Chapter M: T. CICERO's (3)

The world is the college of the book-collector of to-day. Many of us are busy men of affairs, familiar, it may be, with the price of oil, or steel, or copper, or coal, or cotton, or, it may be, with the price of the "shares" of all of these and more. Books are our relaxation. We make it a rule not to buy what we cannot read. Some of us indulge the vain hope that time will bring us leisure to acquaint ourselves fully with the contents of all our books. We want books written in our own tongue, and most of us have some pet author or group of authors, or period, it may be, in which we love to lose ourselves and forget the cares of the present. One man may have a collection of Pope, another of Goldsmith, another of Lamb, and so on. The drama has its votaries who are never seen in a theatre; but look into their libraries and you will find everything, from "Ralph Roister Doister" to the "Importance of Being Earnest." And note that these collections are formed by men who are not students in the accepted sense of the word, but who, in the course of years, have accumulated an immense amount of learning. Clarence S. Bement is a fine example of the collector of to-day, a man of large affairs with the tastes and learning of a scholar. It has always seemed to me that professors of literature and collectors do not intermingle as they should. They might learn much from each other. I yield to no professor in my passion for English literature. My knowledge is deficient and inexact, but what I lack in learning I make up in love.

But we are neglecting the Quaritch catalogue. Let us open it at random, as old people used to open their Bibles, and govern their conduct by the first text which met their eyes. Here we are: "Grammatica Graeca," Milan, 1476; the first edition of the first book printed in Greek; one of six known copies. So it is possible for only six busy men to recreate themselves after a hard day's work with a first Greek Grammar. Too bad! Here is another: Macrobius, "The Saturnalia"--"a miscellany of criticism and antiquities, full of erudition and very useful, similar in their plan to the 'Noctes Atticæ' of Aulus Gellius." No doubt, but as dead as counterfeit money. Here is another: Boethius, "De Consolatione Philosophiæ." Boethius! I seem to have heard of him. Who was he? Not in "Who's Who," obviously. Let us look elsewhere. Ah! "Famous philosopher and official in the Court of Theodoric, born about 475 A.D., put to death without trial about 524." They had a short way with philosophers in those days. If William the Second to None in Germany had adopted this method with his philosophers, the world might not now be in such a plight.

_Note_: A college professor to whom I was in confidence showing these notes the other day, remarked, "I suggest that you soft-pedal that Boethius business, my boy." (How we middle-aged men love to call each other boys; very much as young boys flatter themselves with the phrase, "old man.") "The 'Consolation of Philosophy' was the best seller for a thousand years or so. Boethius's reputation is not in the making, as yours is, and when yours is made, it will in all probability not last as long." I thought I detected a slight note of sarcasm in this, but I may have been mistaken.

Let us look further. Here we are: "Coryat's Crudities, hastily gobbled up in five Moneths Trauells." Tom Coryat was a buffoon and a beggar and a braggart, who wrote what has come to be regarded as the first handbook on travel. Browning thought very highly of it, as I remember, and Walter Hill is at this very minute offering his copy of the "Crudities" for five hundred dollars. The catalogues say there are very few perfect copies in existence, in which case I should like to content myself with Browning's imperfect copy. I love these old books, written by frail human beings for human beings frail as myself. Clowns are the true philosophers, and all vagabonds are beloved, most of all, Locke's. Don't confuse my Locke with the fellow who wrote on the "Human Understanding," a century or two ago.

Here is the "Ship of Fools," another best seller of a bygone age. The original work, by Sebastian Brandt, was published not long after the invention of printing, in 1494. Edition followed edition, not only in its original Swabian dialect, but also in Latin, French, and Dutch. In 1509 an English version,--it could hardly be called a translation,--by Alexander Barclay, appeared from the press of Pynson--he who called Caxton "worshipful master." For quite two hundred years it was the rage of the reading world. In it the vices and weaknesses of all classes of society were satirized in a manner which gave great delight; and those who could not read were able to enjoy the fine, bold woodcuts with which the work was embellished. No form of folly escaped. Even the mediæval book-collector is made to say:--

Still am I busy bookes assemblynge,
For to have plentie it is a pleasaunt thynge,
In my conceyt and to have them ay in hande,
But what they mene do I not understande.

This is one of the books which can usually be found in a Quaritch catalogue, if it can be found anywhere. At the Hoe sale a copy brought $1825; but the average collector will make shift to get along with an excellent reprint which was published in Edinburgh forty years or so ago, and which can be had for a few shillings, when he chances to come across it.

Here is a great book! The first folio of Shakespeare, the cornerstone of every great Library. What's in a name? Did Shakespeare of Stratford write the plays? The late Dr. Furness declined to be led into a discussion of this point, wisely remarking, "We have the plays; what difference does it make who wrote them?" But the question will not down. The latest theory is that Bacon wrote the Psalms of David also, and to disguise the fact tucked in a cryptogram, another name. If you have at hand a King James's version of the Bible, and will turn to the forty-sixth Psalm and count the words from the beginning to the forty-sixth word, and will then count the words from the end until you again come to the forty-sixth word, you may learn something to your advantage.

