Part 3 (1/2)
Of notable auction sales of books, and of the extravagant prices obtained for certain editions by ambitious and eager compet.i.tion, there is little room to treat. The oft-told story of the Valdarfer Boccaccio of 1471, carried off at the Roxburghe sale in 1812, at 2,260 from Earl Spencer by the Marquis of Blandford, and re-purchased seven years after at another auction for 918, has been far surpa.s.sed in modern bibliomania. ”The sound of that hammer,” wrote the melodramatic Dibdin, ”echoed through Europe:” but what would he have said of the Mazarin Bible of Gutenberg and Fust (1450-55) sold in 1897, at the Ashburnham sale, for four thousand pounds, or of the Latin Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, 2d ed.
1459, which brought 4,950 at the Syston Park sale in 1884? This last sum (about twenty-four thousand dollars) is the largest price ever yet recorded as received for a single volume. Among books of less rarity, though always eagerly sought, is the first folio Shakespeare of 1623, a very fine and perfect copy of which brought 716.2 at Daniel's sale in 1864. Copies warranted perfect have since been sold in London for 415 to 470. In New York, a perfect but not ”tall” copy brought $4,200 in 1891 at auction. Walton's ”Compleat Angler,” London, 1st ed. 1653, a little book of only 250 pages, sold for 310 in 1891. It was published for one s.h.i.+lling and sixpence. The first edition of Robinson Crusoe brought 75 at the Crampton sale in 1896.
The rage for first editions of very modern books reached what might be called high-water mark some time since, and has been on the decline.
Sh.e.l.ley's ”Queen Mab,” 1st ed. 1813, was sold at London for 22.10, and his ”Refutation of Deism,” 1814, was sold at 33, at a London sale in 1887. In New York, many first editions of Sh.e.l.ley's poems brought the following enormous prices in 1897.
Sh.e.l.ley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, Italy, 1821, $335.
Alastor, London, 1816, $130.
The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $65.
h.e.l.las, London, 1822, $13.
But these were purely advent.i.tious prices, as was clearly shown in the sale at the same auction rooms, a year or two earlier, of the following:
Sh.e.l.ley's Adonais, 1st ed. Pisa, 1821, $19.
Alastor, London, 1816, $32.
The Cenci, Italy, 1819, $21.
h.e.l.las, London, 1822, $2.
The sales occasionally made at auction of certain books at extraordinary prices, prove nothing whatever as to the real market value, for these reasons: (1) The auctioneer often has an unlimited bid, and the price is carried up to an inordinate height. (2) Two or more bidders present, infatuated by the idea of extreme rarity, bid against one another until all but one succ.u.mb, when the price has reached a figure which it is a mild use of terms to call absurd. (3) Descriptions in sale catalogues, though often entirely unfounded, characterising a book as ”excessively rare;” ”only -- copies known,” ”very scarce,” ”never before offered at our sales,” etc., may carry the bidding on a book up to an unheard-of price.
The appeal always lies to the years against the hours; and many a poor book-mad enthusiast has had to rue his too easy credulity in giving an extravagant sum for books which he discovers later that he could have bought for as many s.h.i.+llings as he has paid dollars. Not that the _rarissimi_ of early printed books can ever be purchased for a trifle; but it should ever be remembered that even at the sales where a few--a very few--bring the enormous prices that are bruited abroad, the ma.s.s of the books offered are knocked down at very moderate figures, or are even sacrificed at rates very far below their cost. The possessor of one of the books so advertised as sold at some auction for a hundred dollars or upwards, if he expects to realise a t.i.the of the figure quoted, will speedily find himself in the vocative.
While there are almost priceless rarities not to be found in the market by any buyer, let the book collector be consoled by the knowledge that good books, in good editions, were never so easy to come by as now. A fine library can be gathered by any one with very moderate means, supplemented by a fair amount of sagacity and common sense. The buyer with a carefully digested list of books wanted will find that to buy them wisely takes more time and less money than he had antic.i.p.ated. The time is required to acquaint himself with the many competing editions, with their respective merits and demerits. This involves a comparison of type, paper, and binding, as well as the comparative prices of various dealers for the same books. No one who is himself gifted with good perceptions and good taste, should trust to other hands the selection of his library.
