Chapter IX: The Collector’s Best Bet 264 (5)

An author’s manuscript will reveal just how his work was planned and built, as well as the fluid state of his mind at the time. Very often it reflects his attitude toward his subject, whether he wrote meticulously, carefully, or with assurance and ease. The early manuscripts of great writers are curiously alike in that they seldom show any large amount of correction or rewriting. When these men are young their very passion sweeps them along. But as they grow older they develop a certain attitude of critical acuteness which study brings, the experiences of life itself also cause them to be less sure. Very often they become the worst faultfinders, and tear their work to pieces to build and rebuild glorious phrases that later become household words. The bugaboo of rewriting comes with the years, accompanying the stern virtues of maturity.

In his later manuscripts you can almost see the author at work, bending over his pages, writing lines, whole paragraphs, then deleting them. These later manuscripts of noted men and women show not only blotted lines but entirely new readings. However, the notable phrase in the verses prefixed to the first folio of Shakespeare by his editors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, dated 1623, does not apply to most of the modern manuscripts. “And what he thought,” they wrote, “he uttered with that easiness, that we have scarce received from him a blot on his papers.”

There is also some impalpable quality in a great man’s handwriting which draws one to it; people who have never dreamed of collecting, who never heard of the collecting mania, will suddenly react to old letters and documents. They are mad to own them. Some human attraction exists in the written word of other years quite different from the appeal made by printing. This appeal is primarily emotional, rather than intellectual. Especially is this true of autograph letters. They naturally hold a more personal message, in that they interpret the spirit and reflect the period of the writer, who in informal letters is off his guard, quite unlike the mood that an author brings to his work when he knows it may be published. I have known people to weep with delight at the sight of one of those charmingly familiar letters written by Bobbie Burns. Indeed, I once became rather dizzy with joy myself, when I bought the Harry B. Smith Library, which included that famous letter of Charles Dickens about the inception of _Pickwick_, which he writes to his publishers, Chapman and Hall. It is dated 1836, and was written one Thursday evening from Furnival’s Inn, London. It says:--

DEAR SIRS:--

Pickwick is at length begun in all his might and glory. The first chapter will be ready tomorrow.

I want to publish The Strange Gentleman. If you have no objection to doing it, I should be happy to let you have the refusal of it. I need not say that nobody else has seen or heard of it.

Believe me (in Pickwickian haste)

Faithfully yours,

CHARLES DICKENS

This great letter is now in the collection of that famous man of affairs, fast becoming equally well known as a bibliophile, Mr. Owen D. Young.

When I read Dickens’s wonderful living message,--isn’t there a tremendous thrill in those words: “Pickwick is at length begun in all his might and glory,”--I never dreamed I should one day own all that is left of the original manuscript of the master’s greatest work, the _Pickwick Papers_. This, which Dickens wrote when he was but twenty-four years old, is without doubt the most valuable modern manuscript in existence. An earlier owner, the late Mr. W. A. White, abstracted from it a single leaf and presented it most generously to the British Museum. What a gracious tribute this was from an American collector!

When so many of the great English treasures have come to this side of the water, how ingratiating was so splendid a gift! There the _Pickwick_ page lies, in a glass show case, in the British Museum, and any day one may see Dickens’s never-failing admirers crowding in front of it to read and thrill to the broadly penned words, now browned and a bit faded. How rapidly the words seem to fly across the pages of this manuscript! You can’t but feel, as you read, that Dickens was almost divinely chosen to give to the world a fount of humor which in its very humanity will delight man, woman, and child throughout the years. All that is left of the manuscript is thirty-two leaves, which Dickens himself arranged into two chapters. When I read them I feel the closest union with Dickens the author; in these pages the period just before the coronation of Queen Victoria is made alive and vivid to us, bridging the world of yesterday to that of to-day.

The _Pickwick Papers_ first appeared in serial form in 1836, issued monthly. I think he became weary writing them, although, heaven knows, there is nothing in the story which would give the reader the slightest inkling of this. But prefixed to my manuscript is a hitherto unpublished verse. Dickens marks it “Private and Confidential,” and it is written for the benefit of one Mr. Hicks, as follows:--

Oh, Mr. Hick
--S, I’m heartily sick
Of this sixteenth Pickwick
Which is just in the nick
For the publishing trick,
And will read nice and slick,
If you’ll only be quick.
I don’t write on tick,
That’s my comfort, avick!
_July 26, ’37_

At the auction sale of the library of the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts in 1923, in London, I paid £3700 for the manuscript of Dickens’s _The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain_. He had given it, the fifth and last of his series of Christmas books, to the baroness in 1850. Ten years after _Pickwick_, Dickens wrote this story, and the manuscript demonstrates what I have said earlier about the painstaking and less spontaneous work of an author as he grows older. The manuscript of _The Haunted Man_ is filled with blottings, deletions, and corrections. It is now in the choice collection of Mr. Carl H. Pforzheimer of New York.

I do not hesitate to prophesy that in time the works of Dickens will be the most valuable after Shakespeare. He is one of the few English authors whose appeal is universal. Even in translation his works are wonderful, and they have been translated into almost every language, keeping their peculiar raciness, though they must sacrifice their English idiom. Dickens will be read always, by the man in the street as well as by the scholar.

Speaking of the generosity of Mr. White in presenting the _Pickwick_ leaf to the British Museum recalls to my mind the magnificent gift of Mr. John Gribbel of the Glenriddel Burns manuscripts to Scotland. The great liberality displayed by this Philadelphian should do much to cement international relations. All the friends of Bobbie Burns in Scotland--and they are legion--gave up hope when these manuscripts were purchased by Mr. Gribbel, believing them lost to the homeland forever. You can imagine the thrill in every Scotchman’s heart, from Sidney to Edinburgh, when the stirring news came, hot over the cable, that they were to be returned to their native land.

(_Seymour committed suicide after finishing this drawing_)]

When Mr. Gribbel bought this collection in 1914, I was naturally disappointed that I did not secure the Glenriddel manuscripts myself. But I was as delighted as any bra’ laddie directly descended from the celebrated ploughboy when I learned of Mr. Gribbel’s gift.

However, there are always compensations in this game if you have the patience to wait. I recently secured probably the greatest collection of Burns manuscripts, the one formerly belonging to that fine student and most charming of men, Mr. R. B. Adam, of Buffalo, New York. I had known of this collection all my life, but never dreamed that I should one day own it.

It includes the original manuscripts of the great poems of Burns that are enshrined in the souls of every lover of true poetry. Perhaps the foremost is the original draft of “Tam o’ Shanter,” written on twelve leaves, which Burns presented to Cardonnel Lawson in 1790. There is also the appealing “There Was a Lass and She Was Fair”; the beautiful poem, “The Last Time I Came O’er the Moor”; the exquisite lyric, “To a Woodlark”; and that lovely characteristic poem, “Wilt Thou Be My Dearie,” in which Burns himself especially delighted. Indeed, these original drafts truly give Burns “an immortal life in the hearts of young and old,” and when I read and reread in the poet’s own hand Burns’s “On Hearing a Thrush on a Morning’s Walk,” the magnificent “Address to Edinburgh,” and the sonorous “Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots,” I am thrilled to the marrow.

It is difficult to describe the emotions aroused when I read the original of that stirring battle song, the address at Bannockburn of Robert Bruce to his troops, which begins, “Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.” This manuscript the poet presented to his sister-in-law, with the inscription, “To Mrs. G. Burns, from her brother, the author.” Burns used to wander through Leglen Wood, supposed to be the haunt of Wallace, and confessed having visited it “with as much devout enthusiasm as ever a pilgrim did the shrine of Loretto.”

My collection contains poems of noble sublimity and heart-melting tenderness, such as the first poem known to have been written by Burns, and one of his most charming, entitled, “Once I Lov’d a Bonnie Lass.” There are two, however, which make a terrific appeal to me. One is the poem in which he was inspired by the American Revolutionary War, beginning:--

No Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
No lyre Eolian I awake,
’Tis Liberty’s bold note I swell,
Thy harp, Columbia, let me take.

The other is in some respects the favorite one of all lovers of Burns, the magnificent “For a’ That and a’ That.” I keep this collection and the poet’s priceless letters under lock and key in my vault in New York, lest the whole Scottish nation awaken one day, rise up, and demand them.

It is sad that Burns received very little money for his poems when he was alive. How surprised he must be, and with what irony must he observe, if his spirit walks this way, the great sums which have passed from one hand to another in the exciting exchange of his manuscripts.

Our own Mark Twain always wrote under the greatest pressure. Like many other artists, he was in constant need of money, but unlike them, he held to a remarkably consistent gait in his writing. His manuscripts are unusual, they show but few changes and corrections. His stories came as “trippingly on the tongue” as his vital conversation, which was characteristically free and easy. I have the original manuscripts of _Tom Sawyer Abroad_, _Pudd’nhead Wilson_, and _A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court_. The second was written by the author under the title of “Those Extraordinary Twins,” and the last one was originally called “The Stranger’s Tale.” The few corrections made by Mark Twain do not seem especially happy ones to our modern eyes. In my opinion it would have been better if he had left alone the thoughts which God first gave him. There are whole scathing paragraphs in _A Connecticut Yankee_ which were never published, but should be published.

Lovers of manuscripts all succumb to the magic beauty of those of Edgar Allan Poe. Most of them were written on long folio sheets in an exquisite and unaffected hand. So perfect and so fine is the rise and fall of the pen that his writing seems an imitation of copperplate in its evenness. I had an amusing experience, many years ago, after I bought one of the three known autograph copies of Poe’s poem, “Annabel Lee.” A dealer in Boston wrote to me, asking if I could come there to view this most interesting Poe manuscript. I made the appointment, arriving on an early morning train. When I reached the dealer’s shop he said he would not have the manuscript to show me until one o’clock. I decided to pass the time walking, to think out clearly just what I should pay him for it when the question of price came up.

As I wandered about the city I thought $1000 would be about right; I then imagined that this copy must be an especially beautiful one, and decided that $2000 was a fairer figure. But the more I considered it the more I coveted it, so I jumped to $3000, then $4000, and finally made $5000 my limit. When I returned to the shop he showed me a truly lovely autograph. I asked him what he wanted for it. He replied he would take $500, plus a ten per cent commission! It seemed preposterous to me, but I was so pleased I paid quickly, took the manuscript and returned to New York.

Some time later I went West with several very fine first editions. I also took the manuscript of “Annabel Lee.” The train rushed through the night and I found it difficult to sleep. This time I considered what price I should ask for this manuscript, and the sum a customer would pay for it. When the train reached Harrisburg I thought $1000 would be a very nice price, giving me a profit of about one hundred per cent. At Pittsburgh, thinking of the beauty of the poem, I ran my price up to $2000. Then I fell asleep. A jerky stop woke me at Fort Wayne, and immediately the Poe manuscript came to my mind. In the narrow confines of a Pullman berth I felt sure it was worth $3000. After all, what I had paid for it should be left out of the question, for it was a magnificent lyric, one of the finest productions of his genius. At last I reached Chicago, and up it went again, this time to $4000.

My customer lived in a suburb, and by the time I had reached his home I knew I could not part with “Annabel Lee” for less than $5000! This was the price I had been willing myself to pay for it. After selling him some very attractive books I showed him the “Annabel Lee.” His eyes glistened; he asked me the price. I bravely said, “Five thousand dollars.” He jumped at it quickly, just as I had at the $500 in Boston several months before. I was awfully amused, and told him about my journey and the workings of my mind; about my original purchase of the manuscript and the sum I had given for it, and how the price had progressed geographically.

He burst out laughing, took hold of my arm, and said, “I suppose I have something to be grateful for, at that! Thank God, I don’t live in San Francisco!”

What would this manuscript be worth to-day?

Another, a unique manuscript which came into my possession, is the original of Poe’s “Epimanes.”

This precious draft is now happily in the library of a collector whose taste is exquisite and faultless. The author has prefixed to the story a letter to the editor of the _New England Magazine_. Poe writes in part:--

I send you an original tale in hope of your accepting it for the N. E. Magazine. It is one of a number of similar pieces which I have contemplated publishing under the title “Eleven Tales of the Arabesque.” They are supposed to be read by the eleven members of a literary club, and are followed by the remarks of the company upon each.

This manuscript, too, is beautifully, clearly written, except that the letters are very small. It was not until some time after I bought it that I discovered one of the most tragic sentences I have ever read. Poe had folded over his manuscript several times. There are three tiny words inscribed in the lower left corner. One of the greatest masters of all time appeals to his editor, saying desperately, “I am poor.” These few pathetic words are enough to tear at the heartstrings of any collector.

A deadly malady which attacks all collectors at one stage or another is catalogitis. Here is a disease which will defy science as long as books and their ilk remain to be collected. In the beginning the symptoms are not grave. You will quietly open your mail one morning to find a pamphlet, perhaps from some local auctioneer, enumerating certain books he is offering for sale. From time to time other sales lists will be sent you, and one day when you have started to arrange your desk neatly you will be surprised that there are catalogues in nearly every drawer. You quickly decide to throw them out. But something, the most insidious germ of the disease, stays your hand. You have fallen a victim, merely in keeping them.

Then follows what Leigh Hunt, more than half a century ago, called “one of the loftiest pleasures of the imagination,” hours spent with a pencil in hand and catalogues scattered about, as you read over, memorize, and check up the names of books and manuscripts you would like to buy if you could afford it--and sometimes do anyway. Catalogitis is never a waste of time. Collectors are rewarded sooner or later by an intensive study, especially of new catalogues hot from the bookseller. It is a great point of vantage to secure an advance copy, thus being in a position to forestall one’s fellow collectors. For years I have been desperately ill with catalogitis. Indeed, I am a hopeless case. I have reached a peculiar stage. I even order my overcoats made with an extra and unusually large pocket. A sort of literary marsupial, I carry my young--and old--catalogues in my pouch, never sure into what they may develop, as I bound from sale to sale.

I shall never forget the time when an English book dealer mailed me a catalogue which brought me luck immediately. Quite daft at the sight of it, I studied every item mentioned, then my eyes fell upon the description of a Benedict Arnold letter. According to the catalogue, this was the letter in which Arnold gave for the first time a truthful account of his treason, mentioning the £6000--less than $30,000--paid to him by the British. The letter was listed at only thirty pounds. I quickly cabled my brother Philip, who has a remarkable and unerring taste for fine things. He was in London at the time and was fortunate enough to secure it for me.

Arnold wrote rather complainingly to Lord North, the English prime minister, as follows:--

Your Memoralist, Influenced by Sentiments of Loyalty to the King and Attachment to the British Constitution, has sacrificed a handsome property in America ... and at the most Eminent hazard of his Life, Co-operated with Sir Henry Clinton, Commander in Chief of the British Army in America, which will appear by his official letters to Lord Sackville. But his Intentions and measures being discovered before they would be brought to a happy issue, which bid fair to put a fortunate end to the War in America. He was obliged to fly, and very narrowly, but fortunately, escaped from the Americans, and having joined the British Army in New York, the Commander in Chief was pleased to confer upon him the Rank of Brigadier General, which was approved by the King.... And your Memoralist begs leave further to observe that in Consideration of his Corps and Services, he has received from Government only six thousand pounds sterling, one thousand pounds of which he has expended in raising his Regiment.

Your Memoralist has not only sacrificed his fortune, but is deprived of Four Hundred and Fifty pounds sterling per Annum, which he was intitled to receive from Congress, as also a large tract of land, and by the decided part which he has taken, his Family have been Banished from America, and he has sacrificed his prospects for providing for them there, which were undoubtedly of equal if not of greater Importance to them than his Fortune, which with that of others has been given up by the late Administration for the desirable purpose of obtaining Peace.

The next day the London dealer received seventeen cabled offers for it. When Mr. Henry F. DePuy came into my library in New York soon after, I told him the story of the Benedict Arnold letter. One of the most generous of men, he asked me to place a price on it. I replied frankly that the price I paid for it was nothing short of ridiculous good fortune, that I believed if it were sold at auction in this country it would bring at least $1850. He offered to buy it from me at that figure, and we immediately closed the bargain. Three years later, when Mr. DePuy held his sale, I was pleased to see my judgment verified. The Benedict Arnold letter sold for $2850. It is now in the Huntington collection.

If you once make a find like this you become wedded to the reading of catalogues. The finest private collection of catalogues in the world is in Paris. It is the result of the tireless and exhaustive study of my friend Seymour de Ricci. He has gathered complete files of auction catalogues dating from the seventeenth century, from France, Germany, and England. Every room of his large apartment on the Rue Boissière is filled from floor to ceiling. He has even compiled a catalogue of catalogues. This stupendous work comprises more than forty thousand items. Commercial pamphlets are generally thrown into the wastebasket, but I doubt if book catalogues are ever thrown away. True collectors guard them as zealously as they do their rarest literary finds. I like to look back at some of the catalogues I have issued, and note the marked increase of price since certain items have left my hands. How I would like to buy back many books and manuscripts at the prices I sold them for!

This purchase of the Benedict Arnold letter was the beginning of a mad chase for American documents and historical papers which has become more frantic with the roll of years. Although great papers dealing with the history of England have always interested me intensely, those of American interest are dearest to my heart. It is a great and exciting adventure to collect noble relics of our country’s past. The chase is often more fascinating than the wildest exploits of the most experienced huntsman; sometimes the bag proves remarkable, far beyond one’s hopes and expectations. When I first started to collect Americana it did not enjoy its present vogue. In the early days you could buy amazingly important historical papers for a mere song. Nowadays everyone is seeking things American, from old New England bedsteads to Pennsylvania whiskey flasks. The spell seems to be on the nation, and this craving for Americana is extending to every collector.

The greatest purchase I ever made was an original certified copy of the Declaration of Independence. It is the only official copy extant, with the exception of that famous instrument now deposited for safekeeping in the Library of Congress. It was in 1911, when I was attending an afternoon session of the remarkable sale of the Robert Hoe collection in New York. In the midst of the bidding an attendant entered the room saying I was wanted at the telephone. It was my brother calling from Philadelphia, and his voice sounded so excited that I feared he had ill news for me.

A cable had just come from Berlin, he said, offering us this certified copy of the Declaration of Independence. It was the one sent to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in order that the independence of the American colonies should be recognized officially in that part of the world. It was signed by Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, Commissioners Plenipotentiary. Included in the lot was the only signed and attested copy of the original Articles of Confederation of the United States, the first provisional government of the colonies. I, too, was tremendously impressed, and my only question was: Were they authentic? In reply my brother told me they were to be sold by a direct descendant of Baron von Scolenberg, the minister of Frederick the Great, and that their authenticity was undisputed.

Although the price was high, we felt that we could not allow manuscripts of such tremendous national importance to escape us. Then my brother, with his usual business acumen, immediately cabled our agent to pay the money forthwith. Our excitement was intense until we received a reply confirming our purchase. Neither my brother nor I could sleep until the news was flashed over the wires the next morning. We did not realize the extent of our good fortune, however, until one of our competitors informed us he had sent a special messenger from London to Berlin to secure this great document. His disappointment was terrific when he learned that these precious papers had already been sold.

I do not think the price of $260,000 excessive for these great cornerstones of our country’s history. Some day they will be beyond the computation of dollars. What adds a further glamour to this tale is that only a few days later someone came to our office and offered us the original letter arranging for the transfer of Independence Hall from the State of Pennsylvania to the City of Philadelphia. The transfer of ground was for the historic building and the piece of land known as Independence Square, on which was erected the clock tower that then contained the most precious memento of our independence, the famous Liberty Bell. It gives the purchase price of this most hallowed building and ground at only $70,000.

When I think of the historic papers and documents, and the great literary manuscripts that have passed through my hands into those of our customers, I recall the words from Proverbs xx, 14, which is the motto of our house:--

“It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he hath gone his way, then he boasteth.”

VI

AMERICAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS

A young man who recently came into my library in New York looked about at the high walls entirely lined with rare books, then sank into a chair. He was the very picture of dejection. For a moment he sat quietly staring into space, then said, with a melancholy sigh, “It’s no use!”

“What’s the matter?” I inquired. “Bad news?”

