He seemed surprised, and did not answer for some moments. Then he asked me, “How much do you intend to bid? I warn you, if it’s too low I’ll buy it myself.”
I answered weakly, “Five thousand pounds.”
He opened his eyes wide. “That is a bid,” he said, “and I’ll get it for you.”
Then came the day of the auction in London. I remember sitting next to Quaritch, witnessing the battle of wits and bids at Sotheby’s. I was shaking like the proverbial aspen leaf, to a degree that I have never done since. The bidding on the folio opened at £500. After what seemed an interminable length of time, it was knocked down to Quaritch for £3600. I was so completely overcome with joy that I had to walk around the block for air and refreshment to buck me up. This was a handsome copy, bound in morocco by Bedford, a celebrated craftsman of the 70’s.
I recall, too, Harry Elkins Widener’s pleasure when this folio passed finally into his possession. I think of all the books of his fine collection, he valued this one the most. Years later, when we paid £8600—a little under $43,000—at the Baroness Burdett-Coutts’s sale, the record price for a Shakespeare folio, I received my brother Philip’s cable, advising me of our luck, without a tremor.
Fifteen years had rolled by; much water had run under the bridge. Poor Quaritch, my dearest friend in the book business, had passed away, only forty-two years old when he died. His death was a great loss to the world of rare books.
The price of a first folio indicates the trend of values in the English market, just as the Boucher Molière, 1734, shows the state of the French market, while the Dante printed in Foligno, 1472, tells the tale of the Italian market. These books are always rising in value, and it is the rapidity of their change in price that shows which way the wind is blowing. To-day, when the condition of a book is everything and collectors pay more attention to it than to anything else, fine first folios of Shakespeare are judged by these three points: First, the copy must have its full number of leaves, each page perfect, without facsimile. Second, the binding. It is, of course, more desirable in the original binding, or, next, rebound in the eighteenth century, or, lastly, in a good modern binding. In years to come the original binding will be the chief of all desiderata. Third, the folio must be of adequate size, about thirteen by eight and a quarter inches. A quarter of an inch one way or another can spell tragedy to the fanatical collector. If you are lucky enough to find a first folio having all three of these qualities, the gods are with you. I have been fortunate to procure such an one, the celebrated copy from Sir George Holford’s library. It is perfect in every detail. It is exceptional in having the blank leaves, known in no other copy; its original old calf binding is without a single blemish.
This is the finest first folio known to exist. It is the cornerstone of a collection of Shakespeare’s works which I have been gathering for many years. I remember the excitement when we exhibited in our Philadelphia show window the four folios, each in its original binding, the Poems, in a similar binding, and forty-one of the early quarto plays. The passionate interest shown by the man in the street indicated his never-flagging enthusiasm for anything pertaining to the greatest writer the world has known.
SHAKESPEARE WINDOW AT 1320 WALNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA