Opposite the library in a white stucco house with a narrow stairway and gothic arched windows is the sanctum of Mr. James F. Drake. He is a jovial old gentleman who knows more about the first editions of English and American authors than any other book dealer. It is his pride to be the first in New York to specialize in first editions, and he is as well known in London as on this side of the ocean. First editions inscribed by the authors line the book cases along the walls, and rare prints and pamphlets nod and invite you behind their shining glass cases.
Mitchell Kennerley
Some day (I hope in the near future) some one will write a true appreciation of Mitchell Kennerley, the great Pathfinder in the American publishing field. He has done more for us here than any other English book dealer ever anywhere, with the exception perhaps of Heineman in London. In America, Mitchell Kennerley remains unique. Endless is the list of English and American authors he introduced to his readers for the first time. We know, for instance, that Dutton’s sold in one month the complete first edition of Leonard Merrick’s collected works, and thousands of copies of his books since. But Mitchell Kennerley introduced him to us twelve years ago, when no one knew his name. Or Hergesheimer, a best seller ever since the Saturday Evening Post placed him among its regular contributors, but Mitchell Kennerley published his best seller of today many years ago. He gave us the tragic poets Middleton and Davidson, and no one has printed them since. The first part of his catalogue is a roll of honor of the English nineties. He always kept a sharp eye for American contemporary authors, and usually got the best of the work they had done and, I am sorry to say, ever will do. There is Harry Kemp, for instance. He didn’t beat his first book yet, published by Kennerley a half dozen years ago. Horace Traubel found his life’s dream materialized when Mitchell Kennerley published his diaries With Walt Whitman in Camden. Not to forget Alexander Harvey’s masterful short stories. One of them (The Toe) is worth a whole bookshelf of short stories. And dear Michael Monahan, whose charming books he published, whose magazine, The Papyrus, he gave a temporary home.
Mitchell Kennerley also claims the honor of having introduced Frank Harris to America.
Possessor of 60,000 Original Drawings
A new type of bookseller has developed during the last twenty-five years—a man who combines part of the knowledge of the antiquarian of yore with the qualities the modern collector and book buyer will request from his agent. Books and literary property have become commercial values equal to stocks which are listed upon the stock exchange; subject to corners created by shrewd buyers and holders, to fluctuations caused by selling en masse. The successful rare-book dealer of today must operate with his wares like a stock broker. The banker who starts his business with a limited capital and operates on a legal interest basis has very little chance to become rich. But if he succeeds in acquiring with his limited capital the entire stock of a mine which proves a success after he acquired it has equal chances to make money as the rare-book dealer who has had the good fortune to buy for a farthing the entire literary property of a man who proves a celebrity after his death and whose manuscripts are worth a hundred times their weight in gold.
Harry Stone is a book dealer of the new type. He acquired his knowledge here and there. The desire to wander from his earliest youth made him pass the entrance exam into the university of hard knocks. He always loved books. He was always buying books. Eagerly he absorbed books on books, articles about books and authors and ... Auction Prices Current. After he had acquired a collection of curious books which would fill the shelves of a good-sized store, he started his shop on Fourth Avenue, that avenue that once led to the Astor Library and that was lined with bookshops on both sides.
He not only appreciated the commercial value of books, but he read them. Especially those that were scarce and more valued than other works by the same authors. And he learned to respect the men who wrote these books. His shop became the gathering-place of literature. Wrecked hopes of authors and publishers found in Stone’s shop a safe harbor. He paid a fair price for everything of value offered him and soon he was known as the dealer in quaint and curious books and pamphlets.
Good fortune knocked on his door. One rich find came after another. He was able to supply collectors and other book dealers with long-sought-after items.
Recently he acquired the most complete collection of American drawings by magazine illustrators that was ever gathered under one roof. Sixty thousand specimens of American and foreign artists whose works have appeared in American illustrated magazines he bought from the files of leading publishers.