“No!” He turned upon me with a quick blaze of temper. “How can anyone collect books after seeing all these rarities?” He waved in accusatory circles toward the walls. “I have very little money. Why, I can’t even begin to collect!”

Now this was really a very nice young man. He was in his early twenties, loved books, and had brains too. Then what was the matter with him? Alas, he had very little money and very, very little imagination. He was minus the latter asset, the very foundation of successful book collecting. He allowed himself to be blinded by the high prices of a few old volumes. He either could not, or would not, visualize anything beyond that which he actually saw before him. He had no vision.

People do not always have to invest in high-priced books to form an interesting collection. Many unusual collections have been made through small but exceedingly careful and, of course, thoughtful expenditure. Yet this is a fact very difficult to thump into the young collector’s head. It has taken some men I know--men with slender purses--several years to realize this. Meanwhile they lose both time and bargains. But vision in book buying does not come so readily when you are first suffering from the febrile mania of collecting. Yet be not dismayed! Just because Gutenberg Bibles and Shakespeare folios jolt the auction rooms with their stupendous prices is no reason why you should ignore the works of a comparatively obscure writer who appeals to you, someone in whom you believe.

Keep your eyes on his books, his manuscripts, his letters, when you are browsing in bookshops; ask yourself a few leading questions concerning his future and answer them honestly. Do you believe your author has an intrinsic value that is likely to increase with the years? How scarce are these books or manuscripts or letters of his? Think back. If you have the real collecting instinct you have kept all your sales catalogues. Check them over.

Just remember that Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, and Joseph Conrad first editions could have been bought a few years ago for almost nothing, in fact at their published prices.

This reminds me of a remarkable prophecy made by Uncle Moses in 1895. He was complaining of the high prices he had just paid for several books. He said he didn’t see how rare volumes could possibly go any higher. Then he amended this by naming three men in English letters whose works he thought would advance to almost unbelievable values--Shelley, Keats, and Poe. If only I had taken advantage of Uncle Moses’ significant foresight and vision!

“When prices are high,” Uncle Moses advised me, “don’t forget that there are new fields for the collector. There’s no need to grumble. You can always spend your money wisely on the things which are not so much in demand.”

I realized, even then, that these were words of wisdom in the book game. Many times I have thought of his oft-repeated, laconic statement: “There are always books to fit every purse.”

There are hundreds of types of books to collect: volumes as yet unnoticed in the auction room, which lie neglected year in, year out, upon the bookseller’s shelf, and which are disregarded by the conventional collector. They are waiting for the man with imagination to discover them. And many of them will eventually come into their own. My uncle and others of his day could not foresee the slavish manner in which some collectors would in later years pursue, with neither rhyme nor reason, every volume on any arbitrary list. Imagine buying books other than those of your own taste and inclination! It seems the veriest joke to have signposts on the way, indicating the books you should buy--just as though one or two men are able to choose fifty or even one hundred of the most outstanding books in English or any other literature. The difference of opinion is too great. To me such buying is about as thrilling as going to a doctor to have him dictate your diet.

“I have collected,” said my uncle, as we talked together a few years before he died, “along a path untrodden in my day--early American children’s books.” He walked about his dusty old shop for a few moments, then selected a diminutive volume, the _Dying Sayings of Hannah Hill, Junior_, published in Philadelphia in 1717. “Now,” he observed, “I will show you an example. I would have you know that this little book is damn rare.” He always hated and made fun of the stereotyped expressions in booksellers’ catalogues, such as “excessively rare,” “extremely rare,” “of utmost rarity,” “very rare,” and “rare.” He said it reminded him of the man who had eggs to sell, offering them as newly laid eggs, fresh eggs, and eggs. Uncle Moses described his books more colorfully. First of all they were “infernally rare,” then “damn, damn rare,” followed by “damn rare,” and finally “rare.”

This and similar picturesque language fitted his rugged personality and endeared him to everyone. How much more interesting it would be if modern cataloguers used their imagination when describing the degree of rarity of an old book.

In his younger days Uncle Moses had had a most unusual opportunity to gather together many early books published expressly for children. When he succeeded to the business of the Philadelphia publishers, McCarthy and Davis, in 1851, the stock included a number of early American juveniles. You see, McCarthy and Davis were successors to Johnson and Warner, who succeeded the original firm established by Jacob Johnson in 1780. It was noted for its children’s books, so you can imagine the varied juvenile curiosities my uncle inherited.

Even when my brothers and sisters and I were very small children, Uncle Moses remembered our birthdays and other anniversaries always with a pretty little book. Although we were all taught to care for and really honor our books from the time we could hold them in our hands, it was to my eldest sister, Rebecca, and to me that he gave the most valuable and entertaining volumes. I have kept every one of them; each bears his inscription in beautiful, finely printed letters, “From Uncle Mo.”

My sister was early imbued with the book-hunting spirit, and I have often found her in some little secondhand store in Philadelphia quietly looking through piles of books in the hope of securing something quaint, something unusual and perhaps hitherto unknown. Her searches were not fruitless either.

