Letters On Literature To a Young American Book-Hunter byLang, Andrew
To Philip Dodsworth, Esq., New York.
Dear Dodsworth,--Let me congratulate you on having joined the army
of book-hunters. "Everywhere have I sought peace and found it
nowhere," says the blessed Thomas e Kempis, "save in a corner with a
book." Whether that good monk wrote the "De Imitatione Christi" or
not, one always likes him for his love of books. Perhaps he was the
only book-hunter that ever wrought a miracle. "Other signs and
miracles which he was wont to tell as having happened at the prayer
of an unnamed person, are believed to have been granted to his own,
such as the sudden reappearance of a lost book in his cell." Ah, if
Faith, that moveth mountains, could only bring back the books we
have lost, the books that have been borrowed from us! But we are a
faithless generation.
From a collector so much older and better experienced in misfortune
than yourself, you ask for some advice on the sport of book-hunting.
Well, I will give it; but you will not take it. No; you will hunt
wild, like young pointers before they are properly broken.
Let me suppose that you are "to middle fortune born," and that you
cannot stroll into the great book-marts and give your orders freely
for all that is rich and rare. You are obliged to wait and watch an
opportunity, to practise that maxim of the Stoic's, "Endure and
abstain." Then abstain from rushing at every volume, however out of
the line of your literary interests, which seems to be a bargain.
Probably it is not even a bargain; it can seldom be cheap to you, if
you do not need it, and do not mean to read it.
Not that any collector reads all his books. I may have, and indeed
do possess, an Aldine Homer and Caliergus his Theocritus; but I
prefer to study the authors in a cheap German edition. The old
editions we buy mainly for their beauty, and the sentiment of their
antiquity and their associations.
But I don't take my own advice. The shelves are crowded with books
quite out of my line--a whole small library of tomes on the pastime
of curling, and I don't curl; and "God's Revenge against Murther,"
though (so far) I am not an assassin. Probably it was for love of
Sir Walter Scott, and his mention of this truculent treatise, that I
purchased it. The full title of it is "The Triumphs of God's
Revenge against the Crying and Execrable Sinne of (willful and
premeditated) Murther." Or rather there is nearly a column more of
title, which I spare you. But the pictures are so bad as to be
nearly worth the price. Do not waste your money, like your foolish
adviser, on books like that, or on "Les Sept Visions de Don
Francisco de Quevedo," published at Cologne, in 1682.
Why in the world did I purchase this, with the title-page showing
Quevedo asleep, and all his seven visions floating round him in
little circles like soap-bubbles? Probably because the book was
published by Clement Malassis, and perhaps he was a forefather of
that whimsical Frenchman, Poulet Malassis, who published for
Banville, and Baudelaire, and Charles Asselineau. It was a bad
reason. More likely the mere cheapness attracted me.
Curiosity, not cheapness, assuredly, betrayed me into another
purchase. If I want to read "The Pilgrim's Progress," of course I
read it in John Bunyan's good English. Then why must I ruin myself
to acquire "Voyage d'un Chrestien vers l'Eternite. Ecrit en
Anglois, par Monsieur Bunjan, F.M., en Bedtfort, et nouvellement
traduit en Francois. Avec Figures. A Amsterdam, chez Jean Boekholt
Libraire pres de la Bourse, 1685"? I suppose this is the oldest
French version of the famed allegory. Do you know an older? Bunyan
was still living and, indeed, had just published the second part of
the book, about Christian's wife and children, and the deplorable
young woman whose name was Dull.
As the little volume, the Elzevir size, is bound in blue morocco, by
Cuzin, I hope it is not wholly a foolish bargain; but what do I
want, after all, with a French "Pilgrim's Progress"? These are the
errors a man is always making who does not collect books with
system, with a conscience and an aim.
Do have a specially. Make a collection of works on few subjects,
well chosen. And what subjects shall they be? That depends on
taste. Probably it is well to avoid the latest fashion. For
example, the illustrated French books of the eighteenth century are,
at this moment, en hausse. There is a "boom" in them. Fifty years
ago Brunet, the author of the great "Manuel," sneered at them. But,
in his, "Library Companion," Dr. Dibdin, admitted their merit. The
illustrations by Gravelot, Moreau, Marillier, and the rest, are
certainly delicate, graceful, full of character, stamped with style.
But only the proofs before letters are very much valued, and for
these wild prices are given by competitive millionaires. You cannot
compete with them.