But, whoever wrote them, the first folio--the plays collected by Heming and Condell, and printed in 1623, at the charges of Isaac Iaggard, and Ed. Blount--is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, volume in all literature. In it not less than twenty dramas, many of which rank among the literary masterpieces of the world, were brought together for the first time. Is it any wonder, therefore, that the first folio of Shakespeare, Shakespeare! "not our poet, but the world's," is so highly regarded? The condition and location of practically every copy in the world is known and recorded. Originally the price is supposed to have been a guinea, and a century passed before collectors and scholars realized that it, like its author, was not for an age, but for all time. In 1792 a copy brought £30, and in 1818 "an original copy in a genuine state" changed hands at £121; but what shall be said of the price it fetches to-day?

When, a few years ago, a Philadelphia collector paid the record price of almost twenty thousand dollars, people unlearned in the lore of books expressed amazement that a book should bring so large a sum; but he secured one of the finest copies in existence, known to collectors as the Locker-Lampson copy, which had been for a short time in the possession of William C. Van Antwerp, of New York, who, unluckily for himself and for the book-collecting world, stopped collecting almost as soon as he began. This splendid folio has now found a permanent resting place in the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard. It is no doubt inevitable that these notable books should at last come to occupy honored niches in great mausoleums, as public libraries really are, but I cannot escape the conviction that Edmond de Goncourt was right when he said in his will:--

"My wish is that my drawings, my prints, my curiosities, my books--in a word these things of art which have been the joy of my life--shall not be consigned to the cold tomb of a museum, and subjected to the stupid glance of the careless passer-by; but I require that they shall all be dispersed under the hammer of the auctioneer, so that the pleasure which the acquiring of each one of them has given me shall be given again, in each case, to some inheritor of my own tastes."

I wish that my friends, the Pennells, had followed this course when they gave up their London apartments in the Adelphi and disposed of their valuable Whistler collection. But no, with characteristic generosity the whole collection goes to the nation as a gift--the Library of Congress at Washington is to be its resting-place. The demand for Whistler is ever increasing with his fame which, the Pennells say, will live forever. Those who have a lot of Whistler material smile--the value of their collections is enhanced. Those of us who, like the writer, have to be content with two butterflies, or at most three, sigh and turn aside.

Possession is the grave of bliss. No sooner do we own some great book than we want another. The appetite grows by what it feeds on. The Shakespeare folio is a book for show and to be proud of, but we want a book to love. Here it is: Walton's "Compleat Angler," beloved by gentle men, such as all collectors are. We welcome the peace and contentment which it suggests, "especially," as its author says, "in such days and times as I have laid aside business and gone a-fishing."

Therein lies the charm of this book, for those of us who are wise enough occasionally to lay aside business and go a-fishing or a-hunting, albeit only book-hunting; for it is the spirit of sport rather than the sport itself that is important. Old Isaak Walton counted fishermen as honest men. I wonder did he call them truthful? If so, there has been a sad falling off since his day, for I seem to remember words to this effect: "The fisherman riseth up early in the morning and disturbeth the whole household. Mighty are his preparations. He goeth forth full of hope. When the day is far spent, he returneth, smelling of strong drink, and the truth is not in him."

I wish that some day I might discover an "Angler," not on the banks of a stream, but all unsuspected on some book-stall. It is most unlikely; those days are past. I shall never own a first "Angler." This little book has been thumbed out of existence almost, by generations of readers with coarse, wet hands who carried the book in their pockets or left it lying by the river in the excitement of landing a trout. Five impressions, all rare, were made before the author died in his "neintyeth" year, and was buried in the South Transept of the Cathedral of William of Wykeham.

But Walton wrote of Fishers of Men as well as of fishing. His lives of John Donne, the Dean of St. Paul's; of Richard Hooker, the "Judicious," as he is usually called, when called at all; of George Herbert, and several other men, honorable in their generation, are quaint and charming. These lives, published originally at intervals of many years, are not rare, nor is the volume of 1670, the first collected edition of the Lives, unless it is a presentation copy. Such a copy sold twenty years ago for fifteen pounds. Some years ago I paid just three times this sum for a copy inscribed by Walton to the Lord Bishop of Oxford. I did not then know that the Bishop of Oxford was also the famous Dr. John Fell, the hero of the well-known epigram:--

I do not like you Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like you Dr. Fell,--

or I would willingly have paid more for it.

But I am wandering from my text. To return to the "Angler." Fifty pounds was a fair price for a fine copy fifty years ago. George D. Smith sold a copy a few weeks since for five thousand dollars, and the Heckscher copy a few years ago brought thirty-nine hundred dollars; but the record price appears to have been paid for the Van Antwerp copy, which is generally believed to be the finest in existence. It is bound in original sheepskin, and was formerly in the library of Frederick Locker-Lampson. It was sold in London some ten years ago and was purchased by Quaritch for "an American," which was a sort of _nom de guerre_ of the late J. P. Morgan, for £1290.