These book-hunting expeditions were adventures for us. We thought it great fun to add to our little library so charming and tiny a pamphlet as, for instance, _The History of Ann Lively and her Bible_, which was sold in 1830 for one half cent, and issued in New York in a somewhat proselyting manner by the American Tract Society. It was a red-letter day in our lives if we could find some curious example to flaunt before the amused face of Uncle Moses. But the occasion was rare, indeed, when we found a book which he did not already own.

It was many years ago that I took Uncle Moses’ tip to start collecting early American children’s books. Hence I am some leagues ahead of those who got a later start. Many collectors are only now beginning to rub their eyes and to wake up to the fascination which these tiny volumes offer to book lovers. Early American juveniles are unusually interesting for several reasons. To begin with, they give such naïve samples of the mental food our poor ancestors lived upon in the dim days of their childhood.

Take, for instance, a small volume published in 1738 by Samuel Phillips, called _History of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Epitomized; for the Use of Children in the South Parish at Andover_. The author says that “his great Lord and Master had commanded his Ministers to feed his Lambs as well as his Sheep.” But what anæmic feeding! He sets before his particular lambs sixty pages of the most indigestible food ever concocted, consisting of questions on and answers to the most abstruse metaphysical, philosophical, and controversial subjects! Subjects which are no nearer solution to-day than when the Rev. Samuel Phillips propounded them for the benefit of his bewildered little lambs of Andover Parish one hundred and eighty-nine years ago!

You will find early American children’s books difficult to obtain. There are but few left in good condition to-day, but it is great fun tracking them. In the first place, very few were published by our Colonial presses. Such venerable gentlemen as Cotton Mather and Governor Winthrop kept the printers too busily occupied issuing theological works or acts of provincial assemblies; too seriously engaged with statutes, laws, almanacs, prayer books, catechisms, and sermons, to print many books for children. Lost in a theological web of their own weaving, the leaders of the day cared little about the intellectual amusement of their girls and boys.

But most of the young book fanciers, lucky enough to obtain the few books issued, mauled them about or destroyed them entirely. They are generally found with torn and missing leaves--these charming atrocities have made many copies quite worthless to the collector. I have been told that it is but normal for a bouncing bibliophile of twelve months to teethe on the hard board corners of, for instance, a copy of _Cinderella_. Indeed, a young child’s attitude toward a book is not unlike that of a cannibal toward a missionary. Very young children--this is on record, if you doubt me--have been known to eat their books, literally devouring their contents.

When I was about seven years old another little boy of the same age came from a suburb of Philadelphia to spend the day with me. We quickly struck up a friendship. Although it was raining and we were forced to remain indoors, we played together quite happily. Everything went smoothly until late in the afternoon, when our inventive faculties began to give out. It was then, after we had taken apart most of my toys, that my little friend’s eyes lighted upon my books. I watched him cross the room to the low shelf which held them so neatly, and I remained quiet even as he began to paw them over. But when I saw him take a pencil from his pocket to write crude letters of the alphabet along the margins, I flew at him like a wildcat. Only the immediate intervention of our combined families saved him from annihilation. We have met many times since, and we always laugh at the story of my juvenile wrath.

He still insists, after forty years, that his was a perfectly normal action in a child. I believed in treating a book as something sacred, even at that age. The germ had evidently entered my system with my first vaccination!

In 1902 my uncle gave me his wonderful collection of children’s books.

Among them was his “damn rare” pamphlet, _A Legacy for Children, being Some of the Last Expressions and Dying Sayings of Hannah Hill, Junr. Of the City of Philadelphia in the Province of Pennsylvania, in America, Aged Eleven Years and near Three Months_, which was printed by Andrew Bradford, at the sign of the Bible, in Philadelphia, in 1717. Little Hannah took several days to die, and she insisted upon having the undivided attention of every member of her family. She gave them moral advice, told them what they should do and what they should not do after she had departed. “The Council which she gave, to her Dear and only Sister and Cousin Loyd Zachary, whom she dearly loved, was very grave and pithy....”

To-day I have nearly eight hundred volumes, which date from 1682 to 1840. They reveal with amazing fidelity the change in juvenile reading matter, the change, too, in the outward character of the American child. They depict the slow but determined growth from the child of Puritan New England to that of our own day. It is a delightful change from _Virtuous William the Obedient Prentice_, and _Patty Primrose_, to _Tom Sawyer_, _Huck Finn_, _Penrod_, and _Winnie-the-pooh_. If Robert Louis Stevenson had had the temerity to publish _Treasure Island_ in the good old days of Governor Winthrop he would have been a fit subject for the common hangman! I do not mean to imply that the New England boy of the seventeenth century was the goody-goody thing which his parents tried to make him. If he was choked with the Bible and threatened with the catechism and the prayer book, if the creed and Bunyan were ruthlessly thrust down his innocent young throat, he nevertheless could think of Captain Kidd, Sir Henry Morgan, the Indians, and the whole machinery of the boyhood imagination. Free thought was permitted him because there was no way to suppress it.

The little Puritans! My heart aches for them when I read an example such as _The Rule of the New-Creature. To be Practiced every day in all the Particulars of which are Ten_. This is the earliest book in my collection. It was published in Boston for Mary Avery, who sold books near the Blue Anchor, 1682. Imagine the weary little child who had to listen throughout a long Sunday afternoon to the contents of a book which started off in this manner:--

“Be sensible of thy Original Corruption daily, how it inclines thee to evil, and indisposeth thee to good; groan under it, and bewail it as Paul did.... Also take special notice of your actual sins, or daily infirmities, in Thought, Word, Deed. Endeavor to make your peace with God for them before you go to bed.”

