The Book-Hunter in London Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[100:A] Cooper's hammer was of boxwood. Millington applies to his own the Homeric line, +deine de klange genet' argnreoio bioio+, which anyone is quite at liberty to believe. James Christie's original hammer is still in the possession of the firm; Samuel Baker's belongs to Mr. H. B.

Wheatley.

[101:A] In 1686 Millington was selling the library of the deceased Lord Anglesey. Putting up a copy of 'Eikon Basilike,' there were but few bidders, and those very low in their biddings. Casually turning over the pages before bringing the hammer on the rostrum, he read, with evident surprise, the following note in Lord Anglesey's own handwriting: 'King Charles the Second and the Duke of York did both (in the last session of parliament, 1675, when I showed them, in the Lords' House, the written copy of this book, wherein are some corrections, written with the late King Charles the First's own hand) a.s.sure me that this was none of the said king's compiling, but made by Dr. Gauden, Bishop of Exeter; which I here insert for the understanding of others on this point, by attesting so much under my own hand.--ANGLESEY.'

[121:A] There were 4,313 lots in this sale, the total of which was 4,001. The catalogue has a very curious engraved frontispiece of an oak-tree felled, and persons bearing away branches, with a Greek motto signifying that, the oak being felled, every man gets wood.

[129:A] This particular copy is regarded as the finest ever sold at auction; it is bound in blue morocco by Derome, and cost Mr. Wodhull 15 guineas in August, 1770.

[132:A] John Ratcliffe, who died in 1776, lived in East Lane, Bermondsey, and followed the prosaic calling of a chandler. He collected Caxtons and the works of other early English printers with great diligence and judgment for nearly thirty years. Many of these appear to have been brought to him as wastepaper, to be purchased at so much per pound. An interesting account of this very remarkable man is given in Nichols' 'Literary Anecdotes,' iii., 621, 622.

[133:A] The original or Caxton's price for this book was about 5s. or 6s. per copy.

[136:A] The t.i.tle-page of the catalogue contained the following whimsical motto from Ebulus:

+Kai gar o taos dia to spanion thaumazetai.+

(The peac.o.c.k is admired on account of its rarity.)

Hearne speaks of Richard Rawlinson as 'vir antiquis moribus ornatus, perque eam viam euns, quae ad immortalem gloriam ducit.'

[143:A] The first edition of this play, 1597, sold in 1864 for 341 5s.; it is the only copy known.

[143:B] Thomas Jolley picked up a volume which contained a first edition of both 'Venus and Adonis' and the 'Sonnets,' for less than 3s. 6d. in Lancas.h.i.+re! The former alone realised 116 in 1844, and is now in the Grenville collection, British Museum. The copy of the former in the above list was purchased at Baron Bolland's sale in 1840 for 91; at Bright's sale for 91 10s., when it became Daniel's. The 'Sonnets,' also Daniel's copy, had belonged to Narcissus Luttrell, who gave 1s. for it.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

BOOKSTALLS AND BOOKSTALLING.

OF the numerous ways and means of acquiring books open to the book-hunter in London, there is none more pleasant or popular than that of BOOKSTALLING. To the man with small means, and to the man with no means at all, the pastime is a very fascinating one. East, west, north, and south, there is, at all times and in all seasons, plenty of good hunting-ground for the sportsman, although the inveterate hunter will encounter a surfeit of Barmecides' feasts. Nearly every book-hunter has been more or less of a bookstaller, and the custom is more than tinctured with the odour of respectability by the fact that Roxburghe's famous Duke, Lord Macaulay the historian, and Mr. Gladstone the omnivorous, have been inveterate grubbers among the bookstalls. Macaulay was not very communicative to booksellers, and when any of them would hold up a book, although at the other end of the shop, he could tell by the cover, or by intuition, what it was all about, and would say 'No,'

or 'I have it already.' Leigh Hunt was a bookstaller, for he says: 'Nothing delights us more than to overhaul some dingy tome and read a chapter gratuitously. Occasionally, when we have opened some very attractive old book, we have stood reading for hours at the stall, lost in a brown study and worldly forgetfulness, and should probably have read on to the end of the last chapter, had not the vendor of published wisdom offered, in a satirically polite way, to bring us out a chair.