When "Anglers" could be had for fifty pounds, "Vicars" brought ten, or fifteen if in exceptionally fine condition, and the man who then spent this sum for a "Vicar" chose as wisely as did the Vicar's wife her wedding gown, "not for a fine glossy surface, but for qualities as would wear well." These two little volumes, with the Salisbury imprint and a required blunder or two, will soon be worth a thousand dollars. When I paid £120 for mine some years ago, I felt that I was courting ruin, especially when I recalled that Dr. Johnson thought rather well of himself for having secured for Goldsmith just half this sum for the copyright of it. Boswell's story of the sale of the manuscript of the "Vicar of Wakefield," as Johnson related it to him, is as pretty a bit of bibliographical history as we have. Those who know it will pardon the intrusion of the story for the sake of the pleasure it may give others.

"I received," said Johnson, "one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to come to me, begged that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was drest, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill ... and Sir," continued Johnson, "it was a sufficient price, too, when it was sold; for then the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it afterwards was by his 'Traveller'; and the bookseller had such faint hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manuscript by him a long time, and did not publish it till after 'The Traveller' had appeared. Then, to be sure, it was accidentally worth more money."

Here we have a characteristic sketch of the two men--the excitable, amiable, and improvident Goldy, and the wise and kindly Johnson, instantly corking the bottle and getting down to brass tacks, as we should say.

The first edition of "Robinson Crusoe" is another favorite book with collectors; as why should it not be? Here is a copy in two volumes (there should be three) in red morocco, super extra, gilt edges, by Bedford. It should be in contemporary calf, but the price was only £46. Turning to a bookseller's catalogue published a year or two ago, there is a copy "3 vols. 8vo. with map and 2 plates, in original calf binding," and the price is twenty-five hundred dollars.

A note in one of Stan. Henkel's recent auction catalogues, and there are none better, clears up a point which has always troubled me, and which I will quote at length for the benefit of other collectors who may not have seen it.

The supposed "points," signifying the first issues of this famous
book, are stumbling-blocks to all bibliographers.

Professor W. P. Trent, of Columbia University, undoubtedly the
foremost authority on Defoe, after extended research and the
comparison of many copies, states that he is of the opinion that
any purchaser entering Taylor's shop at the sign of the Ship, in
Pater Noster Row on April 25th, 1719 (usually taken as the date of
issue), might have been handed a copy falling under any of the
following categories:--

With "apply" in the preface, and "Pilot," on page 343, line 2.

With "apply" in the preface, and "Pilate" on page 343.

With "apyly" in the preface, and "Pilate" on page 343.

With "apyly" in the preface, and "Pilot" on page 343.

It is unquestionably wrong, in his opinion, to call any one of
these "first issue." Prof. Trent sees no reason to believe that
there was a re-issue with "apyly" corrected in the preface. Both
these mistakes were quite probably corrected while the sheets were
passing through the press, and it depends on how the sheets were
collated by the binder what category of the four given any special
copy belongs to.

This is a great relief to me, as my copy, which was once Congreve's, while leaving nothing to be desired in the matter of condition, binding, and plates, has the word "apply" in the preface and "pilot" on page 343; but it is perfectly clear, having in mind the spacing of the types, that the longer word has given way to the shorter.

There is, however, another edition of "Robinson Crusoe" which, for rarity, puts all first editions in the shade. So immediate was the success of this wonderful romance that it was issued in a newspaper, very much as popular novels are now run. It was published in the "Original London Post," or "Heathcot's Intelligence," numbers from 125 to 289, October 7, 1719, to October 19, 1720. This was publication in parts with a vengeance. Of the entire series of 165 leaves, only one is in facsimile. I see that I have not yet said that I own this copy. There is a copy in the British Museum, but I am told that it is very imperfect, and I know of no other.

I was, a few evenings ago, looking over Arnold's "First Report of a Book-Collector." I had just given an old-time year's salary for a manuscript poem by Keats, and I was utterly bewildered by reading this: "Only a few months after I began collecting, more than one hundred pages of original manuscripts of Keats that were just then offered for sale came in my way and were secured at one-fifth of their value." If the price I paid for one page is any criterion as to the value of one hundred pages, Mr. Arnold is by now a very rich man; and elsewhere in his "Report" he gives a list of books sold at Sotheby's in 1896 at prices which make one's mouth water.

Chapman's Homer, 1616, £15;
Chaucer's Works, 1542, £15 10;
"Robinson Crusoe," 1719-20, £75;
Goldsmith's "Vicar," 1766, £65;
Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," 1770, £25;
Herrick's "Hesperides," 1648, £38;
Milton's "Paradise Lost," 1667, £90.

But why continue? The point of it all is his comment: "If the beginner is alarmed by these prices, let him remember that such are paid only for well-known and highly prized rarities"; and remember, too, that this is the comment of an astute collector upon the prices of only twenty years ago.

