The Romance of Book-Collecting

by J. Herbert Slater

SOME LUCKY FINDS.

The book-hunter whose heart is in his quest never tires of tales of lucky discoveries, and of rare books bought for a song. This is natural enough, and, moreover, authentic details of some great find invariably stimulate his eagerness, and encourage him to persevere in the search for what he is repeatedly being told—as though he of all men did not know it already—is only to be met with casually, and by the merest of accidents. Now that all of us have settled among ourselves what books are rare, and desirable to possess on that account, as well as for many other reasons, everyone is, of course, naturally anxious to obtain the credit and still more the solid advantages of a startling discovery. It is each man for himself, and that perhaps is the reason why book-men of the old school invariably dressed in staid and sober black, like Sisters of Charity, to show the world at large that charity in matters that relate to their pursuit is dead. What man among the whole fraternity would give away his suspicions that, in such and such a place, something may lie hidden? Rather would he make his way to the spot, in fear lest some other explorer might not, after all, have forestalled him, and during his journey there look to the right and the left of him, and get lost in crowds, as part of a deep design to shake off any other bookworm who, knowing his hunting instincts and great experience, might perchance be shadowing his footsteps. It has, indeed, been seriously questioned more than once by learned divines whether any collector, and more especially a collector of books, can by any possibility reach the kingdom of heaven, seeing that the inestimable gift of charity is by him regarded of such little account that he would do anything rather than practise it. It were best, however, to leave such polemical discussions to those who take an interest in them, and content ourselves with saying that the bookman's ways are necessarily tortuous, and his route through life circuitous.

It is next to impossible to open any book about books without meeting with instances of lucky finds, and the most curious part of the matter is that the stories are invariably more or less the same. Like the literary man's collection of stock phrases, which he uses with or without variation as occasion may require, and at judicious intervals, so these records of the chase strike us as being peculiarly liable to recur. From their opening sentences we know them—nay, the very mention of a place or a name is often sufficient to make an adept take up his parable and finish the narration. Let a man but whisper Hungerford Market, and we know that he is going to tell us of the fishmonger's shop where about half a century ago 'autograph signatures of Godolphin, Sunderland, Ashley, Lauderdale, Ministers of James II.; Accounts of the Exchequer Office, signed by Henry VII. and Henry VIII.; Wardrobe Accounts of Queen Anne; Secret Service Accounts, marked with the "E.G." of Nell Gwynne; a treatise on the Eucharist, in the boyish hand of Edward VI.; and a disquisition on the Order of the Garter in the scholarly writing of Elizabeth,' were rescued from the eaters of fried plaice, and the tender mercies of the barbaric tradesman who supplied them. Mr. Rogers Rees, of 'Diversions of a Bookworm' fame, got this story from somewhere, though he perhaps would not know it now, for it has been altered and added to in a score or more of competing publications. Then there are stories of Resbecque, who had a nose for a book second to that of no hound for a fox, of Naude, Colbert, the great Pixerecourt, and many more. It would be a shame to dish up these plats again, for to make them palatable they would have to be seasoned with imaginative details—an objectionable, not to say fraudulent, practice at its best.

There is one story, however, which must be raked up, and then decently buried again, for it is to be hoped that we shall hear no more of it. It is perhaps not so well known as many of the rest, but in any case would not be mentioned here except as an almost unique illustration of the vicissitudes to which any book, however scarce and valuable it may be, is occasionally liable. It is, stripped of its glosses, to the following effect: When the library at Thorneck Hall was weeded of its superfluous books, the butler, who superintended the operation, came across a perfect copy of Dame Juliana Berners' 'Boke of St. Albans,' printed by an unknown typographer in 1486. One would have thought that the quaintness of the type, to say nothing of the extraordinary character of the coloured coats of arms and other illustrations, would at least have prompted inquiry; but no! it was thrown lightly aside, and in due course disposed of to a pedlar for ninepence. He in his turn sold it to a chemist at Gainsborough for four times the amount, and the chemist got £2 for his bargain from a bookseller, who, notwithstanding the fact that a very imperfect copy had been disposed of at the Duke of Roxburghe's sale many years before, positively sold it to another bookseller for £7. He, at any rate, was somewhat better informed, though not much, for once more the volume changed hands, this time to Sir Thomas Grenville, for £80. These transactions did not take place in the Middle Ages, but in the forties of the present century, and the wonder is that anyone with the slightest knowledge of books could have flown in the face of Dibdin's valuation of £420, which was at the time a matter of common knowledge. The butler may be honestly forgiven, and the pedlar commiserated with, the chemist even excused; but the two booksellers have no hope of redemption. The imperfect Roxburghe copy brought £147, and was resold at the White Knights sale for £84. In 1882 a perfect copy made its appearance at Christie's, and was knocked down for £630, being about a third less than the purchaser had made up his mind to pay for it had circumstances compelled. The life of a book is more often than not like the life of a horse. You use it, and little by little strip it of its value till it becomes a wreck and can be used no more. The 'Boke of St. Albans,' in company with many other treasured volumes, is not, however, for use, but a thing of sentiment, with a value that will probably continue to increase, till the leaves crumble before the touch of time.

Stories such as this are the book-man's tonic; they pick him up from the despondency into which he has fallen through lack of sustenance, and encourage him to believe that extreme scarcity is not always the reason of failure, but rather that all things come at last to him who can work and can wait, as indeed they do, for instances of good luck in the matter of discovering books, though perhaps not numerous when personal experience alone is considered, are common enough in the aggregate. Here is a comparatively recent instance of good fortune:

In the summer of the year 1893 a London bookseller, who must be nameless, was offered a small library, then stored in a provincial town some thirty miles away. The owner copied the title-pages of a few of the books, and these were of such a character that the bookseller went over and eventually paid the price asked. What that amount was I am unable to state, but have good reason to suppose that it was less than £50. The majority of the volumes were, as is usually the case with old-fashioned and not particularly noticeable libraries, almost worthless. There were sermons preached in the long-ago to sleeping congregations, tracts and pamphlets on nothing in particular, an old and well-thumbed Prayer-Book or two of no importance, and the usual ponderous family Bible in tarnished gilt. On a casual survey, the whole of the books might have passed muster at a third-rate auction, and yet the bookseller was only too glad to see them safely housed in London. The reason was this: Among the refuse were Americana, some of extreme rarity, such as those who deal in such books are perpetually on the look-out for, and rarely find, even at their full value. As these books were publicly sold the following December, we are in a position to see what the bookseller got in return for his money, which, as I have said, was probably less than £50. The prices realized are given, so that there may be no mistake about the matter:

1. An Act for Exportation of Commodities, Incourage Manufactures, Trade, Plantations, four sheets, printed on one side only, in Black Letter, 1657, 8vo. £1 10s.

2. Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, 3 vols. in 2, Black Letter, 1599-1600, folio. £6 5s.

3. Josselyn's Account of Two Voyages to New England, 1674, 12mo. £6 15s.

4. Gabriel's Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and Country of Pennsilvania, and of New Jersey, 1698, 12mo. £31.