



Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net and the Booksmiths
at http://www.eBookForge.net









BOOK-COLLECTOR


A General Survey of the Pursuit and of those who
have engaged in it at Home and Abroad from
the Earliest Period to the Present Time


WITH AN ACCOUNT OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES
AND ANECDOTES OF THEIR FOUNDERS OR OWNERS
AND REMARKS ON BOOKBINDING AND ON
SPECIAL COPIES OF BOOKS


BY

W. CAREW HAZLITT


JOHN GRANT

LONDON

1904

[Illustration: Key to the Characters in the 'Field-day at Sotheby's.']

1 Mr. G. S. Snowden     11 Lord Brabourne        21 Mr. <DW18>s Campbell
2 Mr. E. Daniell        12 Mr. W. Ward           22 Palmer's boy
3 Mr. Railton           13 Mr. Leighton          23 Dr. Neligan
4 Mr. J. Rimell         14 Mr. E. W. Stibbs      24 Mr. C. Hindley
5 Mr. E. G. Hodge       15 Mr. H. Sotheran       25 Earl of Warwick
6 Mr. J. Toovey         16 Mr. Westell           26 Mr. Molini
7 Mr. B. Quaritch       17 Mr. Walford           27 Mr. H. Stevens
8 Mr. G. J. Ellis       18 Henry                 28 Mr. F. Locker-Sampson
9 Mr. J. Roche          19 Mr. Dobell            29 Mr. E. Walford
10 Mr. Reeves           20 Mr. Robson

[Illustration: BOOK SALE AT SOTHEBY'S AUCTION ROOMS.

FROM THE ORIGINAL WASH DRAWING BY H.M. PAGET IN
POSSESSION OF MESS^RS SOTHEBY, WILKINSON & HODGE, LONDON.

CARL HENTSCHEL PH. SC.]




PREFACE


SEVERAL monographs by contemporary scholars on the inexhaustible theme
of Book-Collecting have made their appearance during the last twenty
years. All such undertakings have more or less their independent value
and merit from the fact that each is apt to reflect and preserve the
special experiences and predilections of the immediate author; and so
it happens in the present case. A succession of Essays on the same
subject is bound to traverse the same ground, yet no two of them,
perhaps, work from the same seeing point, and there may be beyond the
topic substantially little in common between them and the rest of the
literature, which has steadily accumulated round this attractive and
fruitful subject for bookman and artist.

During a very long course of years I have had occasion to study books
in all their branches, in almost all tongues, of almost all periods,
personally and closely. No early English volumes, while I have been on
the track, have, if I could help it, escaped my scrutiny; and I have
not let them pass from my hands without noting every particular which
seemed to me important and interesting in a historical, literary,
biographical, and bibliographical respect. The result of these
protracted and laborious investigations is partly manifest in my
_Bibliographical Collections_, 1867-1903, extending to eight octavo
volumes; but a good deal of matter remained, which could not be
utilised in that series or in my other miscellaneous contributions to
_belles lettres_.

So it happened that I found myself the possessor of a considerable
body of information, covering the entire field of Book-Collecting in
Great Britain and Ireland and on the European continent, and
incidentally illustrating such cognate features as Printing Materials,
Binding, and Inscriptions or Autographs, some enhancing the interest
of an already interesting item, others conferring on an otherwise
valueless one a peculiar claim to notice.

My collections insensibly assumed the proportions of the volume now
submitted to the public; and in the process of seeing the sheets
through the press certain supplementary Notes suggested themselves,
and form an Appendix. It has been my endeavour to render the Index as
complete a clue as possible to the whole of the matter within the
covers.

As my thoughts carry me back to the time--it is fifty years--when I
commenced my inquiries into literary antiquities, I see that I have
lived to witness a new Hegira: New Ideas, New Tastes, New Authors. The
American Market and the Shakespear movement[1] have turned everything
and everybody upside down. But Time will prove the friend of some of
us.

In the following pages I have avoided the repetition of particulars to
be found in my _Four Generations of a Literary Family_, 1897, and in
my _Confessions of a Collector_, 1897, so far as they concern the
immediate subject-matter.

W. C. H.

BARNES COMMON, SURREY,
_October 1904_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See the writer's _Shakespear, Himself and his Work: A Study from
    New Points of View_, second edition, revised, with important
    additions, and several facsimiles, 8vo, 1903.




HISTORY OF BOOK-COLLECTING




CHAPTER I

     The plan--The writer's practical career--Deficiency of a general
     knowledge of the subject--The Printed Book and the Manuscript
     independent branches of study--The rich and the poor
     collector--Their relative systems and advantages--Great results
     achieved by persons of moderate fortune--The Rev. Thomas
     Corser--Lamb and Coleridge--Human interest resident in
     collections formed by such men, and the genuine pleasure
     experienced by the owners--A case or two stated--The Chevalier
     D'Eon--The contrary practice--Comparatively early culture in the
     provinces and interchange of books--Lady collectors--Rarity of
     hereditary libraries--The alterations in the aspect of books--The
     Mill a fellow-labourer with the Press--A word about values and
     prices--Our social institutions answerable for the difference of
     feeling about book-collecting--Districts formerly rich in
     libraries--Distributing centres--Possibility of yet unexplored
     ground--The Universities and Inns of Court--Successful
     book-hunting in Scotland and Ireland--Present gravitation of all
    