It is, however, only proper to bear in mind, when referring to English auction prices, that the "knockout" may have been, and probably was, in operation. This time-honored and beneficent custom results in enriching the London book-dealer at the expense of the owner or the estate whose books are being sold. The existence of the "knockout" is pretty generally admitted by the London dealers, but they usually couple the admission with the statement that no reputable dealer will have anything to do with its operations. It is always the other fellow who is in the ring. Reduced to its simplest terms, a "knockout" consists of a clique of men who agree that certain books (or anything else) shall be bought at auction without competition. One book, or class of books, shall be bought by A, B will buy another, C another, and so on. At some convenient time or place after the books have been delivered, a second auction is held and they are again put up. This time there is real competition, but the profits go into a pool which is equally divided among the members. This custom has taken such a strong hold on the trade that it seems impossible to break it up. Should a private person bid at a sale at which the scheme is intended to operate, he would get, either nothing, or books at such a price as would cause him to remember the sale to his dying day. There is nothing analogous to it in this country, and it was to escape from its operations that it was decided to sell the great Hoe collection at Anderson's in New York City a few years ago.

Most of the books then sold realized the highest prices ever known. Many of the London dealers were represented,--Quaritch, Maggs, and several others came in person,--and the sale will long be remembered in the annals of the trade.

After the above explanation it is hardly necessary to say that "Book Auction Records," published by Karslake in London, has no value whatever as a guide to prices, in comparison with "American Book Prices Current," to the compilation of which the late Luther S. Livingston devoted so much of his time--time which we now know should have been spent in doing original work in bibliography.

Returning for a moment to Mr. Arnold and his contributions to bibliography, he did the booksellers a good turn and helped collectors justify their extravagance to their wives by publishing some years ago "A Record of Books and Letters." Mr. Arnold devoted the leisure of six years to forming a collection of books with perseverance and intelligence; then he suddenly stopped and turned over to Bangs & Company, the auctioneers, the greater part of his collection, and awaited the result with interest. I say "with interest" advisedly, for the result fully justified his judgment. In his "Record" he gives the date of acquisition, together with the cost of each item, in one column, and in another the selling price. He also states whether the item was bought of a bookseller or a collector, or at auction. He had spent a trifle over ten thousand dollars, and his profit almost exactly equalled his outlay. I said his profit, but I have used the wrong word. His profit was the pleasure he received in discovering, buying, and owning the treasures which for a time were in his possession. The difference in actual money between what he paid and what he received, some ten thousand dollars, was the reward for his industry and courage in paying what doubtless many people supposed to be extravagant prices for his books.

Let us examine one only. It is certainly not a fair example, but it happens to interest me. He had a copy of Keats's "Poems," 1817, with an inscription in the poet's handwriting: "My dear Giovanni, I hope your eyes will soon be well enough to read this with pleasure and ease." There were some other inscriptions in Keats's hand, and for this treasure Arnold paid a bookseller, in 1895, seventy-one dollars. At the auction in 1901 it brought five hundred dollars, and it subsequently passed into the Van Antwerp collection, finally going back to London, where it was sold in 1907 for ninety pounds, being bought by Quaritch. Finally it passed into the possession of the late W. H. Hagen and, at the sale of his library, in May, 1918, was knocked down to "G.D.S." for $1950. From him I tried to secure it, but was "too late."[7]

My copy of the Poems has, alas, no inscription, but it cost me in excess of five hundred dollars; and a well-known collector has just paid Rosenbach nine thousand dollars for Keats's three slender volumes, each with inscriptions in the poet's hand. Three into nine is a simple problem: even I can do it; but the volume of "Poems" is much rarer than "Endymion" or "Lamia."

IV

"ASSOCIATION" BOOKS AND FIRST EDITIONS

No books have appreciated more in value than presentation or association volumes, and the reason is not far to seek. Of any given copy there can hardly be a duplicate. For the most part presentation copies are first editions--_plus_. Frequently there is a note or a comment which sheds biographical light on the author. In the slightest inscription there is the record of a friendship by means of which we get back of the book to the writer. And speaking of association books, every one will remember the story that General Wolfe, in an open boat on the St. Lawrence as he was being rowed down the stream to a point just below Quebec, recited the lines from Gray's "Elegy,"--

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave
Await alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave,"--

adding, "I would rather be the author of that piece than have the honor of beating the French to-morrow." When Wolfe left England he carried with him a copy of the "Elegy," the gift of his fiancée, Miss Katherine Lowther. He learned the poem by heart, he underscored his favorite lines, among them the passage quoted; he filled the book with his notes. After his death the book and a miniature of the lady were returned to her, and only a few days ago this book, a priceless volume of unique association interest, was offered for sale. The first man who saw it bought it. He had never bought a fine book before, but he could not resist this one. When I heard of the transaction I was grieved and delighted--grieved that so wonderful a volume had escaped me, delighted that I had not been subjected to so terrible a temptation. What was the price of it? Only the seller and the buyer know, but I fancy some gilt-edged securities had to be parted with.

