The actual current appreciation of old books seems to be, to a large and increasing extent, in the ratio of their literary or artistic attraction; and under the second head we comprise typography and wood-engraving; and we think that we could establish that, as a rule, the highest bids in modern days are for something of which the reputation or importance, or both, are a matter of tacit acknowledgment and acceptance. A merely curious volume may fetch money; but it must be something beyond that to make the pulse beat more quickly and form a record.
Two considerations govern and recommend such a course—those of commercial expediency and of space. There is not much probability that in the time to come book-buyers will arise to renew the traditions of the Harleian and Heber libraries, or even of such vast heterogeneous assemblages of literary monuments as those formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, James Crossley, Joseph Tasker, Gibson-Craig, and a few others. The feeling is more in favour of the French view—small and choice; and there is no doubt that, as a rule, the sale of a collection should not occupy more than three days. Beyond that time the interest flags and prices are apt to recede.
At the same time there has always been, and will be, a powerful curiosity in the direction of knowing or hearing what certain rare or superlatively important books occasionally bring. The feeling is rather more general than might be imagined, for it extends to those who are not collectors, yet like to see how foolish other people are, or, again, store up the information, in case they should have the good fortune to meet with similar things in their travels. When one thinks of the extraordinary casualities which have brought to light undescribed works or editions, and continue to do so year by year, there is no reason to despair of completing ourselves in due course in many and many a direction. The tendency in prices of late has certainly been favourable to books which are at once rare and admittedly important; and we have said that the latter feature and quality appear to be weightier than mere unfrequency of occurrence. For instance, any given number of copies of such comparatively common volumes as the first folio Shakespeare, the first Faëry Queen, the first Paradise Lost, Herrick, Beaumont and Fletcher, will present themselves in the market and command steadily advancing figures; it is the same with Pope and Dryden in a measure, and with some of the more eminent moderns. The literary éclat stimulates the biddings.
Those works which represent the maximum value during recent years have been:—
(i.) The earliest examples of printing, at all events in book-form; Missæ Speciales, and other smaller books executed by Gutenberg previous to 1455, or at all events to the Bible ascribed to that date; Gutenberg's Bible, otherwise known as the Mazarin Bible, 1455, re-issued by Fust and Schoeffer in 1456; the Psalters of 1457 and 1459, designed for the Cathedral and Benedictine monastery of Mainz respectively; the Chronicles of Monstrelet on vellum; Lancelot du Lac on vellum, 1488; the Sarum Missal, 1492, 1497, 1504; Caxton's two Troy-Books, two Jasons, Arthur, Speculum Vitæ Christi and Doctrinal of Sapience on vellum, Canterbury Tales and other separate works of Chaucer, Paris and Vienne, &c.; Book of St. Albans, 1486, and other works printed there, 1480-1534; Tyndale's New Testament, 1526; Coverdale's Bible, 1535; Boece's Chronicles of Scotland on vellum, 1536; the Huth Ballads; Montaigne's Essais, 1580; the same in English, 1603, 1613; Spenser's Faëry Queen, 1590-96; Constable's Diana, 1592; Bacon's Essays, 1597, 1598; Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, 1st quartos, Sonnets, and the collected Plays, 1593-1623. (ii.) Shelton's Don Quixote, 1612-20; first editions of Daniel, Drayton, Lodge, Watson, Barnfield, Breton, &c.; Milton's Comus, 1637, Lycidas, 1638, Paradise Lost, 1667; Walton's Complete Angler, 1653, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 1678, and any other capital or standard authors of the seventeenth century, particularly Lovelace, Carew, Suckling, down to Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, which, though a common book, has lately grown a dear one by sheer force of companionship.
There seems a disposition to look more indifferently on volumes which have no certificate or passport. Secondarily, as in the case of Florio's version of Montaigne, items are admitted as hangers-on and interpreters of great authors.
The last copy of the Faëry Queen, 1590-96, offered for sale, an extraordinarily fine one, brought £84, of Robinson Crusoe, £75. The British Museum paid for the Book of Common Prayer, 1603, a year earlier than any edition so far described, £175. It was obtained by the vendor from a sale at Sotheby's, where its liturgical interest was overlooked.
The question of prices in all these cases is involved in equal uncertainty and difficulty. The second Psalter of 1459 brought at the Syston Park sale £4950. Mr. Quaritch still holds it (1897), and asks £5250. The British Museum possesses both impressions. This was the highest figure ever reached by a single lot in this country. Gutenberg's Bible follows, copies on vellum and paper having produced from £1500 to £4000; the vellum copies are deemed more valuable, but of those issued by Gutenberg himself we seem to have only examples on paper. The Huth copy of the latter type, from the Sykes and H. Perkins libraries cost its late owner £3650. Mr. Grenville for his gave £500. As we have already remarked, the book has a tendency to become commoner. The Ashburnham Fust and Schoeffer Bible of 1462 brought £1500; at the Comte de Brienne's sale in 1724, where Hearne refers to the "vast prices," the Earl of Oxford gave for the same book £112.
The History of King Arthur, printed by Caxton, 1485, for which Lord Jersey's ancestor gave £2, 12s. 6d. about 1750 to Osborne, was carried at the Osterley Park sale in 1885 to £1950, the British Museum underbidding; while the Troy-Book in English from the same press fetched £1820; and at the dispersion of a curious lot of miscellanies, apparently derived from Darlaston Hall, near Stone, Staffordshire, an imperfect, but very large and clean, copy of the first edition of the Canterbury Tales, by Caxton, was adjudged to Mr. Quaritch at £1020, a second one, by an unparalleled coincidence presenting itself at the same place of sale a few months later, only four leaves wanting, but not so fine, and being knocked down at £1800 to the same buyer. The Asburnham Chaucers and other works from the same press were (with one or two exceptions) so poor, that it was surprising that they sold even so well as they did.
We descend to relatively moderate quotations when we come to the Daniel (now Huth) Ballads in 1864 (£750); the £670 and £810 bidden for the Caxton's Gower at the Selsey sale in 1871 and the Osterley Park sale in 1885 respectively; the £600 paid for the Book of St. Albans, 1486, wanting two leaves, in 1882; and the £420 at which Mr. Quaritch estimated the Troy-Book of 1503. The price asked for the original MS. of the Towneley Mysteries in 1892, £820, strikes one as reasonable by comparison.