There is, too, one of the most famous of all juveniles, the equally inspiriting and nourishing _Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes. In either England: Drawn out of the breasts of both Testaments for their Souls nourishment. But may be of like use to any Children. Printed at Boston, 1684_. My copy is the only one known of this date. John Cotton, the great and influential Puritan minister, had written this many years before, and it was first published in England in 1646, to settle a growing dissension among the Puritans, who could not decide which catechism of the many then in use was best for their children. This volume grew very popular and from it the little ones learned to die with much grace, and, therefore, eternal glory. Yet it was found very difficult to teach the young of New England the proper way to die; of all knowledge it is the most difficult to impart, as there are no really good textbooks.

_Spiritual_
MILK
FOR
_Boston Babes_.

In either _ENGLAND_:
Drawn out of the breasts of both
_TESTAMENTS_ for their
Souls nourishment.

But may be of like use to any
_CHILDREN_.

By _John Cotton_, _B. D._ Late
_Teacher_ to the Church of _Boston_ in
_New England_.

Printed at BOSTON,
1684.

TITLE PAGE OF “SPIRITUAL MILK FOR BOSTON BABES”]

The ecstasy over the departure of a pure young child is one of the most remarkable manifestations of the Puritan spirit. No book shows this more clearly than the Rev. James Janeway’s _A Token for Children, being an Exact Account of the Conversion, Holy and Exemplary Lives and Joyous Deaths of several Young Children_. This book passed through edition after edition in England and her colonies, and was the certain means of saving many children from hell and damnation. My copy is the only one extant from Benjamin Franklin’s press, and is dated 1749. Janeway states in his Preface, which is addressed “to all Parents, School Masters and School Mistresses or any who have any Hand in the Education of Children:--

“Remember the Devil is at work hard, wicked Ones are industrious, and corrupt Nature is a rugged, knotty Piece to hew. But be not discouraged.”

The author then goes on to relate the wicked bringing into this world of little children, and dwells lovingly and tenderly upon their wise and glorious deaths at the age of six or seven or even ten years. An early death in purity and virtue was a thing to be coveted and desired, and Janeway requests in his Preface that the teacher should impress upon the little ones the advisability of imitating the early demise of these sweet children whose short and devout lives are narrated by him. Cotton Mather, who wrote a continuation of Janeway, and described the brilliant, joyous, matchless deaths of New England children--Janeway described the demise of the children of Old England--died at the age of sixty-five years, thus prudently neglecting to follow the example of his beautiful and obedient pupils who passed away, in all holiness, at the hoary age of six. We shall select a passage from the celebrated little book, which bears this title:--

_A Token for the Children of New England, or some Examples of Children, in whom the Fear of God was remarkably budding before they died; in several parts of New England. Preserved and Published for the Encouragement of Piety in other children._

The selected passage is as follows:--

Elizabeth Butcher, Daughter of Alvin and Elizabeth Butcher, of Boston, was born July 14th, 1709. When she was about Two Years and half Old; as she lay in the Cradle she would ask her self that Question, What is my corrupt Nature? and would make answer again to herself, It is empty of Grace, bent unto Sin, and only to Sin, and that continually. She took great delight in learning her Catechism, and would not willingly go to Bed without saying some Part of it.

She being a weakly Child, her Mother carried her into the Country for Health; And when she was about Three Years old, and at Meeting, she would set with her Eyes fix’d on the Minister, to the Admiration of all that Sat about her, who said that grown up People might learn and take Example of her. She took great Delight in reading, and was ready and willing to receive Instruction.

She was not contented with the bare reading of God’s Word, but would frequently ask the meaning of it. And when she was at her work, she would often ask where such and such Places in Scripture were, and would mention the Words that she might be directed to find them.

It was her Practice to carry her Catechism or some other good Book to Bed with her, and in the Morning she would be sitting up in her Bed reading before any of the Family were awake.

Such goodness could not last, and on the thirteenth of June, 1718, poor little Elizabeth departed this life, “being eight years and just eleven months old.”

It is related of another child, Daniel Bradley, the son of Nathan and Hester Bradley of Guilford, Connecticut, that when the said child was about three years old, “he had one Night an Impression of the Fears of Death, which put him into Crying; his Mother told him, if he died he would go to Heaven; unto which he replied, He knew not how he would like that Place, where he would be acquainted with no body!”

It is curious how you run unexpectedly upon things which you have long desired. I always wanted a copy of George Fox’s _Instructions for Right Spelling_, printed by Reinier Jansen, in Philadelphia, in 1702. One day I stopped at Travers’s Bookshop in Trenton, New Jersey. Now Clayton L. Travers is a true bookman; he knows the business thoroughly. In fact he was an old crony of my uncle. I said to him that I had been looking several years for Fox’s book. When I told him the title, he thought for a moment, then disappeared to the back of the shop. Two minutes later he returned with a little volume which was in an old sheep binding, the title page decorated with an elaborate woodcut border. I opened it and read the great Friend’s simple description of a comma:--

“Comma,” wrote George Fox, “is a little stop or breathing; as Behold O Lord.” Please note that he placed no comma after Behold! The discovery of Fox’s old spelling book was a delight to me, but what made it still more pleasant was Travers’s generosity in letting me have it for about one quarter its worth. Collector’s luck!