How the prices of these books go a-soaring is shown by the continuous advance in the price of a copy of Shelley's "Queen Mab." It is a notable copy, referred to in Dowden's "Life of Shelley." On the fly leaf is an inscription in Shelley's hand, "Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, from P.B.S."; inside of the back cover Shelley has written in pencil, "You see, Mary, I have not forgotten you"; and elsewhere in the book in Mary's hand, we read, "This book is sacred to me, and as no other creature shall ever look into it, I may write in it what I please. Yet what shall I write? That I love the author beyond all powers of expression and that I am parted from him"; and much more to the same effect. At the Ives sale in 1891 this volume of supreme interest brought $190; in 1897, at the Frederickson sale, it brought $615; and a year ago a dealer sold it for $7500; and cheap at that, I say, for where will you find another?

I have before me a copy of Stevenson's "Inland Voyage." Pamphlets aside, which, by reason of their manner of publication, are now rare, it may be said to be the author's first book. It has an inscription, "My dear Cummy: If you had not taken so much trouble with me all the years of my childhood, this little book would never have been written. Many a long night you sat up with me when I was ill; I wish I could hope by way of return to amuse a single evening for you with my little book! But whatever you may think of it, I know you will continue to think kindly of the Author." I thought, when I gave four hundred dollars for it, that I was paying a fabulous price; but as I have since been offered twice that sum, Rosenbach evidently let me have a bargain. He tells me that it is good business sometimes to sell a book for less than it is worth. He regards it as bait. He angles for you very skilfully, does Rosy, and lands you--me--every time.

"A Child's Garden of Verses" is another book which has doubled in value two or three times in the last few years. Gabriel Wells is now offering a copy, with a brief inscription, for three hundred dollars, having sold me not long ago, for twice this sum, a copy in which Stevenson's writing is mingled with the type of the title-page so that it reads:--

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
his copy of
A CHILD'S GARDEN OF
VERSES
and if it is [in] the hands of any one
else, explain it who can!
but not by the gift of
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

That Stevenson afterward changed his mind and gave it to "E. F. Russell, with hearty good will," is shown by another inscription. This copy was purchased at the sale for the British Red Cross in London, shortly after the outbreak of the war. It may be some time before it is worth what I paid for it, or the price may look cheap to-morrow--who shall say?

Watching the quotations of the first editions of Stevenson is rather like looking at the quotations of stocks you haven't got, as they recover from a panic. A point or two a day is added to their prices; but Stevenson's move five or ten points at a time, and there has been no reaction--as yet. Only a year or two ago I paid Drake fifty dollars for a copy of "The New Arabian Nights"; and a few days ago I saw in the papers that a copy had just been sold for fifty pounds in a London auction room.[8]

I cannot quite understand Stevenson's immense vogue. Perhaps it is the rare personality of the man. Try as we may, it is impossible to separate the personality of a man from his work. Why is one author "collected" and another not? I do not know. Practically no one collects Scott, or George Eliot, or Trollope; but Trollope collectors there will be, and "The Macdermots of Ballycloran" and "The Kellys and the O'Kellys" will bring fabulous prices some of these days--five hundred dollars each; more, a thousand, I should say; and when you pay this sum, look well for the errors in pagination and see that Mortimer Street is spelt Morimer on the title-page of volume three of the former. And remember, too, that this book is so rare that there is no copy of it in the British Museum--at least so I am told; but you will find one on my shelves, in the corner over there, together with everything else this great Victorian has written--of all novelists my favorite. Trollope proved the correctness of Johnson's remark, "A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly at it." This we know Trollope did, we have his word for it. His personality was too sane, too matter of fact, to be attractive; but his books are delightful. One doesn't read Trollope as Coleridge did Shakespeare--by flashes of lighting (this isn't right, but it expresses the idea); but there is a good, steady glow emanating from the author himself, which, once you get accustomed to it, will enable you to see a whole group of mid-Victorian characters so perfectly that you come to know them as well as the members of your own family, and, I sometimes think, understand them better.

But for one collector who expresses a mild interest in Trollope, there are a thousand who regard the brave invalid, who, little more than twenty years ago, passed away on that lonely Samoan island in the Pacific, as one of the greatest of the moderns, as certain of immortality as Charles Lamb. They may be right. His little toy books and leaflets, those which

The author and the printer
With various kinds of skill
Concocted in the Winter
At Davos on the Hill,

and elsewhere, are simply invaluable. The author and the printer were one and the same--R. L. S., assisted, or perhaps hindered, by S. L. O., Mrs. Stevenson's son, then a lad. Of these Stevensons, "Penny Whistles" is the rarest. But two copies are known. One is in a private collection in England; the other was bought at the Borden sale in 1913 by Mrs. Widener, for twenty-five hundred dollars, in order to complete, as far as might be, the Stevenson collection now in the Widener Memorial Library. It was a privately printed forerunner of "A Child's Garden of Verses," published several years later.

