Wheatley Henry Benjamin
Prices of Books
Authorship could hardly become a profession until after the invention of printing, and even then it was long before a living could be got out of books. Dr. Edward Castell laboured for seventeen years in the compilation of his immense undertaking—the Lexicon Heptaglotton, to accompany Walton’s Polyglot Bible. During this time he maintained at his own cost as writers seven Englishmen and as many foreigners. All of them died before the work was completed. Besides expending £12,000 of his own money he was obliged to borrow £2000 more, and this not being sufficient, he petitioned Charles II. that a prison might not be the reward of so much labour. Notwithstanding a circular letter from the king recommending the purchase of this work the author ended his days in poverty, and a great part of the impression was thrown into garrets, where many of the copies were destroyed by damp or rats.
A similar case was that of Thomas Madox, the learned author of the “History of the Exchequer,” who wrote to Dr. Charlett requesting him to get his book into the College Libraries at Oxford, and explaining that the cost of the impression was £400 for paper and print, and as only 481 copies were printed, “when all the books shall be sold I shall be just able to pay the charges with a trifling over-plus.... This affair,” he adds, “has given me much perplexity, and perfectly cured me of scribbling.”8
Thomas Hearne was more fortunate, and amassed a small fortune by his publications. One thousand guineas were found in gold in his rooms at St. Edmund Hall after his death. His books were soon out of print, and fetched large prices even in his own lifetime.
Lord Spencer bought the whole of the library of Count Revickzky, a catalogue of which had been privately printed by the original owner at Berlin in 1784. According to Dibdin, when the Count was in England he offered his whole collection to Lord Spencer for a certain round sum to be paid to him immediately, and for a yearly sum by way of annuity. The offer was accepted, and as the Count died soon afterwards, Lord Spencer obtained the library at a cheap rate. The same noble collector offered the Duke di Cassano Serra £500 for two books, viz., the Juvenal of Ulric Han, and the Horace of Arnaldus de Bruxella, Naples, 1474, but the offer was not accepted. In 1820 Lord Spencer bought the whole collection.
The Duke of Devonshire purchased the valuable library of Dr. Thomas Dampier, Bishop of Ely, for nearly £10,000 after the bishop’s death in 1812. Dr. Dibdin has printed in his “Reminiscences” (vol. i. p. 363) a list of prices at which Dr. Dampier valued the various classes of books in his library.
Little idea of the prices of books can be obtained from the amounts given for a whole library, but as in future chapters particulars will be printed of the great libraries that have been disposed of by auction, it seemed well to mention here a few instances of libraries that have been sold entire. The greatest of these is the magnificent library of Earl Spencer, which was sold in 1892 to Mrs. Rylands, and has been transferred from Althorpe to Manchester. The exact amount paid for this library has not been announced, but it is supposed to have been about a quarter of a million pounds.
In respect to the history of prices of books, there have been times of inflation and times of depression, just as in the history of prices generally, but it will be seen that in spite of these vicissitudes scarce books have gradually increased in value. The first signs of the growth of bibliomania are seen in the sales of Dr. Mead’s and Dr. Askew’s libraries in the middle of the last century, which aroused a great interest among book collectors.
During the great Napoleonic wars books became very scarce, because Englishmen were prevented from purchasing on the Continent, but upon the conclusion of the peace there was a steady flow of books into the country.
The Duke of Roxburghe’s sale in 1812 was a great event, forming, as it did, an epoch in the history of book collecting, and the widespread fervour of bibliomaniacs may be dated from that period. Great sales followed, and then came the sale of the enormous Heber library, which let out too many books on the market at once. After this there followed a dull time, but a revival came with the Bright sale in 1846 and Stowe sale in 1849, and the Daniel and Corser sales between 1860 and 1870, and the Henry Perkins sale in 1873, were great events. The last few years have been marked by many great sales, those of the Sunderland, the Beckford, and Hamilton Libraries, and the Turner, Gaisford, Crawford, and Ashburnham collections being among the most remarkable. The greatly increased prices obtained for books have induced many proprietors to sell their literary treasures.
It is well to remember that the value of all books is not rising, but that whole classes have fallen in price. Greek and Roman Classics, and the Fathers and Theological Literature generally, have been most markedly depreciated in value.
Fashion guides alterations in the prices of books, just as she does in other less important matters. Thus we find at one time certain books quoted at high prices, which not many years afterwards have become drugs in the market. Still, a careful review of the subject will show that fashion is not nearly so potent as in some other departments, say, for instance, in the case of pictures, which certainly vary in price more than books. In spite, therefore, of signs of variableness, it will be seen that there is a continuous increase of price among certain classes of books which are sure to retain their value, and even to be still more esteemed as time passes.
It may be well to inquire what are some of the causes which lead to an increase in the price, and to distinguish between those which are permanent and those which are ephemeral. The growth of book-collecting in the United States has had a most potent influence, and large purchases made for many years in England have drained off a large number of books, low priced as well as high priced, which will never return to this country. Another cause is the increase of public libraries in Great Britain, and when books are bought for these libraries they are permanently removed from the open market, as they are not when sold to an individual, because his library will most probably eventually come to the hammer. These two causes would be sufficient in themselves to permanently increase the price of scarce books, but there are still others to be mentioned. There has been of late years a greatly increased interest felt in the history of books—in printing, in binding—and increased knowledge has shown the great claims of a large number of books to a higher appreciation than hitherto. Then again, the class of the wealthy who can afford to collect choice libraries has largely increased; and lastly, the belief that the collecting of books is by no means a bad investment has not been without effect. This last point opens up a very interesting question in ethics, Should a collector look upon his collections as an investment? The late Mr. J. Hill Burton argues very strongly against this view in his “Book-Hunter.” He writes—
“The mercenary spirit must not be admitted to a share in the enjoyments of the book-hunter.... If [he] allows money-making, even for those he is to leave behind, to be combined with his pursuit, it loses its fresh relish, its exhilarating influence, and becomes the source of wretched cares and paltry anxieties. When money is the object, let a man speculate or become a miser.”…
This is quite true, but we must remember that, after all, increased price is only an outward manifestation of increased public estimation, and it is always satisfactory to know that our opinion has been accepted by the public. The real point seems to be that the collector should use his judgment in respect to price, and not trouble himself whether the market value of individual books goes up or down, for he may be sure that if he buys wisely, the ups and the downs will balance each other. If a fair-sized library is purchased with judgment and knowledge, it cannot fail to become a profitable investment, because good books increase in value by reason of their companionship. All worthless books should therefore be ruthlessly weeded out. For instance, a library of 1000 choice books would probably sell for less with 500 books of little value added to them than if these were ruthlessly eliminated.
Mr. Andrew Lang writes in his pretty little book, “The Library”—
“When Osborne sold the Harley collection, the scarcest old English books fetched but three or four shillings. If the Wandering Jew had been a collector in the last century, he might have turned a pretty profit by selling his old English books in this age.”
But Mr. Lang did not think of a calculation, by which Mr. A. W. Pollard, in an interesting article on “English Booksales, 1676-86” (Bibliographica, vol. ii. p. 126), overthrew this view of the possibility of great gains. He writes—
“It is perhaps in accordance with precedent to remark that, by the judicious expenditure of five-and-twenty pounds during the ten years we have reviewed, a library of about two hundred volumes might have been acquired, which would now be cheap at £10,000. But as the £25, if invested at compound interest at five per cent., would now have amounted to nearly a million, it is well for bookmen not to make too much of such mercenary considerations.”
This question of price was formerly a delicate one. Thus William Beloe was censured by some collectors for drawing attention to the subject in his “Anecdotes of Literature”; but that this objection is got over now may be seen from the great success of such a valuable annual as the “Book-Prices Current,” notwithstanding the complaints of some second-hand booksellers of injury to their business from its revelation of the real value of their books!
Dibdin mentions a book-collector to whom he was pointed out at the Roxburghe sale, who exclaimed, “Hang him! why did he not publish his book in 1810? My books would have brought double the prices.”9
Dibdin doubtless influenced the market; and in later times two men have exerted a very special influence in raising the prices of books: these are the late Mr. Henry Stevens and Mr. Bernard Quaritch. The former drew his countrymen’s attention to early books printed in and relating to America, and he caused a considerable increase in the price of Americana. But neither of these great book-buyers could have permanently raised the price of books if they had not devoted their attention to books which were well worth these advanced prices. When we deal with books of great beauty and value, and of rare occurrence, which are wanted by several rich book-collectors, it is difficult to say what price is too great for such treasures.
It becomes, therefore, an important matter for the book-collector to consider what are the rules that guide the enhancement of price in books. It is not easy to codify these rules, for varying circumstances alter cases: thus new editions reduce the value of some high-priced books, but have no effect in the case of others; and time supersedes some books, while it enhances the value of others. There are, however, one or two points which may be mentioned as regulating price, for those persons who suppose prices to be altogether erratic are certainly wrong.
What, then, are the chief characteristics of a book which make it valuable? “Uniquity,” to use Horace Walpole’s word, is one of these; but this is not always sufficient to keep up the price.
Good condition is the grand enhancer of value, and dirty copies of even scarce works are seldom worth much. But nowadays much is done by the artist to improve these books. The leaves can be washed, torn pages can be mended, imperfections can be filled up by fac-similes, and then the whole can be handsomely bound in morocco, so that the owner scarcely knows his book again. Still, however, one difficulty remains in the artistic make-up—a short copy cannot be made into a tall one.
It is useless for the artist to spend his labour upon other than the best books, such as the productions of the early presses, original editions of masterpieces, and works of permanent value in their best possible form, with the authors’ final corrections. The only high-priced books which can dispense with interesting contents are specimens of fine bindings; while here again, if the historical binding covers a really valuable book, the two elements of value united will cause a remarkable enhancement of price.
Little need be said as to those books which fetch high prices for a time, and then when fashion alters sink to a much lower level, as it will usually be found that there was no intrinsic value attached to these books, and therefore they were not such as would be bought by the wise collector at a high price. The fictitious value has usually been attained by a system of limited editions and of judicious advertising. Success in these cases is attained among a class outside the experts in bibliography, and therefore there is no cause for wonder that mistakes are made. Sometimes the depression is caused by the unexpected appearance of several copies of a book, of which one or two copies only were believed to exist.
In considering the probability of high prices being sustained, it must always be borne in mind that the peaceful and prosperous condition of the country is taken for granted. In times of national calamity little money is available for luxuries. Two other important points must be remembered. (1) That it is of no use for a book to be scarce if nobody wants it. The money value of the phenomenally dull book mentioned by Sir Walter Scott is not recorded.
“We have heard of one work of fiction so unutterably stupid that the proprietor, diverted by the rarity of the incident, offered the book, which consisted of two volumes duodecimo, handsomely bound, to any person who would declare upon his honour that he had read the whole from beginning to end. But although this offer was made to the passengers on board an Indiaman during a tedious outward-bound voyage, the “Memoirs of Clegg the Clergyman” (such was the title of this unhappy composition) completely baffled the most dull and determined student on board, when the love of glory prevailed with the boatswain, a man of strong and solid parts, to hazard the attempt, and he actually conquered and carried off the prize.”
(2) That good books are still very cheap, particularly those which it is necessary to possess. So much is talked about the high prices which books fetch, that many are led to believe that he must be a rich man who commences to collect a library; but this is not so, for many good books in good condition can be bought for a few shillings; in fact, some of the best library books, well bound, do not range at more than ten shillings per octavo volume, and this cannot be called a high price. Ordinary collectors must make up their minds to do without Mazarin Bibles and first folios of Shakespeare, and they will find that life can be lived without these expensive luxuries.
In conclusion, it is necessary to strike a note of warning respecting the bad paper which is used for some books, and which render these books quite worthless in a few years. Old books were made to last; the materials used—paper and ink—were of the very best, but many books of the present day are made of bad materials, and contain within them the elements of decay. Lately a German Commission investigated this subject, and for their purpose took out from the Berlin Library one hundred volumes. They classified the paper upon which these books were printed under the four headings of (1) good; (2) medium; (3) bad; (4) very bad. About five books came under the first two classes, and the remainder were about equally divided between the third and fourth classes. Can we with any confidence claim a better average for English books? If not, the future of our modern books is a dark one.