"Take a chair, sir; you must be tired."' The first Lord Lytton had a fancy for these plebeian book-marts; whilst Southey had a mania for them almost: he could not pa.s.s one without 'just running his eye over for _one_ minute, even if the coach which was to take him to see Coleridge at Hampstead was within the time of starting.'

The extreme variety of the bookstall is its great attraction, and the chances of netting a rare or interesting book lie, perhaps, not so much in the variety of books displayed as in their general shabbiness. Ten years ago an English journalist picked up a copy of the first edition of Mrs. Gla.s.se's 'Art of Cookery,' in the New Kent Road, for a few pence.

It is no longer a shabby folio, but, superbly bound, it was sold with Mr. Sala's books, July 23, 1895, for 10. A not too respectable copy of Charles Lamb's privately-printed volume, 'The Beauty and the Beast,' was secured for a few pence, its market-value being something like 20. A copy of Sir Walter Scott's 'Vision of Don Roderick,' 1816, first edition, in the original boards, was purchased, by Mr. J. H. Slater, in Farringdon Road, in January, 1895, for 2d.--not a great catch, perhaps, but it is one of the rarest of Scott's works; and as the originals of this prolific author are rapidly rising in the market, there is no knowing what it may be worth in the immediate future.

Here is a curious ill.u.s.tration of the manner in which a 'find' is literally picked up. A man who sells books from a barrow in the streets was wheeling it on the way to open for the day, and pa.s.sed close to a bookseller's a.s.sistant who was on his way to work. As the man pa.s.sed, a small volume fell off into the road, which the a.s.sistant kindly picked up, with the intention of replacing it on the barrow. Before doing so, however, he looked at the volume. One glance was enough. 'Here, what do you want for this?' he asked. The dealer, taking a casual glance at the volume, said: 'Oh, thruppence, I suppose, will do.' The money was paid, and the a.s.sistant departed with the prize, which was a rare volume by Increase Mather, printed in 1698 at Boston, U.S.A., and worth from 8 to 12. A copy of Fuller's first work, and the only volume of poetry published by that quaint writer, the excessively rare 'David's Hainous Sinne,' 1631, was bought a few years ago for eighteenpence, probably worth half as many pounds.

The coincidences of the bookstall are sometimes very remarkable. Mr. G.

L. Gomme relates one which is well worth recording, and we give it in his own words: 'My friend, Mr. James Britten, the well-known plant-lore scholar, has been collecting for some years the set of twenty-four volumes of that curious annual, _Time's Telescope_. He had two duplicates for 1825 and 1826, and these he gave to me. One day last January I was engaged to dine with him, and in the middle of the _same_ day I pa.s.sed a second-hand bookshop, and picked out from the sixpenny box a volume of _Time's Telescope_ for 1816. In the evening I showed my treasure with great contentment to my friend, expecting congratulations.

But, to my surprise and discomfiture, a mysterious look pa.s.sed over his face, then followed a quick migration to his bookshelves, then a loud hurrah, and an explanation that this very "find" of mine was the _one_ volume he wanted to complete his set, the one volume he had been in search of for some time.' Another book-collector picked out of a rubbish-heap on a country bookseller's floor a little old book of poetry with the signature of 'A. Pope.' Subsequently he found a ma.n.u.script note in a book on the shelves of a public library referring to this very copy, which, the writer of the note stated, had been given him by the poet Pope.

The late Cornelius Walford related an interesting incident, the 'only one of any special significance which has occurred to me during thirty-five years of industrious book-hunting': 'When living at Enfield, I used generally to walk to the Temple by way of Finsbury, Moorgate, Cheapside, and Fleet Street. Every bookshop on the way I was familiar with. On one occasion I thought I would vary the route by way of Long Lane and Smithfield (as, indeed, I had occasionally done before). I was at the time sadly in want of a copy of "Weskett on Insurances," 1781, a folio work of some 600 pages. I had searched and inquired for it for years; no bookseller had ever seen it. I had visited every bookshop in Dublin, in the hope of finding a copy of the pirated (octavo) edition printed there; and but for having seen a copy in a public library, should have come to the conclusion that the book never existed. Some temporary sheds had been erected over the Metropolitan Railway in Long Lane. One, devoted to a meagre stock of old books, _was opened that morning_. The first book I saw on the rough shelves was Weskett, original edition, price a few s.h.i.+llings. I need hardly say I carried it away... . I have never seen or heard of another of the original edition exposed or reported for sale.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Cornelius Walford, Book-collector._]

