In 1869-1870 Mr. Stevens visited America, and printed at New Haven his Historical and Geographical Notes on the earliest discoveries in America, 1453-1530, with photo-lithographic facsimiles of some of the earliest maps. It is a valuable essay, much referred to, in which the author endeavored to indicate the entanglement of the Asiatic and American coast lines in the early cartography.[101]
In 1870 he sold at Boston a collection of five thousand volumes, catalogued as Bibliotheca Historica[102] (2,545 entries), being mostly Americana, from the library of the elder Henry Stevens of Vermont. It has a characteristic introduction, with an array of readable notes.[103] His catalogues have often such annotations, inserted on a principle which he explains in the introduction to this one: “In the course of many years of bibliographical study and research, having picked up various isolated grains of knowledge respecting the early history, geography, and bibliography of this western hemisphere, the writer has thought it well to pigeon-hole the facts in notes long and short.”
In October, 1870, he printed at London a Schedule of Two Thousand American Historical Nuggets taken from the Stevens Diggings in September, 1870, and set down in Chronological Order of Printing from 1490 to 1800 [1776], described and recommended as a Supplement to my printed Bibliotheca Americana. It included 1,350 titles.
In 1872 he sold another collection, largely Americana, according to a catalogue entitled Bibliotheca Geographica & Historica; or, a Catalogue of [3,109 lots], illustrative of historical geography and geographical history. Collected, used, and described, with an Introductory Essay on Catalogues, and how to make them upon the Stevens system of photo-bibliography. The title calls it a first part; but no second part ever appeared. Ten copies were issued, with about four hundred photographic copies of titles inserted. Some copies are found without the essay.[104]
The next year (1873) he issued a privately printed list of two thousand titles of American “Continuations,” as they are called by librarians, or serial publications in progress as taken at the British Museum, quaintly terming the list American books with tails to ’em.[105]
Finally, in 1881, he printed Part I. of Stevens’s Historical Collections, a sale catalogue showing 1,625 titles of books, chiefly Americana, and including his Franklin Collection of manuscripts, which he later privately sold to the United States Government, an agent of the Boston Public Library yielding to the nation.[106]
One of the earliest to establish an antiquarian bookshop in the United States was the late Samuel G. Drake, who opened one in Boston in 1830.[107] His special field was that of the North American Indians; and the history and antiquities of the aborigines, together with the history of the English Colonies, give a character to his numerous catalogues.[108] Mr. Drake died in 1875, from a cold taken at a sale of the library of Daniel Webster; and his final collections of books were scattered in two sales in the following year.[109]
William Gowans, of New York, was another of the early dealers in Americana.[110] The catalogues of Bartlett and Welford have already been mentioned. In 1854, while Garrigue and Christern were acting as agents of Mr. Lenox, they printed Livres Curieux, a list of desiderata sought for by Mr. Lenox, pertaining to such rarities as the letters of Columbus, Cartier, parts of De Bry and Hulsius, and the Jesuit Relations. This list was circulated widely through Europe, but not twenty out of the 216 titles were ever offered.[111]
About 1856, Charles B. Norton, of New York, began to issue American catalogues; and in 1857 he established Norton’s Literary Letter, intended to foster interest in the collection of Americana.[112] A little later, Joel Munsell, of Albany, began to issue catalogues;[113] and J. W. Randolph, of Richmond, Virginia, more particularly illustrated the history of the southern parts of the United States.[114] The most important Americana lists at present issued by American dealers are those of Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, which are admirable specimens of such lists.[115]
In England, the catalogues of Henry Stevens and E. G. Allen have been already mentioned. The leading English dealer at present in the choicer books of Americana, as of all other subjects—and it is not too much to say, the leading one of the world—is Mr. Bernard Quaritch, a Prussian by birth, who was born in 1819, and after some service in the book-trade in his native country came to London in 1842, and entered the service of Henry G. Bohn, under whose instruction, and as a fellow-employé of Lowndes the bibliographer, he laid the foundations of a remarkable bibliographical acquaintance. A short service in Paris brought him the friendship of Brunet. Again (1845) he returned to Mr. Bohn’s shop; but in April, 1847, he began business in London for himself. He issued his catalogues at once on a small scale; but they took their well-known distinctive form in 1848, which they have retained, except during the interval December, 1854,-May, 1864, when, to secure favorable consideration in the post-office rates, the serial was called The Museum. It has been his habit, at intervals, to collect his occasional catalogues into volumes, and provide them with an index. The first of these (7,000 entries) was issued in 1860. Others have been issued in 1864, 1868, 1870, 1874, 1877 (this with the preceding constituting one work, showing nearly 45,000 entries or 200,000 volumes), and 1880 (describing 28,009 books).[116] In the preface to this last catalogue he says: “The prices of useful and learned books are in all cases moderate; the prices of palæographical and bibliographical curiosities are no doubt in most cases high, that indeed being a natural result of the great rivalry between English, French, and American collectors.... A fine copy of any edition of a book is, and ought to be, more than twice as costly as any other.”[117] While the Quaritch catalogues have been general, they have included a large share of the rarest Americana, whose titles have been illustrated with bibliographical notes characterized by intimate acquaintance with the secrets of the more curious lore.