His enjoyment of it will be proportioned to the extent to which it is his own creation. The pa.s.sion for n.o.bly written books, handsomely printed, and clothed in a fitting garb, when it has once dawned, is not to be defrauded of its satisfaction by hiring a commission merchant to appease it. What we do for ourselves, in the acquirement of any knowledge, is apt to be well done: what is done for us by others is of little value.
We have heard of some uninformed _parvenus_, grown suddenly rich, who have first ordered a magnificent library room fitted with rose-wood, marble and gilded trappings, and then ordered it to be filled with splendidly bound volumes at so much per volume. And it is an authentic fact, that a bookseller to the Czar of Russia one Klostermann, actually sold books at fifty to one hundred roubles by the yard, according to the binding. The force of folly could no farther go, to debase the aims and degrade the intellect of man.
In the chapter upon rare books, the reader will find instances in great variety of the causes that contribute to the scarcity and enhancement of prices of certain books, without at all affecting their intrinsic value, which may be of the smallest.
CHAPTER 3.
THE ART OF BOOK BINDING.
In these suggestions upon the important question of the binding of books, I shall have nothing to say of the history of the art, and very little of its aesthetics. The plainest and most practical hints will be aimed at, and if my experience shall prove of value to any, I shall be well rewarded for giving it here. For other matters readers will naturally consult some of the numerous manuals of book-binding in English, French and German. The sumptuous bindings executed in the sixteenth century, under the patronage and the eyes of Grolier, the famous tooled masterpieces of Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup, Trautz and other French artists, and the beautiful gems of the binder's art from the hands of Roger Payne, Lewis, Mackenzie, Hayday and Bedford, are they not celebrated in the pages of Dibdin, Lacroix, Fournier, Wheatley, and Robert Hoe?
There are some professed lovers of books who affect either indifference or contempt for the style in which their favorites are dressed. A well known epigram of Burns is sometimes quoted against the fondness for fine bindings which widely prevails in the present day, as it did in that of the Scottish Poet. A certain Scottish n.o.bleman, endowed with more wealth than brains, was vain of his splendidly bound Shakespeare, which, however, he never read. Burns, on opening the folio, found the leaves sadly worm-eaten, and wrote these lines on the fly-leaf:
”Through and through th' inspired leaves, Ye maggots make your windings; But O respect his lords.h.i.+p's taste, And spare the golden bindings!”
Yet no real book-lover fails to appreciate the neatness and beauty of a tasteful binding, any more than he is indifferent to the same qualities in literary style. Slovenly binding is almost as offensive to a cultivated eye as slovenly composition. No doubt both are ”mere externals,” as we are told, and so are the splendors of scenery, the beauty of flowers, and the comeliness of the human form, or features, or costume. Talk as men will of the insignificance of dress, it const.i.tutes a large share of the attractiveness of the world in which we live.
The two prime requisites of good binding for libraries are neatness and solidity. It is pleasant to note the steady improvement in American bindings of late years. As the old style of ”Half cloth boards,” of half a century ago, with paper t.i.tles pasted on the backs, has given way to the neat, embossed, full muslin gilt, so the clumsy and homely sheep-skin binding has been supplanted by the half-roan or morocco, with marble or muslin sides. Few books are issued, however, either here or abroad, in what may be called permanent bindings. The cheapness demanded by buyers of popular books forbids this, while it leaves to the taste and fancy of every one the selection of the ”library style” in which he will have his collection permanently dressed.
What is the best style of binding for a select or a public library? is a question often discussed, with wide discrepancies of opinion. The so universally prevalent cloth binding is too flimsy for books subjected to much use--as most volumes in public collections and many in private libraries are likely to be. The choice of the more substantial bindings lies between calf and morocco, and between half or full bindings of either. For nearly all books, half binding, if well executed, and with cloth sides, is quite as elegant, and very nearly as solid and lasting as full leather; for if a book is so worn as to need rebinding, it is generally in a part where the full binding wears out quite as fast as the other. That is, it gets worn at the hinges and on the back, whether full or half-bound. The exceptions are the heavy dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and other works of reference, which are subjected to much wear and tear at the sides, as well as at the back and corners. Full leather is much more expensive than half binding, though not doubly so.
Every librarian or book collector should understand something of book-binding and its terms, so that he may be able to give clear directions as to every item involved in binding, repairing, or re-lettering, and to detect imperfect or slighted work.