Mr. Shandy _pere_ was a bookstaller also, and if Bruscambille's 'Prologue upon Long Noses,' even when obtainable 'almost for nothing,'

would fail to excite in every collector the enthusiasm experienced by Mr. Shandy, we can at all events sympathize with him. '"There are not three Bruscambilles in Christendom," said the stall-man, who, like many stall-men of to-day, did not hesitate to make a leap in the dark, "except what are chained up in the libraries of the curious." My father flung down the money as quick as lightning, took Bruscambille into his bosom, hied home from Piccadilly to Coleman Street with it, as he would have hied home with a treasure, without taking his hand once off from Bruscambille all the way.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The South Side of Holywell Street._]

We have already seen that there were bookstalls as well as bookshops in and about the neighbourhood of Little Britain during the latter part of the seventeenth century. There were bookstalls or booths also in St.

Paul's Churchyard long before this period; but books had scarcely become old in the time of Shakespeare, so that doubtless the volumes which were to be had within the shadow of the cathedral were new ones. Booksellers gradually migrated from the heart of London to a more westerly direction. The bookstall followed, not so much as a matter of course as because there was no room for it; land became extremely valuable, and narrow streets, which are also crowded, are not a congenial soil for the book-barrow. The Strand and Holborn and Fleet Street districts, both highways and byways, became a favourite spot for the book-barrow during the last century, and remained such up to quite modern times--until, indeed, the iconoclastic wave of improvements swept everything before it. Holywell Street still remains intact.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Exeter 'Change in 1826._]

One of the most famous bookstalling localities during the last century was Exeter 'Change, in the Strand, which occupied a large area of the roadway between the present Lyceum Theatre and Exeter Street, and has long since given place to Burleigh Street. The place was built towards the end of the seventeenth century, and the shops were at first occupied by sempsters, milliners, hosiers, and so forth. The place appears to have greatly degenerated, and soon included bookstalls among the standings of miscellaneous dealers. Writing on January 31, 1802, Robert Bloomfield observes: 'Last night, in pa.s.sing through Exeter 'Change, I stopt at a bookstall, and observed "The Farmer's Boy" laying there for sale, and the new book too, marked with very large writing, Bloomfield's "Rural Tales": a young man took it up, and I observed he read the whole through, and perhaps little thought that the author stood at his elbow.'

This locality was also a famous one for 'pamphlet shops.' 'Sold at the Pamphlet Shops of London and Westminster' is an imprint commonly seen on t.i.tle-pages up to the middle of the last century. In addition to shops and stalls, book-auctions were also held here. The curious and valuable library of Dr. Thomas Pellet, Fellow of the College of Physicians, and of the Royal Society, was sold 'in the Great Room over Exeter 'Change,'

during January, 1744, beginning at 5 p.m. (see p. 105).

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Barrow in Whitechapel._]

Early in the eighteenth century, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, in his 'Miscellaneous Reflections,' 1714, refers to notable philosophers and divines 'who can be contented to make sport, and write in learned Billingsgate, to divert the Coffeehouse, and entertain the a.s.semblys at Booksellers' shops, or the more airy Stalls of inferior book-retailers.'