It is a far cry from these bijoux to Stevenson's regularly published volumes; but when it is remembered that these latter were printed in fairly large editions and relatively only a few years ago, it will be seen that no other author of yesterday fetches such high prices as Stevenson.

In recent years there have been published a number of bibliographies without which no collector can be expected to keep house. We are indebted to the Grolier Club for some of the best of these. Its members have the books and are most generous in exhibiting them, and it must indeed be a churlish scholar who cannot freely secure access to the collections of its members.

Aside from the three volumes entitled "Contributions to English Bibliography," published and sold by the Club, the handbooks of the exhibitions held from time to time are much sought, for the wealth of information they contain. The Club's librarian, Miss Ruth S. Granniss, working in coöperation with the members, is largely responsible for the skill and intelligence with which these little catalogues are compiled. The time and amount of painstaking research which enter into the making of them is simply enormous. Indeed, no one quite understands the many questions which arise to vex the bibliographer unless they have attempted to make for themselves even the simplest form of catalogue. Over the door of the room in which they work should be inscribed the text, "Be sure your sin will find you out." Some blunders are redeemed by the laughter they arouse. Here is a famous one:--

Shelley--Prometheus--unbound, etc.
" --Prometheus--bound in olive morocco, etc.

But for the most part the lot of the bibliographer, as Dr. Johnson said of the dictionary-maker, is to be exposed to censure without hope of praise.

That Oscar Wilde continues to interest the collector is proved, if proof were necessary, by the splendid bibliography by Stuart Mason, in two large volumes. Its editor tells us that it was the work of ten years, which I can readily believe; and Robert Ross, Wilde's literary executor, says in the introduction, that, in turning over the proof for ten minutes, he learned more about Wilde's writings than Wilde himself ever knew. It gave me some pleasure, when I first took the book up, to see that Mason had used for his frontispiece the caricature of Wilde by Aubrey Beardsley, the original of which now hangs on the wall near my writing-table, together with a letter from Ross in which he says, "From a technical point of view this drawing is interesting as showing the artistic development of what afterwards was called his Japanese method in the 'Salome' drawings. Here it is only in embryo, but this is the earliest drawing I remember in which the use of dotted lines, a peculiarity of Beardsley, can be traced."[9]

Another favorite bibliography is that of Dickens, by John C. Eckel. His "First Editions of Charles Dickens" is a book which no lover of Dickens--and who is not?--can do without. It is a book to be read, as well as a book of reference. In it Mr. Eckel does one thing, however, which is, from its very nature, hopeless and discouraging. He attempts to indicate the prices at which first editions of his favorite author can be secured at auction, or from the dealers in London and this country. Alas, alas! while waiting to secure prizes at Eckel's prices I have seen them soaring to figures undreamed of a few years ago. In his chapter on "Presentation Copies," he refers to a copy of "Bleak House" given by Dickens to Dudley Costello. "Some years ago," he says, "it sold for $150.00. Eighteen months later the collector resold the book to the dealer for $380.00, who made a quick turn and sold the book for ten per cent advance, or $418.00." These figures Mr. Eckel considers astonishing. I now own the book, but it came into my possession at a figure considerably in excess of that named.

A copy of "American Notes," with an inscription, "Thomas Carlyle from Charles Dickens, Nineteenth October, 1842," gives an excellent idea of the rise in the price of a book, interesting itself and on account of its inscription. At auction, in London, in 1902, it sold for £45. After passing through the hands of several dealers it was purchased by W. E. Allis, of Milwaukee; and at the sale of his books in New York, in 1912, it was bought by George D. Smith for $1050. Smith passed the book on to Edwin W. Coggeshall; but its history is not yet at an end, for at his sale, on April 25, 1916, it was bought by the firm of Dutton for $1850, and by them passed on, the story goes, to a discriminating collector in Detroit, a man who can call all the parts of an automobile by name. Fortunately, while this book was in full flight, I secured a copy with an inscription, "W. C. Macready from his friend Charles Dickens, Eighteenth October, 1842." Now, what is my copy worth?

Seven years ago I paid Charles Sessler nine hundred dollars for three books: a presentation "Carol," to Tom Beard, a "Cricket," to Macready, and a "Haunted Man," to Maclise. At the Coggeshall sale a dealer paid a thousand dollars for a "Carol," while I gave Smith ten per cent advance on a thousand dollars for a "Chimes," with an inscription, "Charles Dickens, Junior, from his affectionate father, Charles Dickens." This copy at the Allis sale had brought seven hundred and seventy-five dollars, at which time I was prepared to pay five hundred dollars for it.

