A. S. W. R.

CONTENTS

PAGE
[I]Talking of Old Books3
[II]A Million Dollar Bookshelf35
[III]Sold to Dr. R!68
[IV]Some Literary Forgeries98
[V]Among Old Manuscripts134
[VI]American Children’s Books179
[VII]Old Bibles210
[VIII]Why America Buys England’s Books 243
[IX]The Collector’s Best Bet264
[Index]301

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page of the Gutenberg Bible, Showing the Ten
Commandments		[Frontispiece]
Moses Polock in His Bookshop[6]
The Infant Bibliophile[10]
Stan V. Henkels[12]
Moses Polock[18]
Grolier Binding[22]
Original Manuscript of Keats’s Famous Sonnet to
Haydon		[41]
From a Letter by Shelley Speaking of Keats[42]
Bookroom at 1320 Walnut Street, Philadelphia[44]
A. Edward Newton[46]
Letter of Dr. Samuel Johnson to David Garrick[48]
Bookroom at 273 Madison Avenue, New York[56]
Page from Original Manuscript of Charles Lamb’s
“The Triumph of the Whale”		[62]
Page from Original Manuscript of Handel’s
“Messiah”		[69]
Page from Original Manuscript of Wagner’s “Die
Meistersinger”		[73]
Book Auction at the Anderson Galleries, New York[76]
Thomas E. Kirby on the Rostrum[80]
“The Biblio-fiends”: Drawing by Oliver Herford
for Dr. Rosenbach’s “Unpublishable Memoirs”		[82]
Sotheby’s Auction Room in London[84]
Shakespeare Window at 1320 Walnut Street,
Philadelphia		[86]
Original Manuscript of Oscar Wilde’s Sonnet “On
the Sale by Auction of Keats’ Love Letters”		[94]
Christopher Morley[94]
Letter of Keats to Fanny Brawne[96]
Last Page of Letter Written by Cervantes[101]
Original Drawing by Daumier of Don Quixote[102]
From a Letter in the Autograph of George
Washington		[106]
Page from a Letter of Thackeray to Mrs. Brookfield[110]
Page from Original Manuscript of Oscar Wilde’s
“Salomé”		[113]
Dedication of Oscar Wilde’s “The Sphinx” to Mrs.
Patrick Campbell		[115]
Forgery of Shakespeare Manuscript by William
Henry Ireland		[123]
Book Belonging to the Lord Chamberlain, of Whose
Company Shakespeare Was a Member		[126]
Letter of Franklin from Philadelphia, 1775[135]
Page of Franklin’s Work Book [138]
Page from Original Manuscript of Conrad’s
“Victory”		[144]
Page from Original Manuscript of Conrad’s
“Lord Jim”		[145]
Only Uncut Shakespeare Quarto Known[147]
Presentation Inscription to Elizabeth Boyle in
“The Faerie Queene,” in the Autograph of
Edmund Spenser		[150]
Original Manuscript of Walt Whitman’s “By
Emerson’s Grave”		[152]
Page from Manuscript of Dickens’s “Pickwick
Papers”		[156]
Owen D. Young[158]
Dickens’s Rhyme to Mr. Hicks, Prefixed to the
Manuscript of “Pickwick Papers”		[159]
Last Letter Written by Charles Dickens[160]
“The Dying Clown”: Original Drawing by Robert
Seymour for Dickens’s “Pickwick Papers”		[160]
Original Manuscript of Robert Burns’s Poem
“Bannockburn”		[162]
Vault at 273 Madison Avenue, New York[164]
Page from Original Manuscript of Mark Twain’s
“Tom Sawyer Abroad”		[165]
Letter of Poe Submitting “Epimanes” to the “New
England Magazine,” with Part of Manuscript		[169]
Page from Original Manuscript of Joyce’s “Ulysses”[171]
Stanzas from Original Manuscript of “The Rubáiyát
of Omar Khayyám,” by Edward Fitzgerald		[175]
Manuscript Title Page of Hawthorne’s “Wonder
Book”		[180]
Title Page of “Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes”[188]
Wilberforce Eames[192]
Title of “The Glass of Whiskey”[193]
Two Pages from “The Infant’s Grammar”[200]
Title Page of “The Uncle’s Present”[204]
Page from “Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of
Plain and Perfect Pronunciation”		[208]
First Page of Cicero, “De Officiis,” Printed on
Vellum, Mainz, 1465		[216]
Belle da Costa Greene[218]
Leaf from an English Biblical Manuscript of the
Ninth Century		[222]
Carved and Polychromed Wooden Binding of the
Liesborn Gospels		[224]
Leaf from Block Book, Fifteenth Century[227]
Special Dedication Page to Sixtus IV, of Jenson’s
Bible		[232]
Woodcut, “Judith and Holofernes,” from Caxton’s
“Golden Legend”		[233]
“Jack Juggler,” 1555—the Only Copy Known[247]
Page of the Original Manuscript of White’s
“Natural History of Selborne”		[251]
Page from a Fourteenth-Century Manuscript of
Thomas Occleve’s “Poems,” Showing a Portrait
of Chaucer		[252]
Henry E. Huntington[254]
A Chaucer Manuscript in Original Binding[256]
Letter Signed with Initials of George (Beau)
Brummell		[258]
The English Library in Dr. Rosenbach’s Home[260]
Manuscript of Arnold Bennett’s Unpublished Play[262]
Tea-Ship Broadside[266]
Tankard Presented to George Washington by the
Reverend Dr. Green		[268]
Engraved Title of Captain John Smith’s “History
of Virginia”		[278]
First Map of New York City Engraved in America[282]
George Washington’s Copy of “Proceedings of the
Convention”		[285]
Letter Signed by Button Gwinnett, Bought for
$51,000		[286]
Grant’s Telegram to Stanton Announcing the
Surrender of Lee		[298]

BOOKS AND BIDDERS

I

TALKING OF OLD BOOKS

“Genius?” The tall old man with the fan-shaped beard looked eagerly at his companion, then settled back more heavily against the rows and rows of old books lining the walls to the ceiling on all sides of the room. “Of course Edgar was a genius, but in spite of being a gambler and a drunkard—in spite of it, I tell you!”

The other, a thin man of lesser years, his long, inquiring face meditative in the twilight, nodded.