Bookstalls or barrows have been for nearly a century a feature of the East End of London, more particularly of Whitechapel Road and Sh.o.r.editch. The numbers of barrows have increased, but the locality is practically the same. Many useful libraries have been formed from off these stalls, and many very good bargains secured. Excellent collections may still be formed from them, but the chances of a noteworthy 'find'

are indeed small. The book-hunter who goes to either of these places with the idea of bagging a whole bundle of rarities is likely to come away disappointed; but if he is in a buying humour the chances are ten to one in favour of his getting a good many useful books at very moderate figures. We have heard of a man who picked up a complete set of first editions of Mrs. Browning in Sh.o.r.editch, but no one ever seems to have met that lucky individual; and as the story is retailed chiefly by the owner of the barrow from which they were said to have been rescued--the said owner apparently not in the least minding the inevitable conclusion at which the listener will arrive--the story is not repeated as authentic. One of the last things which has come out of Sh.o.r.editch lately is a copy of the first edition of Gwillim's 'Display of Heraldry' (1610), in excellent condition, and which was purchased for a few pence. An East End book-hunter tells us that, among other rarities which he has rescued from stalls and cellars in that district, are a first folio Ben Jonson; a copy of the Froben Seneca (1515), with its fine bordered t.i.tle-page, by Urs Graf; an early edition of Montaigne, with a curious frontispiece; the copy of the _editio princeps_ Statius (1483), which was purchased by Mr. Quaritch at the Sunderland sale; one or two Plantins, in spotless splendour; Henry Stephens' Herodotus, a book as beautiful as it is now valueless, but of which a copy is kept in a showcase at South Kensington, and others, all at merely nominal prices.

Many first-cla.s.s libraries were formed by these _frequentationes orientales_. It is a great pity that Macaulay, for example, has not left on record a few of the very remarkable incidents which came under his observation during these pilgrimages. The late Mr. W. J. Thoms contributed a few of his to the _Nineteenth Century_ thirteen years ago.

One of Mr. Thoms' most striking 'East End' book-hunting anecdotes relates to a Defoe tract. When a collected edition of Defoe's works was contemplated some forty years ago, it was determined that the various pieces inserted in it should be reprinted from the editions of them superintended by Defoe himself. 'There was one tract which the editor had failed to find at the British Museum or any other public library, and which he had sought in vain for in "The Row" or any bookseller's within reach of ordinary West End mortals. Somebody suggested that he should make a pilgrimage to Old Street, St. Luke's, and perhaps Brown might have a copy. Old Brown, as he was familiarly called, had a great knowledge of books and book-rarities, although perhaps he was more widely known for the extensive stock of ma.n.u.script sermons which he kept indexed according to texts, and which he was ready to lend or sell as his customers desired... . The editor inquired of Brown whether he had a copy of Defoe's tract. "No," said Brown; "I have not, and I don't know where you are likely to find one. But if you do meet with one, you will have to pay pretty handsomely for it." "I am prepared to pay a fair price for it," said the would-be customer, and left the shop. Now, Old Brown had a "sixpenny box" outside the door, and he had such a keen eye to business that I believe, if there was a box in London which would bear out Leigh Hunt's statement [that no one had ever found anything worth having in the sixpenny box at a bookstall], it was that box in Old Street. But as the customer left the shop his eye fell on the box, he turned over the rubbish in it, and at last selected a volume. "I'll pay you for this out of the box." "Thank you, sir," said Brown, taking the proffered sixpence. "But, by-the-by, what is it?" "It is _a_ tract by Defoe," was the answer, to Old Brown's chagrin. For it was the very work of which the purchaser was in search.'

In the way of antiquity doubtless the New Cut--as what was once Lambeth Marsh is now termed--comes next to the two East End localities above mentioned as a bookstall locality. The place has certainly been a book-emporium for at least half a century. Mr. G. A. Sala declares that he has purchased for an old song many of his rarest books in this congested and unsavoury locality where Robert Buchanan and his ill-fated friend, David Gray, shared a bankrupt garret on their first coming up to London from Scotland. The present writer has picked up some rare and curious books in that locality during the past ten years, and others have doubtless done the same. Not so very long ago a volume with the autograph of Drayton was secured for one penny, certainly not an extravagant price.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Book-barrow in Farringdon Road._]

For some years Farringdon Road has enjoyed the distinction of being the best locality in London for bookstalling. Its stalls are far more numerous, and the quality of the books here exposed for sale is of a much higher cla.s.s, than those which are to be met with in other places.

