The Romance of Book-Collecting

IN EULOGY OF CATALOGUES.

There are plenty of people--in fact, they are in the great majority even among bookish men--who regard antiquated sale-catalogues in the light of so much rubbish, and yet, when intelligently consulted, these memorials of a bygone day not only have their uses, but are positively interesting. Truly enough they are not popular, like the last new novel which, for one reason or another, has taken the town by storm, and it would not pay to reprint a single one of them, even the best or most important that has ever held the frequenters of auction-rooms spell-bound.

Sometimes a 'parcel' will be sold for what it will fetch, and on investigation may prove to contain a few simple-minded pamphlets on subjects of no importance, 'and others,' the latter consisting of book-catalogues of the last or the earlier portion of the present century. This happens sufficiently often to make it possible for a bookish enthusiast of an antiquarian turn of mind to lose himself with marvellous rapidity in a maze of old-time dispersions. But the enthusiast, unless very determined indeed, knows better than to choke his library with such material. He is aware that an exhaustive index is indispensable to the proper appreciation of such literature, and to make that would occupy his nights indefinitely.

And so it comes to pass that old sale-catalogues of books are consigned for the most part to the rubbish-heap, or perhaps sent to the mills, to reappear later on in another guise. They may be scarce in the sense that, if you wanted a particular one, it could only be got with great difficulty, and at considerable expense (here the art of selling to advantage comes in), or perhaps not at all. This, however, makes no matter, for the fact remains that such things are not inquired for as a general rule, and that an occasional demand is insufficient to give them any kind of a status in the world of letters.

Some five or six years ago a member of the Johnson Club, a literary society which meets at intervals in various parts of London, but more particularly in Fleet Street, discovered a catalogue of the sale of the old Doctor's library, neatly marked with the prices each book had brought. Whether this was a sale post mortem or a casual interlocutory dispersal at the instance of some soulless creditor, I do not know. In any case the relic was a find--a fact which the bookseller who bought it was not slow to appreciate, for he at once assessed its value, to the society man, at something like forty shillings. This was paid without demur, because at the time all the other Johnson catalogues were in mufti, and it had struck no one to exhibit them, and also because it was, under the circumstances of the case, a very desirable memorial to present to the society which flourishes on the fame of the great lexicographer. Here, at any rate, is one exceptional instance of an old catalogue possessing a distinct pecuniary value up to L2, and though the noise this discovery made in certain circles led to a general search and the rescue of other copies, the circumstances are not in the least affected on that account.

From a literary or even a sentimental standpoint, a long story, full of speculation and romance, might be written on Dr. Johnson's long-forgotten catalogue. We might, for instance, trace, by the aid of Boswell, many of the books mentioned in it to the very hand of the master himself. We might conjecture the use he made of this volume or that in his 'Lives of the Poets,' 'The Vanity of Human Wishes,' or in the ponderous Dictionary that cemented his fame, and by way of interlude beguile an hour occasionally by contrasting the character of the books he affected with the quality of those on the shelves of some modern Johnson, assuming, of course, that his counterpart is to be found. Then we might look at the prices realized, and compare them with those ruling at the present day. Some books then in fashion are, we may be sure, now despised and rejected, others have not been appreciably affected by the course of time, while others, again, are now sought after throughout the world, and are hardly to be met with at all. There is no old catalogue whatever which is not capable of affording considerable instruction if we only read between the lines.

Then, again, there is one speculation that no true book-lover can stifle; it haunts him as he passes the barrows with their loads of sermons and scholastic primers, and it is this: 'Time works wonders.' Some day may not this heterogeneous mass of rubbish produce as fine a pearl as ever a diseased oyster was robbed of? May not fashion go off at a tangent, and dote on lexicons or what not? There have been men--Rossi, for example, who was so saturated with the suspicion that fashion might change any moment that the stalls by which he passed were 'like towns through which Attila or the Tartars had swept, with ruin in their train'--who would buy any book whatever, whether they wanted it or not, on the bare chance of someone else wanting it, either at the time or in the days to come.