_From the original water-color drawing_]

I always return from these all-star performances depressed in spirit and shattered in pocket. "Where will it stop?" I say to myself. "When will you stop?" my wife says to me. And both questions remain unanswered; certainly not, while presentation Dickenses can be had and are lacking from my collection. I now possess twenty-one, and it is with presentation Dickenses as with elephants--a good many go to the dozen; but I lack and sadly want--Shall I give a list? No, the prices are going up fast enough without stimulation from me. Wait until my "wants" are complete; then let joy be unconfined.

A final word on Dickens: the prices are skyrocketing because everyone loves him. Age cannot wither nor custom stale his infinite variety. As a great creative genius he ranks with Shakespeare. He has given pleasure to millions; he has been translated into all the languages of Europe. "Pickwick," it is said, stands fourth in circulation among English printed books, being exceeded only by the Bible, Shakespeare, and the English Prayer-Book; and the marvel is that when Dickens is spoken of, it is difficult to arrive at an agreement as to which is his greatest book.

But this paper is supposed to relate to prices rather than to books themselves. Other seductive arguments having failed, one sometimes hears a vendor of rare books add, in his most convincing manner, "And you couldn't possibly make a better investment." The idea, I suppose, is calculated to enable a man to meet his wife's reproachful glance, or something worse, as he returns home with a book under his arm. But when one is about to commit some piece of extravagance, such as buying a book of which one already has several copies, one will grasp at any straw, the more so as there may be some truth in the statement.

_From the manuscript formerly in the Coggeshall collection, much reduced in size_]

There are, however, so many good reasons why we should buy rare books, that it seems a pity ever to refer to the least of them. I am not sure that I am called on to give any judgment in the matter; but my belief is that the one best and sufficient reason for a man to buy a book is because he thinks he will be happier with it than without it. I always question myself on this point, and another which presses it closely--can I pay for it? I confess that I do not always listen so attentively for the answer to this second question; but I try so to live as to be able to look my bookseller in the eye and tell him where to go. I govern myself by few rules, but this is one of them--never to allow a book to enter my library as a creditor.

"Un livre est un ami qui ne change jamais"; I want to enjoy my friends whenever I am with them. One would get very tired of a friend if, every time one met him, he should suggest a touch for fifty or five hundred dollars. On the shelves in my office are some books that are mine, some in which there is at the moment a joint ownership, and some which will be mine in the near future, I hope--and doubtless in this hope I am not alone; but the books on the shelves around the room in which I write are mine, all of them.

The advice given by "Punch" to those about to marry--"Don't"--seems, then, to be the best advice to a man who is tempted to buy by the hope of making a profit out of his books; but I observe that this short and ugly word deters very few from following their inclinations in the matter of marriage, and this advice may fall, as advice usually falls, on deaf ears. Only when a man is safely ensconced in six feet of earth, with several tons of enlauding granite upon his chest, is he in a position to give advice with any certainty, and then he is silent; but it will nevertheless be understood that I do not recommend the purchase of rare books as an investment, and this in spite of the fact that many collectors have made handsome profits out of the books they have sold. While a man may do much worse with his money than buy rare books, he cannot be certain that he can dispose of them at a profit, nor is it necessary that he should do so. He should be satisfied to eat his cake and have it; books selected with any judgment will almost certainly afford this satisfaction, and of what other hobby can this be said with the same assurance?

The possession of rare books is a delight best understood by the owners of them. They are not called upon to explain. The gentle will understand, and the savage may be disregarded. It is the scholar whose sword is usually brandished against collectors; and I would not have him think that, in addition to our being ignorant of our books, we are speculators in them also. Let him remember that we have our uses.

Unlearned men of books assume the care,
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.

It may as well be admitted that we do not buy expensive books to read. We may say that it is a delight to us to look upon the very page on which appeared for the first time such a sonnet as "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," or to read that bit of realism unsurpassed, where Robinson Crusoe one day, about noon, discovered the print of a man's naked foot upon the sand; but when we sit down with a copy of Keats, we do not ask for a first edition; much less when we want to live over again the joys of our childhood, do we pick up a copy of Defoe which would be a find at a thousand dollars. But first editions of Keats's Poems, 1817, in boards, with the paper label if possible, and a Defoe unwashed, in a sound old calf binding, are good things to have. They are indeed a joy forever, and will never pass into nothingness. I cannot see why the possession of fine books is more reprehensible than the possession of valuable property of any other sort.

In speaking of books as an investment, one implies first editions. First editions are scarce; tenth editions, as Charles Lamb stutteringly suggested, are scarcer, but there is no demand for them. Why, then, first editions? The question is usually dodged; the truth may as well be stated. There is a joy in mere ownership. It may be silly, or it may be selfish; but it is a joy, akin to that of possessing land, which seems to need no defense. We do not walk over our property every day; we frequently do not see it; but when the fancy takes us, we love to forget our cares and responsibilities in a ramble over our fields. In like manner, and for the same reason, we browse with delight in a corner of our library in which we have placed our most precious books. We should buy our books as we buy our clothes, not only to cover our nakedness, but to embellish us; and we should buy more books and fewer clothes.