There are between thirty and forty bookstalls or barrows here, and the place has what we may describe as a bibliopolic history, which goes back for a period of twenty years. The first person to start in the bookselling line was a coster of the name of Roberts, who died somewhat suddenly either in December of 1894 or early in January of the present year. Roberts appears to have been a fairly successful man at the trade, and had a fairly good knowledge of cheap books. The _doyen_ of the Farringdon Road bibliopoles is named Dabbs--a very intelligent man, who started first in the hot-chestnut line. Mr. Dabbs has generally a fairly good stock of books, which varies between one and two thousand volumes, a selection of which are daily displayed on four or five barrows, and varying from two a penny ('You must take two') up to higher-priced volumes. Curiously enough, he finds that theological books pay the best, and it is of this cla.s.s that his stock chiefly consists. Just as book-hunters have many 'finds' to gloat over, so perhaps booksellers have to bewail the many rarities which they have let slip through their fingers. It would be more than could be expected of human nature, as it is at present const.i.tuted, to expect booksellers to make a clean or even qualified confession in this respect. Our friend Dabbs, however, is not of this hypersensitive type, and he relates, with a certain amount of grim humour, that his greatest lost opportunity was the selling of a book for 1s. 6d. which a few days afterwards was sold in Paris for 50.

He consoles himself with the reflection that at all events _he_ made a fair profit out of this book. If we could all be as philosophical as this intelligent book-barrow-keeper, doubtless the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune would impress fewer wrinkles on our brows, and help us to think kindly of the friends who put us 'up' to good things in the way of gold-mines and generously left us to pay the piper.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A few Types in Farringdon Road._]

However picturesque may be the calling of the bookstall-keeper to the person who experiences a fiendish delight in getting a 6d. book out of him for 5-1/2d., the calling is on the whole a very hard one. Exposed to all weathers, these men have a veritable struggle for existence.

Their actual profits rarely exceed 30s. or 2 weekly. They vary greatly, of course, according to weather, and a wet Sat.u.r.day makes a very material difference to their takings. Many weeks throughout the year these takings do not average more than 8s. or 10s. We have made inquiries among most of the bookstall-keepers in the Metropolis, and the above facts can be depended upon. When these men happen upon a rare book, they nearly invariably sell it to one of the better-cla.s.s booksellers. By this means they make an immediate profit and effect a ready sale. There is beyond this a numerous cla.s.s of what may be described as 'book-ghouls,' or men who make it a business to haunt the cheap bookstalls and bag the better-cla.s.s or more saleable books and hawk them around to the shops, and so make a few s.h.i.+llings on which to support a precarious existence, in which beer and tobacco are the sole delights. We once met a man who did a roaring trade of this description, chiefly with the British Museum. He took notes of every book that struck him as being curious or out of the way, and those which he discovered to be absent from the Museum he would at once purchase. He was great in the matter of editions, such as Pope, Junius, Coleridge, and so forth. The Museum is naturally lacking in hundreds of editions of English authors; but as these editions, almost without exception, possess no literary value, their presence (or absence) was not a matter of importance. For some months the 'collector' referred to inundated the Museum with these unimportant editions. Our friend discovered that the Museum authorities, ignoring the prices which he placed on his wares, would only have them at their own figures--which showed a curious similarity to those at which the vendor had obtained them--and this, coupled with the fact that they refused to purchase many of the items offered at any price, led him to the conclusion that he was serving his country at too cheap a rate.

It is scarcely necessary to add that he is now following a vocation which, if less agreeable, is certainly more profitable to himself.

Occasionally one of these professional bookstallers blossoms into a shopkeeper in some court or alley off Holborn; but more generally they are too far gone in drink and dilapidation to get out of the rut.

One of the most curious characters who ever owned a bookstall was Henry Lemoine, the son of a French Huguenot. He was born in 1756, and for many years kept a stall in Bishopsgate Churchyard. He wrote many books, and did much hack-work for various publishers, chiefly in the way of translations from the French. He gave up shopkeeping in 1795, and became a pedestrian bookseller or colporteur of pamphlets. In 1807 he again set up a small stand of books in Parliament Street, and died in April, 1812.

He might have achieved success, and become a respectable member of society, but his great failing was an all-consuming thirst.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Henry Lemoine, Author and Bookseller._]

Writing over forty years ago in 'London Labour and the London Poor,'