Such may be the outcome of a too eager perusal of catalogues, focussed till it produces an absorbing passion, which only departs with life itself. After a time discrimination, naturally enough, becomes impossible, and whole masses of books are bought up for what they may become, not for what they are. This may appear to be an ignoble sort of pastime, but in reality it is far otherwise, since wholesale purchasers of this stamp are invariably well read, and know more about their author than his mere name. I personally was acquainted with a bookworm who absorbed whole collections at a time. His house was full of books; they were under the beds, in cupboards, piled up along the walls, under the tables and chairs, and even on the rafters under the roof. If you walked without due care, you would, more likely than not, tumble over a folio in the dark, or bring down a wall of literature, good, bad, or indifferent, on your head. This library was chaotic to the general, though the worm himself knew very well where to burrow for anything he required, and, what is more to the point, would feed for hours on volumes that few people had ever so much as heard of. The monetary value of his treasures did not trouble him, though one of his favourite anecdotes related to the hunting down of a fourth folio Shakespeare, which, after much haggling, he purchased for a song from a poor woman who lived in an almshouse. When the delight of the chase was over, he recompensed her to the full market value, thereby proving that, in his case at least, a greed for books does not necessarily carry with it a stifled conscience. Sad to relate, this bibliophile died like other men, and the collection of a lifetime came to the inevitable hammer. Most of his books then proved to be portions of sets. If a work were complete in, say, ten volumes, he would perhaps possess no more than five or six of the full number in various bindings and editions, while others, though complete, were imperfect, and many were in rags. Yet among the whole there were some pearls of great price. Even in his day the fashion had changed in his favour.

Now, this changing of fashion which is always going on cannot be prophesied at haphazard, or perhaps even at all; but if there is a way of forestalling it, it is by the careful comparison of prices realized for books of a certain kind at different periods of time, and this can only be accomplished by a study of catalogues. The book-man likes to think that history repeats itself in this as in other matters, and that what has happened once will probably occur again in process of time. Nay, he might, without any great stretch of credulity. persuade himself that it must occur, if only he live long enough. That's the rub, for half a dozen lifetimes might not be sufficient to witness a return to favour of, say, the ponderous works of the Fathers, which were in such great demand a couple of centuries ago. As of them, so of many other kinds of books which are only read now by the very few. Some day they will rise again after their long sleep, but not for us.

As a corollary to this eulogy of catalogues, let us take a few of them and see where the book-man's steps are leading him. In his wanderings abroad he must many a time be painfully conscious of the fact that his own quest is that of everyone else whose tastes are similar to his own. Let a first edition of the immortal 'Angler' so much as peep from among the grease and filth of a rag-and-bone shop, and a magnetic current travels at lightning speed to the homes of a score or more of pickers-up of unconsidered trifles, who forthwith race for the prize. How they get to know of its existence is a mystery. Perhaps some strange psychological influence is at work to prompt them to dive down a pestilential alley for the first and last time in their lives. Did you ever see a millionaire groping in the gutter for a dropped coin? His energy is nothing to that of the book-man who has reason to suspect--why he knows not--that here or there may perhaps lie hid and unrecognised a volume which fashion has made omnipotent. And his energy is not confined to himself alone, for one decree of a naughty world changes not--it is ever the same: What many men want, more men will search for; what one man only has, many will want. The path of the book-hunter is trodden flat and hard with countless footsteps, and this is the reason why it is so unsatisfactory to look specially for anything valuable.

We may take it, therefore, that, though hunting for books may be a highly exhilarating pastime, it is seldom remunerative from a pecuniary point of view. There are, no doubt, hundreds of thousands of good and useful volumes which can be bought at any time for next to nothing; but they have no halo round them at the moment, and so they are abandoned to their fate by the typical collector, who insists not only on having the best editions in exchange for his money, but that his books shall be of a certain description--that is to say, of a kind to please him, or which for the time being is in great demand.

And men are pleased at various times by books of a widely different character, as the old catalogues tell us plainly enough. In 1676, when William Cooper bookseller, dwelling at the Sign of the Pelican in Little Britain, held the first auction sale ever advertised in England--that of the library of Dr. Lazarus Seaman--works critical of the Fathers and Schoolmen; learned and critical volumes of distressing profundity, appealed to the comparative few who could read and write sufficiently well to make reading a pleasurable experience. Poetry is absent entirely. Shakespeare and Milton are elbowed out by Puritan fanatics who fulminate curses against mankind. No doubt, if a book-man of those days had been asked what kind of literature would be in vogue a couple of centuries hence, he would have pointed to Seaman's collection and replied, 'Books like those can never die. So long as learning holds its sway over the few, they will be bought and treasured by the many.' In this he would have been wrong, for few people care nowadays for volumes such as these. The times have changed utterly, and we with them.