“They be darned small, but the flavor am delicious,” said an old Southerner to me of the quail in his part of the country. The same can also be applied to these children’s books. I suppose many people will wonder why I, an old bachelor, prefer them? I can only answer with another question. Why is it that old bachelors also write the best children’s stories? There is no answer. But, thank heaven, I am not alone in my crime. Another confirmed bachelor, a dear friend of mine, is quite as enthusiastic on this youthful theme. Dr. Wilberforce Eames, of New York, one of the greatest students of books this country ever had, abets me; especially when he casually informs me of the probable whereabouts of some rarity that I have been seeking for years.

Another bookman, my genial colleague, Mr. Lathrop C. Harper, also of New York, and a great specialist in Americana, has been as much interested in these little books as I myself. Instead of selling them to me, Mr. Harper gives me all the tiny juveniles that he can find. He has just presented to me a little book published in Boston in 1714, which contains embedded in a waste of theological discussion for infants, the following priceless gem:--

“O Children of New England, Poor Hearts; You are going to Hell indeed: But will it not be a dreadful thing to go to Hell from New England?”

THE
GLASS OF WHISKEY.

PHILADELPHIA:
AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION,
No. 146 Chestnut Street.

TITLE OF “THE GLASS OF WHISKEY”]

Mr. Eames, with generosity equaling Mr. Harper’s, has filled many of the crevices of my collection with the most interesting gifts. I can’t say that I altogether approve of the generous impulses of these two gentlemen--except when it applies to myself! It is very bad for the book business. If bookmen were encouraged to go about giving away their precious finds, what would we poor booksellers do?

This reminds me of the long chase I had for _Heavenly Spirits for Youthful Minds_ some time ago. A customer in Yonkers wrote to me saying he had this very rare book, supposed to have been issued by an old Kentucky press in 1800. I was very keen to see it, so I motored to his home at my first opportunity. When I arrived he pointed toward the shelves at one end of his library. I saw with delight and envy the long-sought volume, but when I took hold of it I was chilled. It felt decidedly clammy. Then, as my friend burst out laughing, I realized it was a porcelain jug made in the exact shape of a book! The joke was on me.

My disappointment was not too great, however, as the _Heavenly Spirits_ was filled with mundane ones--Old Crow whiskey. I accepted it as gracefully as I could, but I no longer use this imitation volume for whiskey--I want something larger. Nor would I want to fill it from the _Glass of Whiskey_, a tract published for youthful minds in Philadelphia in 1830. This tiny yellow-covered pamphlet is but two inches square. The artist who drew the illustrations indicated, with his picture of a bunch of grapes beneath the title, that he knew little or nothing of the inspirational sources of whiskey. Perhaps his innocence secured him the job. Small boys freely imbibing, and the resultant fruits thereof, are neatly portrayed. With what fascination and horror little children must have read:--

There is a bottle. It has something in it which is called Whiskey. Little reader, I hope you will never taste any as long as you live. It is a poison. So is brandy, so is rum, so is gin, and many other drinks. They are called strong drink. They are so strong that they knock people down and kill them. They are sometimes called ardent spirits, that is burning spirits. They burn up those who drink them.

The appropriate ending must have sent many a tot in search of a pencil to sign the pledge: “O, how shall I keep from being a drunkard? I will tell you. _Never drink a drop of anything that makes people drunk._”

I made my first find in children’s books when I was but a child myself. A playmate of mine had an aunt who lived on Broad Street in Philadelphia. We passed her house daily, on the way to and from school. Sometimes we were invited to stop for lunch. One day I happened to notice a pile of small books on her sitting-room table. She said she kept them there to amuse the younger children of her family. Although she knew I came from bookish people, she seemed surprised that I, a boy of twelve, should be interested in old volumes. As I could hardly put them down, she was evidently impressed; she offered them to me. You may well believe that I took them and rushed out of the house, lest she change her mind. When I reached home and my uncle saw what I had been lucky enough to receive, he exclaimed at their rarity. My treasure trove comprised three wonderful little volumes. They were _Black Giles_, _The Cries of Philadelphia_, and a rare edition of _Babes in the Wood_.

For thirty years I tried to obtain Benjamin Franklin’s _The Story of a Whistle_. “_Le grand_ Franklin,” as they called him abroad, wrote and published this fascinating story in 1779, when he had his press at Passy, just outside of Paris. He had printed it in French and in English, on opposite pages, in a charming pamphlet which he presented to his friends. He used the little Passy press mainly to run off official documents and other matters connected with his mission as the American Minister to the Court of France. In 1923, I bought one of the two copies that have survived, at an auction sale in London. It had been briefly catalogued--lucky for me!--as A printed sheet in French and English, “On Paying too much for a Whistle.” Although I would have gladly paid £1000 for it, it was knocked down to me for less than one tenth of this sum.