BOOK-AUCTION RECORDS

A Priced and Annotated Record

OF

London Book Auctions

EDITED BY

FRANK KARSLAKE

VOL. VI.

FOR THE AUCTION.SEASON

COMPRISED WITHIN OCTOBER 1, 1908-SEPT. 30, 1909

(containing 15,035 records)

LONDON

KARSLAKE & CO.

35, POND STREET, HAMPSTEAD, N.W.

1909

PREFATORY NOTES

T was the late Henry George Bohn, the famous publisher, with whom my revered Master, Mr. David White, was an apprentice, who once remarked to a clergyman, "Well, now, you've been preaching on one subject for fifty years; how do you manage to say something new about it every week?" The clergyman replied that he didn't attempt to say anything new, but that he endeavoured to say the old things in a new way. "Well," answered Bohn, “I can only say that I'm sorry for you." I have to attempt to write on one subject only once each year, yet I always begin by being sorry for myself, which merely proves that for me the Church would not have been an ideal vocation. For there seems to be nothing to say, except the heading, "Prefatory Notes," and the sole remedy appears to be to sit down to the typewriter and get that into black and white and let the rest come, whatever it may happen to be.

The clay

The inspiration of the moment leads me to begin with the usual opening to conversation among Englishmen, namely that the weather this year has been as bad as it always is. After that we can get to business. The mention of the word "business" is a reminder of the exceeding interestingness of bookselling as an occupation. There is no other calling like it under the sun, for the printed book, being issued by the thousand, and scattered all over the face of the earth, is the most abiding record of the work of the world. tablets of the Assyrians have unfolded the life of the earlier years of the historic period, but they could be only infinitesimal in number compared with the material for libraries which has been put out since the invention of printing. So we may at least hope that whether Western civilization flourishes indefinitely or not at least its records may survive in the form of the printed page, and its philosophies be of service in moulding the destinies of later eras. That, alone, is an interesting aspiration.

To refer once more to a point touched upon last year, viz. the idea among a few that antiquarian bookselling is "a wretched calling," experience shows that it is anything but that. Besides the solid intellectual gratifications it gives there is the fact that fewer fail in it than in almost, if not quite, any other occupation that can be named. Statistics prove that. And when those failures do occur

they are accounted for either by personal reasons or from causes over which men have no control, some among those reasons being high qualities of character which prevent a man being brutal enough to compete successfully against his more commercial fellows. All the more honour to them, and not disgrace. I have known more than one such case. The antiquarian bookseller who finds that the times are "hard" must see, if he has eyes to see, that times are harder by far with others. Competition increases so rapidly that what the end of it is to be must be left to the surmises of statesmen and philosophers, for the man in the street cannot suggest what it will be. He is far too busily engaged in keeping the wolf from the door to spare time in which to speculate upon abstract questions.

Romance plays a considerable part in antiquarian bookdealing. You never know what is going to " turn up. For instance, within the past twelvemonth a London bookseller bought from a country catalogue a tiny volume for three shillings. A month or two later he sold it for £250. Another purchased a bundle at a London auction-room for a few shillings, and found in it a rare pamphlet of which only one other copy is known, the latter being priced fifty guineas in a London dealer's catalogue. The self-same lucky bookseller in turn sold from his catalogue to another London dealer a little volume for 12/-, the latter re-selling it in a few days for £6 6s. Od. Yet another bought a book for £50 for which he was at once offered £150 by a bookseller, but he declines to accept less than £250. And one bundle of pamphlets was purchased at a London sale for £15, and contained one item worth £150. These are all cases within my own knowledge, occurring among subscribers to B.A.R. One other case was reported in the London press, in which, during the past season, a set of Johnson's "Lives of the Poets" was bought by an East End bookseller, from a stall, for ninepence. But on the title was the inscription "J. Wesley, the gift of the Author, 1781," and, in another hand, "S. Wesley, the Legacy of her much honoured uncle J. Wesley, 1791." The fortunate purchaser promptly sent his "find" to the auction-room, and realised £9 10s. Od. for it. The record will be found on page 84 of the present volume. The fact that such coups are possible adds a touch of excitement to an otherwise quiet and studious calling, and gratifies the sporting instinct inherent in most men. It also tends to sharpen the wits and to make one determine not, if possible, to let such chances slip through one's fingers. Upon the other hand, let no unprofessional reader into whose possession this volume may chance to come suppose that these "flukes" fall undeserved into the laps of members of the