CHAPTER II
SELLERS OF BOOKS
It has been frequently remarked that a history of bookselling would be a valuable addition to our literature, but such a book would require extensive research. In place of this a history of some booksellers has been produced; but although the volumes of Mr. Curwen and Mr. Roberts are interesting in themselves, they do not go far to fill the vacant space still open for a history of bookselling. Mr. G. H. Putnam has gathered together much curious information in his “Authors and their Public in Ancient Times,” and “Books and their Makers during the Middle Ages,” which, notwithstanding some errors, form certainly a useful contribution towards this history. The sellers of books have greatly changed their habits with the altered conditions of their trade. Among the Greeks there were public shops for the sale of manuscripts, and in them the learned met together to hear the manuscripts read. In Rome the general mart for books was to be found in the district devoted to the bibliopole, and in his shop advertisements of new works were stuck up.
At the break up of the Roman Empire the producers of books were mostly found in the monasteries, and booksellers were sellers of Paternosters, Aves, &c., as well as of books.
In the thirteenth century the stationarii not only sold books, but accumulated much money by lending them at high rates. Bookstalls were sometimes placed in the church porch, and one of the doors of Rouen Cathedral is still called le portail des libraires.
When manuscripts were superseded by printed books the business of selling books naturally became a more important concern, although the London company established by printers and publishers was called the Company of Stationers. At first one man often undertook all the varieties of book production and bookselling, but gradually the four broad divisions of printers, publishers, second-hand booksellers, and auctioneers came into existence.
We know but little of the early publishers, although much attention is now being paid to the lives and works of the old book producers, and we may hope to have in course of time much material for a history of them. The great houses founded in the eighteenth and at the beginning of the present century are still with us, and large additions have been made of late years to the ever-increasing roll. At all events, there is no sign of a failure of published books; whether they are all worthy to be published is another matter.
Great changes have been made in the publishing business, and one of the chief of these is the frequent sale of remainders of new books. It is worth a remark in passing that good books which have been sold off often become scarce and more valuable than those which have only been sold in the ordinary way. James Lackington was one of the first to make a great business out of the sale of remainders; he was followed by Tegg, and these two men did much to cheapen and popularise literature.
Charles Knight will ever be remembered with honour as the great pioneer in the cheapening of good literature. The excellence of his shilling volumes was a marvel when they were first published, and even now it would be difficult to find their equal. Knight had a great belief in the adequacy of the penny as a price for a number of a book. He published large quantities of books at a penny a number—as one of the first cheap periodicals—the Penny Magazine, and the first of cheap encyclopædias—the Penny Cyclopædia. How much good has been done by the large issues of such excellent books as Knight’s weekly and monthly volumes, the Libraries of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, Constable’s Miscellany, Murray’s Family Library, Home and Colonial Library, and Bohn’s Libraries!—books all of which are worthy of a place in the library, and not like too many of the cheap books of the present day, books to be read and then thrown aside.
In taking note of some of the old second-hand booksellers, special mention must be made of Joseph Kirton of St. Paul’s Churchyard, whose sign was “The King’s Arms,” because he was Samuel Pepys’s bookseller—“my poor Kirton,” as the latter calls him when he was ruined by the Fire of London. Pepys tells us that “Kirton was utterly undone by the loss of all his stock, so that from being worth seven or eight thousand pounds, he was made two or three thousand pounds worse than nothing.” (See “Diary,” October 5, 1666.) The poor bookseller did not live long after his great loss, for he died in October 1667. Pepys records an interesting instance of the rise in price of one of the books burnt in the great fire. On March 20, 1666-67 he writes: “It is strange how Rycaut’s ‘Discourse of Turky,’ which before the fire I was asked but 8s. for, there being all but twenty-two or thereabouts burned, I did now offer 20s., and he demands 50s., and I think I shall give it him, though it be only as a monument of the fire.” On April 8, 1667, he gives us some fuller particulars, which are of interest: “So I away to the Temple, to my new bookseller’s; and there I did agree for Rycaut’s late ‘History of the Turkish Policy,’ which costs me 55s.; whereas it was sold plain before the late fire for 8s., and bound and coloured as this for 20s., for I have bought it finely bound and truly coloured, all the figures, of which there was but six books done so, whereof the King and Duke of York, and Duke of Monmouth and Lord Arlington had four. The fifth was sold, and I have bought the sixth.” There is no copy of this edition in the British Museum.