I am told that, in proportion to our numbers and our wealth, less money is spent on books now than was spent fifty years ago. I suppose our growing love of sport is to some extent responsible. Golf has taken the place of books. I know that it takes time and costs money. I do not play the game myself, but I have a son who does. Perhaps when I am his age, I shall feel that I can afford it. My sport is book-hunting. I look upon it as a game, a game requiring skill, some money, and luck. The pleasure that comes from seeing some book in a catalogue priced at two or three times what I may have paid for a copy, is a pleasure due to vindicated judgment. I do not wish to rush into the market and sell and secure my profit. What is profit if I lose my book? Moreover, if one thinks of profit rather than of books, there is an interest charge to be considered. A book for which I paid a thousand dollars a few years ago, no longer stands me at a thousand dollars, but at a considerably greater sum. A man neat at figures could tell with mathematical accuracy just the actual cost of that book down to any given minute. I neither know nor want to know.

There is another class of collector with whom I am not in keen sympathy, and that is the men who specialize in the first published volumes of some given group of authors. These works are usually of relatively little merit, but they are scarce and expensive: scarce, because published in small editions and at first neglected; expensive, because they are desired to complete sets of first editions. Anthony Trollope's first two novels have a greater money value than all the rest of his books put together--but they are hard to read. In like manner, a sensational novel, "Desperate Remedies," by Hardy, his first venture in fiction, is worth perhaps as much as fifty copies of his "Woodlanders," one of the best novels of the last half century. George Gissing, when he was walking our streets penniless and in rags, could never have supposed that a few years later his first novel, "Workers in the Dawn," would sell for one hundred and fifty dollars, but it has done so. I have a friend who has just paid this price.

Just here I would like to remark that for several years I have been seeking, without success, a copy of the first edition of that very remarkable book, Samuel Butler's "The Way of All Flesh." Booksellers who jauntily advertise, "Any book got," will please make a note of this one.

Nor do I think it necessary to have every scrap, every waif and stray, of any author, however much I may esteem him. My collection of Johnson is fairly complete, but I have no copy of Father Lobo's "Abyssinia." It was an early piece of hack-work, a translation from the French, for which Johnson received five pounds. It is not scarce; one would hardly want to read it. It was the recollection of this book, doubtless, that suggested the "Prince of Abissinia" to Johnson years later, when he wanted to write "fiction," as the dear old ladies in "Cranford" called "Rasselas"; but it has never seemed necessary to my happiness to have a copy of "Lobo." On the other hand I have "stocked" "Rasselas" pretty considerably, and could supply any reasonable demand. Such are the vagaries of collectors.

Only once, I think, have I been guilty of buying a book I did not particularly want, because of its speculative value--that was when I stumbled across a copy of Woodrow Wilson's "Constitutional Government in the United States" with a long inscription in its author's cursive hand. Even in this case I think it was my imagination rather than avarice that led me to pay a fancy price for a book which some day when I am not "among those present" will fetch as many thousands as I paid hundreds. In 1909, when the inscription was written, its author was a relatively unimportant man--to-day he is known throughout the world and is in a position to influence its destinies as no other man has ever been.

Woodrow Wilson Princeton, 18 Oct., '09. ]

No paper dealing with the prices of books would be complete without the remark that condition is everything. Any rare book is immensely more valuable if in very fine condition. Imagine for a moment a book worth, say, six hundred dollars in good condition,--for example, the "Vicar of Wakefield,"--and then imagine--if you can--a copy of this same book in boards uncut. Would twenty-five hundred dollars be too high a price for such a copy? I think not.

Another point to be remembered is that the price of a book depends, not only on its scarcity, but also on the universality of the demand for it. And once again I may take the "Vicar" as an example of what I mean. The "Vicar" is not a scarce book. For from six to eight hundred dollars, dependent upon condition, one could, I think, lay his hands on as many as ten copies in as many weeks. It is what the trade call a bread-and-butter book--a staple. There is always a demand for it and always a supply at a price; but try to get a copy of Fanny Burney's "Evelina," and you may have to wait a year or more for it. It was the first book of an unknown young lady; the first edition was very small, it was printed on poor paper, proved to be immensely popular, and was immediately worn out in the reading; but there is no persistent demand for it as there is for the "Vicar," and it costs only half as much.

In reading over whatever I have written on the subject of the prices of rare books, I am aware that my remarks may sound to some like a whistle--a whistle to keep up my courage at the thought of the prices I am paying. But so long as the "knockout" does not get a foothold in this country,--and it would immediately be the subject of investigation if it did, and be stopped, as other abuses have been,--the prices of really great books will always average higher and higher. "Of the making of many books there is no end," nor is there an end to the prices men will be willing to pay for them.

Ever thine, {Benj. F. Johnson, Boone Co., Ind.-- {James Whitcomb Riley.

For--Wallace H. Cathcourt(?), Cleveland, Ohio Indianapolis, Jan. 23 1899]

V

"WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN"