair dealing. Now he took into consideration various facts, the most important of which was that he might have to keep the volume for some years before reselling it. He therefore offered what he felt to be a perfectly fair price—£2500. The man looked at him in “wild surmise,” then gasped. He would have accepted fifty pounds for it! But now, he said, as he put on his hat, with the layman’s suspicious look in his eye, he would have to think it over. He was too frightened to make up his mind just then. He never went back to Quaritch, but shopped around a long time, selling it eventually for £5000—a little less than $25,000. Alfred Quaritch told me that it was this experience which cured him forever of making offers on books.
It is amazing how many of these first American editions have been found across the Atlantic. Several years ago, while in England, I was invited by a noted collector to inspect his library. We had been talking books for hours, and as the twilight approached, did not think to turn on the lights. I got up to leave and stumbled against a folio volume which someone had carelessly left on the floor. I carried it quickly to the window to see what it was. Opening the old calf binding in the fading light, I read the written inscription on the title page: “This book was used in the Trial of the Earl of Bellomont, Governor of New York.” It was, to my astonishment, my uncle Moses’ old bête-noir, the very rare First Laws of New York, printed by William Bradford in 1694. I was extremely pleased with this volume, and suggested to the owner that inasmuch as it was a New York book, and not particularly interesting to him, he might care to part with it, which to my joy he gracefully did.
Printer Bradford has the distinction of being the first in both Philadelphia and New York. His earlier works, published in Philadelphia, loudly proclaim the hatred he had for some of the Quakers of his day. He was constantly bringing out tracts against them. When they threatened to jail him he found it necessary to leave the City of Brotherly Love, and settled in New York. Several years ago I attended a sale in Philadelphia and came across a book which no one seemed to know anything about. I showed it to several other collectors, who pushed it aside, believing it worthless, merely an old book. The name of the printer or the place was not upon the title page; I recognized it, however, as coming from Bradford’s famous press.
It was a scurrilous attack on one Samuel Jennings, Quaker, printed by Bradford in New York in 1693. Entirely composed in rhyme, by John Philley, it was lengthily titled: A Paraphrastical Exposition in a Letter from a Gentleman in Philadelphia to his Friend in Boston concerning a certain Person who compared himself to Mordecai. I could not remember ever having seen an earlier-dated book published in New York. Here, then, was a first, which was valuable from three standpoints. It was the only copy known; it was probably the first book printed in New York; it was the earliest poetical production of the New York press. I am having a reprint made, so that it will be accessible to all students of history.