It is better wholly to turn the back on these books and on any
others at the height of the fashion, unless you meet them for
fourpence on a stall. Even then should a gentleman take advantage
of a poor bookseller's ignorance? I don't know. I never fell into
the temptation, because I never was tempted. Bargains, real
bargains, are so rare that you may hunt for a lifetime and never
meet one.
The best plan for a man who has to see that his collection is worth
what it cost him, is probably to confine one's self to a single
line, say, in your case, first editions of new English, French, and
American books that are likely to rise in value. I would try, were
I you, to collect first editions of Longfellow, Bryant, Whittier,
Poe, and Hawthorne.
As to Poe, you probably will never have a chance. Outside of the
British Museum, where they have the "Tamerlane" of 1827, I have only
seen one early example of Poe's poems. It is "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane,
and Minor Poems, by Edgar A. Poe. Baltimore: Hatch and Dunning,
1829, 8vo, pp. 71." The book "came to Mr. Locker (Mr. Frederick
Locker-Lampson), through Mr. R. H. Stoddard, the American poet." So
says Mr. Locker-Lampson's Catalogue. He also has the New York
edition of 1831.
These books are extraordinarily rare; you are more likely to find
them in some collection of twopenny rubbish than to buy them in the
regular market. Bryant's "Poems" (Cambridge, 1821) must also be
very rare, and Emerson's of 1847, and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes's of
1836, and Longfellow's "Voices of the Night," 1839, and Mr. Lowell's
"A Year's Life;" none of these can be common, and all are desirable,
as are Mr. Whittier's "Legends of New England (1831), and "Poems"
(1838).
Perhaps you may never be lucky enough to come across them cheap; no
doubt they are greatly sought for by amateurs. Indeed, all American
books of a certain age or of a special interest are exorbitantly
dear. Men like Mr. James Lenox used to keep the market up. One
cannot get the Jesuit "Relations"--shabby little missionary reports
from Canada, in dirty vellum.
Cartier, Perrot, Champlain, and the other early explorers' books are
beyond the means of a working student who needs them. May you come
across them in a garret of a farmhouse, or in some dusty lane of the
city. Why are they not reprinted, as Mr. Arber has reprinted
"Captain John Smith's Voyages, and Reports on Virginia"? The very
reprints, when they have been made, are rare and hard to come by.
There are certain modern books, new books, that "go up" rapidly in
value and interest. Mr. Swinburne's "Atalanta" of 1865, the quarto
in white cloth, is valued at twenty dollars. Twenty years ago one
dollar would have purchased it. Mr. Austin Dobson's "Proverbs in
Porcelain" is also in demand among the curious. Nay, even I may say
about the first edition of "Ballades in Blue China" (1880), as
Gibbon said of his "Essay on the Study of Literature:" "The
primitive value of half a crown has risen to the fanciful price of a
guinea or thirty shillings," or even more. I wish I had a copy
myself, for old sake's sake.
Certain modern books, "on large paper," are safe investments. The
"Badminton Library," an English series of books on sport, is at a
huge premium already, when on "large paper." But one should never
buy the book unless, as in the case of Dr. John Hill Burton's "Book-
Hunter" (first edition), it is not only on large paper, and not only
rare (twenty-five copies), but also readable and interesting. {1} A
collector should have the taste to see when a new book is in itself
valuable and charming, and when its author is likely to succeed, so
that his early attempts (as in the case of Mr. Matthew Arnold, Lord
Tennyson, and a few others of the moderns) are certain to become
things of curious interest.
You can hardly ever get a novel of Jane Austen's in the first
edition. She is rarer than Fielding or Smollett. Some day it may
be the same in Miss Broughton's case. Cling to the fair and witty
Jane, if you get a chance. Beware of illustrated modern books in
which "processes" are employed. Amateurs will never really value
mechanical reproductions, which can be copied to any extent. The
old French copper-plate engravings and the best English mezzo-tints
are so valuable because good impressions are necessarily so rare.
One more piece of advice. Never (or "hardly ever") buy an imperfect
book. It is a constant source of regret, an eyesore. Here have I
Lovelace's "Lucasta," 1649, without the engraving. It is
deplorable, but I never had a chance of another "Lucasta." This is
not a case of invenies aliam. However you fare, you will have the
pleasure of Hope and the consolation of books quietem inveniendam in
abditis recessibus et libellulis.
