The Romance of Book-Collecting

by J. Herbert Slater

The new school called the old 'unhealthy,' that being a not inapt adjective with which to express the absence of brightness and chic, qualities which came, as everything else comes, when called for, and which were embodied to a nicety in 'Sketches by "Boz,"' 'The Pickwick Papers,' and later on in 'The Yellowplush Correspondence,' and 'The Paris Sketch-Book.' The new poetry was represented by Tennyson, Browning, Longfellow, and many more, and essays of better, or, at any rate, more taking, style than those of the Rev. Vicessimus Knox, were published every day, and what is more to the point, extensively read and hoarded.

Collections which had their beginnings in materials such as these authors afforded were, and necessarily must be, totally different in every possible way from those of the prior century; this we find to be the case on looking at the catalogues of sales by auction which were issued under the new régime. Fashion had indeed changed, and at this particular period Hakluyt and Coryat, to say nothing of curious authors like Brathwaite and Seller, were comparatively neglected. They have recovered themselves since, because a revulsion of feeling has taken place in their favour, and many of the old books which were of immense importance sixty or seventy years ago are, after suffering a period of neglect, once more in vogue, and can hardly be met with when sought after, so great is the demand for them. That is the case now, but there is a wide intervening period which needs to be analyzed.

In my opinion, Dickens among novelists, and Tennyson among poets, had the greatest amount of influence upon modern collectors as a body. The former was the more powerful at first, since he had the good fortune to meet with extremely talented artists like George Cruikshank, Hablot Browne, Seymour and Leech, to illustrate his works. Cruikshank was fresh from the glories of 'Life in London,' and 'The Life of Napoleon,' which had between them carried his name far and wide, and Browne hit off the meaning of the author in such a marvellous way, that he may almost be said to have discovered him. Seymour's opportunities were few, as his seven etchings for the 'Pickwick Papers' were all he ever accomplished for Dickens; but these were, in their way, masterly, and no doubt contributed greatly to the success of the earlier parts in which they appeared.

Slowly but surely the collectors began to turn their thoughts to the new author and the artists who were assisting him, and to accumulate the numbers in which it was the fashion to issue illustrated novels at that time. We often see them now, almost as clean and fresh as when they were first published, showing conclusively that every care has been bestowed upon them. In later days, up to within a year or two in fact, there was a great rush for any books or parts by popular authors containing first-rate illustrations. There is a demand for them now, but only when their condition is immaculate, for fashion has recently changed in a marked degree, owing, perhaps, to the number of rich collectors, who would have these things at any price, and, of course, had their way to the exclusion of the vast majority who were not sufficiently well off to compete with them. And this fashion was the parent, not of another fashion, but of a craze, which raged for two years or more.

The years 1893 and 1894 I take to be those in which people, despairing of obtaining their heart's desire, turned their attention to what were known 'Limited Editions,' and raged furiously. Nothing but a thorough grasp of the state of the book-market at the time, and a deep insight into human nature, could have hit upon the 'Limited Edition' as a stop-gap, and those who invented it are entitled to every credit for their enterprise. The apology for the life of the 'Limited Edition' brought to its logical conclusion was this: Times have changed, and, moreover, more people buy books than formerly, whether to read or to store. With the readers we have nothing to do, except incidentally; but so far as the collectors are concerned, it is obvious that only about one out of every ten can afford to pay the extremely high prices demanded for most of the first editions of the authors of repute which they affect.

Now comes the point, and upon this the whole argument succeeds or fails. Do they want these coveted books to read or to accumulate? If they wish to read them they can do so at any time, for there are more editions than one in the majority of instances, and the demand for the later and cheaper ones is of a different character altogether; ergo, they really want them, though they would perhaps be highly indignant if we said so, to possess and not necessarily to read. Let us, therefore, make new books in the image of the old, decorating them artistically, and printing them in the best possible style. Let us cut down the edition to a very small number of copies, in order to keep it out of the hands of all but just enough buyers to make the venture pay well, and we ought to succeed in establishing a furore that will continue precisely as long as the strenuous efforts to obtain time-tried poems and essays remain futile by reason of their cost.

The venture was purposely confined to poems and essays, because literary wares of this kind good enough for the purpose could be bought for next to nothing. A novel, in order to compete on this particular ground with the older works of Ainsworth, Thackeray, and the rest, would be costly to buy in manuscript, and difficult as well as expensive to produce; and, moreover, novels never pay unless they are sold in large quantities. This argument was sound throughout, and, moreover, a fresh departure of some kind was inevitable, if only to stem the tide that flowed so aggressively in favour of the rich. The venture succeeded, for almost on the instant the collector, casting a lingering look behind on the expensive works for which he craved, turned away from them, and welcomed the 'dainty volumes of delicious verse' which came tumbling down in almost endless variety. There was a scramble for them which continued exactly as long as had been predicted, namely, until the prices of once coveted books began to fall, and then the 'Limited Editions' fell too, and the craze was over, for the present at least.

One would have thought that the direct result of this procedure would have been a fresh rush to former fields, but the fact is otherwise. Original editions of the works of older poets and essayists of the highest repute are still as costly as ever, but the general ruck have fallen in the market, and remain fallen to this present day. More than that, the 'Limited Edition' brought within reasonable access innumerable better books, now become cheaper, provided they are not in the very finest condition.

Just at the moment there is no great 'boom' observable in the English market, no great craze for books of a certain special kind, though some, as usual, are sought for unceasingly, as, for example, many of those older works of English literature which were seen in such profusion in the collection of Mr. Charles B. Foote, dispersed in New York at the beginning of 1895.

Whatever hard things may be said of collectors, however much they may be likened to literary jackdaws, or to what extent their tastes may be criticised and compared with those of other people, they have a virtue—and a great one—one undisputed virtue, which, like charity, covereth a multitude of sins. This cardinal virtue is, that now, as in past times, their primary aim is to appraise literature at its true worth, and to make that the raison d'être of their enterprise. The inevitable red herring may lead them, for the moment, away from the pleasant places they have made their home, but it has never yet prevented their return.