Rummaging over the contents of an old stall, at a half book, half old iron shop in Ninety-four alley, leading from Wardour street to Soho, yesterday, I lit upon a ragged duodecimo, which has been the strange delight of my infancy; the price demanded was sixpence, which the owner (a little squab duodecimo of a character himself) enforced with the assurance that his own mother should not have it for a farthing less. On my demurring to this extraordinary assertion, the dirty little vender reinforced his assertion with a sort of oath, which seemed more than the occasion demanded. “And now,” said he, “I have put my soul to it.” Pressed by so solemn an asseveration, I could no longer resist a demand which seemed to set me, however unworthy, upon a level with his nearest relations; and depositing a tester, I bore away the battered prize in triumph.
—Essays of Elia.
onsieur Uzanne, who has
treated of the elegancies of the Fan, the Muff, and the Umbrella, has more recently given the world a quite unique series of studies among the bookstalls and the quays of Paris—“The Book Hunter in Paris”—and this too one finds more entertaining than any account of Quaritch’s or Putnam’s shop would be
I must bear witness to the honesty and liberality of booksellers. When one considers the hundreds of catalogues from which he has ordered books at a venture, even from across the ocean, and how seldom he has been misled or disappointed in the result, one cannot subscribe to a belief in the dogma of total depravity. I remember some of my booksellers with positive affection. They were such self-denying men to consent to part with their treasures at any price