I realized, even then, that these were words of wisdom in the book game. Many times I have thought of his oft-repeated, laconic statement: “There are always books to fit every purse.”
There are hundreds of types of books to collect: volumes as yet unnoticed in the auction room, which lie neglected year in, year out, upon the bookseller’s shelf, and which are disregarded by the conventional collector. They are waiting for the man with imagination to discover them. And many of them will eventually come into their own. My uncle and others of his day could not foresee the slavish manner in which some collectors would in later years pursue, with neither rhyme nor reason, every volume on any arbitrary list. Imagine buying books other than those of your own taste and inclination! It seems the veriest joke to have signposts on the way, indicating the books you should buy—just as though one or two men are able to choose fifty or even one hundred of the most outstanding books in English or any other literature. The difference of opinion is too great. To me such buying is about as thrilling as going to a doctor to have him dictate your diet.
“I have collected,” said my uncle, as we talked together a few years before he died, “along a path untrodden in my day—early American children’s books.” He walked about his dusty old shop for a few moments, then selected a diminutive volume, the Dying Sayings of Hannah Hill, Junior, published in Philadelphia in 1717. “Now,” he observed, “I will show you an example. I would have you know that this little book is damn rare.” He always hated and made fun of the stereotyped expressions in booksellers’ catalogues, such as “excessively rare,” “extremely rare,” “of utmost rarity,” “very rare,” and “rare.” He said it reminded him of the man who had eggs to sell, offering them as newly laid eggs, fresh eggs, and eggs. Uncle Moses described his books more colorfully. First of all they were “infernally rare,” then “damn, damn rare,” followed by “damn rare,” and finally “rare.”
This and similar picturesque language fitted his rugged personality and endeared him to everyone. How much more interesting it would be if modern cataloguers used their imagination when describing the degree of rarity of an old book.
In his younger days Uncle Moses had had a most unusual opportunity to gather together many early books published expressly for children. When he succeeded to the business of the Philadelphia publishers, McCarthy and Davis, in 1851, the stock included a number of early American juveniles. You see, McCarthy and Davis were successors to Johnson and Warner, who succeeded the original firm established by Jacob Johnson in 1780. It was noted for its children’s books, so you can imagine the varied juvenile curiosities my uncle inherited.
Even when my brothers and sisters and I were very small children, Uncle Moses remembered our birthdays and other anniversaries always with a pretty little book. Although we were all taught to care for and really honor our books from the time we could hold them in our hands, it was to my eldest sister, Rebecca, and to me that he gave the most valuable and entertaining volumes. I have kept every one of them; each bears his inscription in beautiful, finely printed letters, “From Uncle Mo.”
My sister was early imbued with the book-hunting spirit, and I have often found her in some little secondhand store in Philadelphia quietly looking through piles of books in the hope of securing something quaint, something unusual and perhaps hitherto unknown. Her searches were not fruitless either.
These book-hunting expeditions were adventures for us. We thought it great fun to add to our little library so charming and tiny a pamphlet as, for instance, The History of Ann Lively and her Bible, which was sold in 1830 for one half cent, and issued in New York in a somewhat proselyting manner by the American Tract Society. It was a red-letter day in our lives if we could find some curious example to flaunt before the amused face of Uncle Moses. But the occasion was rare, indeed, when we found a book which he did not already own.
It was many years ago that I took Uncle Moses’ tip to start collecting early American children’s books. Hence I am some leagues ahead of those who got a later start. Many collectors are only now beginning to rub their eyes and to wake up to the fascination which these tiny volumes offer to book lovers. Early American juveniles are unusually interesting for several reasons. To begin with, they give such naïve samples of the mental food our poor ancestors lived upon in the dim days of their childhood.
Take, for instance, a small volume published in 1738 by Samuel Phillips, called History of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Epitomized; for the Use of Children in the South Parish at Andover. The author says that “his great Lord and Master had commanded his Ministers to feed his Lambs as well as his Sheep.” But what anæmic feeding! He sets before his particular lambs sixty pages of the most indigestible food ever concocted, consisting of questions on and answers to the most abstruse metaphysical, philosophical, and controversial subjects! Subjects which are no nearer solution to-day than when the Rev. Samuel Phillips propounded them for the benefit of his bewildered little lambs of Andover Parish one hundred and eighty-nine years ago!