The Bibliotaph, and Other People

by Leon H. Vincent

To arrive at a high degree of pleasure in collecting a library, one must travel. The Bibliotaph regularly traveled in search of his volumes. His theory was that the collector must go to the book, not wait for the book to come to him. No reputable sportsman, he said, would wish the game brought alive to his back-yard for him to kill. Half the pleasure was in tracking the quarry to its hiding-place. He himself ordered but seldom from catalogues, and went regularly to and fro among the dealers in books, seeking the volume which his heart desired. He enjoyed those shops where the book-seller kept open house, where the stock was large and surprises were common, where the proprietor was prodigiously well-informed on some points and correspondingly ill-informed on others. He bought freely, never disputed a price, and laid down his cash with the air of a man who believes that unspent money is the root of all evil.

These travels brought about three results: the making of friends, the compilation of scrap-books, and the establishment of ‘bins.’ Before speaking of any one of these points, a word on the satisfactions of bibliographical touring.

In every town of considerable size, and in many towns of inconsiderable size, are bookshops. It is a poor shop which does not contain at least one good book. This book bides its time, and usually outstays its welcome. But its fate is about its neck. Somewhere there is a collector to whom that book is precious. They are made for one another, the collector and the book; and it is astonishing how infrequently they miss of realizing their mutual happiness. The book-seller is a marriage-broker for unwedded books. His business is to find them homes, and take a fee for so doing. Sugarman the Shadchan was not more zealous than is your vendor of rare books.

Now, it is a curious fact that the most desirable of bookish treasures are often found where one would be least likely to seek them. Montana is a great State, nevertheless one does not think of going to Montana for early editions of Shakespeare. Let the book-hunter inwardly digest the following plain tale of a clergyman and a book of plays.

There is a certain collector who is sometimes called ‘The Bishop.’ He is not a bishop, but he may be so designated; coming events have been known to cast conspicuous shadows in the likeness of mitre and crosier. The Bishop heard of a man in Montana who had an old book of plays with an autograph of William Shakespeare pasted in it. Being a wise ecclesiastic, he did not exclaim ‘Tush’ and ‘Fie,’ but proceeded at once to go book-hunting in Montana. He went by proxy, if not in person; the journey is long. In due time the owner of the volume was found and the book was placed in the Bishop’s hands for inspection. He tore off the wrappers, and lo! it was a Fourth Folio of Shakespeare excellently well preserved, and with what appeared to be the great dramatist’s signature written on a slip of paper and pasted inside the front cover. The problem of the genuineness of that autograph does not concern us. The great fact is that a Shakespeare folio turned up in Montana. Now when he hears some one express desire for a copy of Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, or any other rare book of Elizabeth’s time, the Bishop’s thoughts fly toward the setting sun. Then he smiles a notable kind of smile, and says, ‘If I could get away I’d run out to Montana and try to pick up a copy for you.’

There is a certain gentleman who loves the literature of Queen Anne’s reign. He lives with Whigs and Tories, vibrates between coffee-house and tea-table. He annoys his daughter by sometimes calling her ‘Belinda,’ and astonishes his wife with his mock-heroic apostrophes to her hood and patches. He reads his Spectator at breakfast while other people batten upon newspapers only three hours old. He smiles over the love-letters of Richard Steele, and reverences the name and the writings of Joseph Addison. Indeed, his devotion to Addison is so radical that he has actually been guilty of reading The Campaign and the Dialogue on Medals. This gentleman hunted books one day and was not successful. It seemed to him that on this particular afternoon the world was stuffed with Allison’s histories of Europe, and Jeffrey’s contributions to the Edinburgh Review. His heart was filled with bitterness and his nostrils with dust. Books which looked inviting turned out to be twenty-second editions. Of fifty things upon his list not one came to light. But it was predestined that he should not go sorrowing to his home. He pulled out from a bottom shelf two musty octavo volumes bound in dark brown leather, and each securely tied with a string; for the covers had been broken from the backs. The titles were invisible, the contents a mystery. The gentleman held the unpromising objects in his hand and meditated upon them. They might be a treatise on conic sections, or a Latin Grammar, and again they might be a Book. He untied the string and opened one of the volumes. Was it a breath of summer air from Isis that swept out of those pages, which were as white as snow in spite of the lapse of nearly two centuries? He read the title, Musarum Anglicanarum Analecta. The date was 1699. He turned to the table of contents, and his heart gave a contented throb. There was the name he wished to see, J. Addison, Magd. Coll: The name occurred eight times. The dejected collector had found a clean and uncut copy of those two volumes of contemporary Latin verse compiled by Joseph Addison, when he was a young man at Oxford, and printed at the Sheldonian Theatre. Addison contributed eight poems to the second volume. The bookseller was willing to take seventy-five cents for the set, and told the gentleman as he did up the package that he was a comfort to the trade.

That night the gentleman read The Battle of the Pigmies and the Cranes, while his wife read the evening edition of the Lurid Paragraph. Now he says to his friends, ‘Hunt books in the most unpromising places, but make a thorough search. You may not discover a Koh-i-noor, but you will be pretty sure to run upon some desirable little thing which gives you pleasure and costs but a trifle.’

One effect of this adventure upon himself is that he cannot pass a volume which is tied with a string. He spends his days and Saturday nights in tying and untying books with broken covers. Even the evidence of a clearly-lettered title upon the back fails to satisfy him. He is restless until he has made a thorough search in the body of the volume.

The Bibliotaph’s own best strokes of fortune were made in out-of-the-way places. But some god was on his side. For at his approach the bibliographical desert blossomed like the rose. He used to hunt books in Texas at one period in his life; and out of Texas would he come, bringing, so it is said, first editions of George Borrow and Jane Austen. It was maddening to be with him at such times, especially if one had a gift for envy.

Yet why should one envy him his money, or his unerring hand and eye? He paid for the book, but it was yours to read and to caress so long as you would. If he took it from you it was only that he might pass it on to some other friend. But if that volume once started in the direction of the great tomb of books in Westchester County, no power on earth could avail to restore it to the light of day.