John Dunton, the erratic bookseller and projector of the eighteenth century, has left us in his “Life and Errors” a most curious account of the booksellers of his time, who are all, oddly enough, either handsome themselves or have beautiful wives. Nearly all are also eminent Christians; in fact, we are told that of three hundred booksellers trading in country towns the author knew not of one knave or blockhead amongst them all.
Thomas Osborne, the most celebrated bookseller of his day, is interesting to us as having had the honour of being knocked down by Dr. Samuel Johnson. Whether or no he deserved such a summary punishment we cannot now tell, but although he appears to have been more of a business man than a literary character, what he did is sufficient to place him in an honourable position in the history of English bibliography. He bought the finest library of the time, and sold it piecemeal at reasonable prices. He employed two of the most capable men of his day—Johnson and Oldys—to make a Catalogue, which does credit to all concerned in its production, and he did not make much money by the transaction. The amount he gave for the Harley library in 1742 (£13,000) was less by £5000 than the binding of a portion of the library had cost, but had he given more he would certainly have been a loser. Osborne projected a Catalogue, in which it was proposed “that the books shall be distributed into distinct classes, and every class arranged with some regard to the age of the writers; that every book shall be accurately described; that the peculiarities of the editions shall be remarked, and observations from the authors of literary history occasionally interspersed, that by this Catalogue posterity may be informed of the excellence and value of this great collection, and thus promote the knowledge of scarce books and elegant editions.” Maittaire drew up the scheme of arrangement, and wrote the Latin dedication to Lord Carteret, who was then Secretary of State. Dr. Johnson wrote the “Proposals” for printing the Bibliotheca Harleiana, which afterwards were prefixed to the first volume. But in spite of having such eminent helpers, Osborne had to give up his project of an annotated Catalogue, and he informed the public in the preface to the third volume of his failure—
“My original design was, as I have already explained, to publish a methodical and exact Catalogue of this library, upon the plan which has been laid down, as I am informed, by several men of the first rank among the learned. It was intended by those who undertook the work, to make a very exact disposition of all the subjects, and to give an account of the remarkable differences of the editions, and other peculiarities, which make any book eminently valuable; and it was imagined that some improvements might, by pursuing this scheme, be made in Literary History. With this view was the Catalogue begun, when the price [5s. per volume] was fixed upon it in public advertisements; and it cannot be denied that such a Catalogue would have been willingly purchased by those who understood its use. But when a few sheets had been printed, it was discovered that the scheme was impracticable without more hands than could be procured, or more time than the necessity of a speedy sale would allow. The Catalogue was therefore continued without notes, at least in the greatest part; and though it was still performed better than those which are daily offered to the public, fell much below the original intention.”
The public were not very grateful for what they did receive, and resented Osborne’s charge of five shillings a volume for the Catalogue, which seems reasonable enough now, but was then denounced as “an avaricious innovation.” In answer to the clamour the bookseller announced that “those who have paid five shillings shall be allowed at any time within three months after the day of sale either to return them in exchange for books, or to send them back and receive their money.” Another complaint was that the books were priced too high. As this was a serious charge, Osborne got Johnson to put his answer into sonorous language, that would at least make the complainers ashamed of themselves: “If, therefore, I have set a high value upon books, if I have vainly imagined literature to be more fashionable than it really is, or idly hoped to revive a taste well-nigh extinguished, I know not why I should be persecuted with clamour and invective, since I shall only suffer by my mistake, and be obliged to keep those books which I was in hopes of selling.”
Dibdin proves that this charge of over-pricing is quite unjust. He writes: “Whoever inspects Osborne’s Catalogue of 1748 (four years after the Harleian sale) will find in it many of the most valuable of Lord Oxford’s books; and among them a copy of the Aldine Plato of 1513 struck off upon vellum, marked at £21 only—for this identical copy Lord Oxford gave 100 guineas, as Dr. Mead informed Dr. Askew; from the latter of whose collections it was purchased by Dr. Hunter, and is now in the Hunter Museum. There will be found in Osborne’s Catalogues of 1748 and 1753 some of the scarcest books in English literature marked at 2 or 3 or 4s. for which three times the number of pounds is now given.”10 Dibdin has given a useful analysis of the contents of the Harleian Library in his Bibliomania. Osborne published a large number of catalogues full of literary curiosities, and with interesting notes and prefaces. In Mr. Thorpe’s Catalogue of 1851 there is a notice of a set of Osborne’s Catalogues from 1729 to 1768, in forty-three volumes octavo. This famous bookseller died on 27th August 1767, and he is said to have left behind him some forty thousand pounds.
No bookseller has ever been held in higher esteem than Thomas Payne, who was honourably known as “honest Tom Payne.” Payne’s shop at the Mews Gate, where the National Gallery now stands, was for years the great afternoon resort of the chief book collectors. Here met such men as Cracherode, George Steevens, Malone, Lord Spencer, Grenville, Bishop Dampier, Towneley, and Colonel Stanley. Payne lived at the Mews Gate for forty years, having commenced business as an assistant to his elder brother, Oliver Payne. Thomas’s first catalogue, when he set up for himself, is dated 1740. He removed to Pall Mall, and retired from business in 1790. He died in 1799, at the age of eighty-two. He was succeeded by his son, who, in partnership with Henry Foss, carried on a first-rate bookselling business in Pall Mall for many years. The catalogue of the Grenville Library was made and published by them.
George Nicol, styled by Beloe in his Sexagenarian “a superb bookseller,” was a man of great influence in his day. He was largely instrumental in the purchase of much of two magnificent libraries—those of George III. and the Duke of Roxburghe—and he was highly esteemed by both his employers. He always spoke of the King as his beloved master. It was he who induced R. H. Evans, the bookseller, to adopt the business of an auctioneer by offering him the sale of the Roxburghe library.
Another bookseller who occupies a prominent position in the roll of learned and high-principled members of the calling was Thomas Rodd, of Great Newport Street. His catalogues were of great interest, and he numbered among his customers most of the book-collectors of his time. Lord Campbell referred to him in one of his books as “that very learned and worthy bookseller, my friend Thomas Rodd.”
A rival of Rodd was Thomas Thorpe, who commenced business in Covent Garden, removed to Piccadilly, and in his later days returned to Covent Garden. Thorpe was a masterful man, who carried everything before him, and published a series of valuable catalogues, from which may be obtained a history of prices for many years. Dibdin, in his “Reminiscences” (1806), says, “I know of no such dogged, indomitable energy and perseverance as that of this renowned bibliopolist”; and again, in the preface to his “Library Companion,” he writes, “Mr. Thorpe is indeed a man of might. His achievements at book-sales are occasionally described in the ensuing pages. It is his catalogues I am here to treat. They are never-ceasing productions; thronged with treasures which he has gallantly borne off at the point of his lance, in many a hard day’s fight in the Pall Mall and Waterloo Place arenas. But these conquests are no sooner obtained than the public receives an account of them; and during the last year only, his catalogues in three parts, now before me, comprise not fewer than seventeen thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine articles. What a scale of buying and selling does this fact alone evince! But in this present year two parts have already appeared, containing upwards of twelve thousand articles. Nor is this all. On the 24th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1823, there appeared the most marvellous phenomenon ever witnessed in the annals of bibliopolism. The Times newspaper had four of the five columns of its last page occupied by an advertisement of Mr. Thorpe, containing the third part of his catalogue for that year. On a moderate computation this advertisement comprised eleven hundred and twenty lines.” Greater things have been done since.
