TRIVIA.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20092, 22 November 1930, Page 13

TRIVIA.

cat) in W U' d n > " S ag ° th ° re was a Court oa&o m Wi»n twf<„ tion of Alexander p ,* " lirßt ° di " tried to recover the ' Somcbod y this treasure f rom 'J"™ o** 0 ** of JdlmiTifi a somebody else. Mr Johannes Anderson ti rariin ULrs ><-°, the Turnbull Librdiian, was ness- -in,! / 8 an e*pcrt wittude' that is r«/ hC rUthlcßS cxacti " iiesseO t • Ino 111 expert witshilling' shelf'in' book 10 tho -New Zealand, and the i" "firs* »]v'" Had it been and not H ? ot ' Alexander Pope," eenturv r f l °- a ■ Httlo end-ot'-the-i" ita nl'i Pri!1 i t ' . wllicll Ili!J c ool nod put m its place; had it been, f or instance, c.\it T xti *>- of Th^S for S uid","rT,i»SS may have tho toimn

fi liook m whi<'*i *\f». i t and Miv Ti, .i- , lopo'a January I't for. i ' kp'sode of Warpedon, and i WerU lirst l- ,riuU " J J then there ■mil ° " no talk of shillings and tuppences. Being what it was, it indeed only an i'erli-i. )0 -° f C ' wil ' lout pedigree or price. r inm 1 ' 3 *i r" r ' yf ' Bt) vcr y strange, the ill i° *' i£ it books grow valuable as they grow old, and .that any y° arß "Id or Older are ex- - >g y rare ami costly. Sometimes it <ui obstinate, positive faith. J iioiul of mine once turned over a heap of rubb.shy elderly books and was astonished to find thorn all marked at thumping prices. He asked ■ N « ,J"°y wcro so highly os eemed. A.i, said the learned dealer, 'them re old, ancient books." (\ know my trieiul ui.J write to tell nie that thy learned dealer said ''They," not them.' Hut I like "them" better.J bomotimes it is a sort of suspicious determination not to bo done out oi a possible advantage and easy money: "it said in tho papers" that an old book was sold lor a thousand pounds the possessor's family Shakespeare is ail oid book (''most beautifully illustrated"), and so it ought to be wortli "something." And .sometimes it is a blind, pathetic hope. Whenever the.v sell a Kilmarnock and the newspapers ejaculate their surprise and aU miration, old, ancient copies of Burns, dated anything but MDCCLXXXVI and with anybody's imprint but John Wilson's, shower down upon the wretched head of Sotheby, with jubilant requests for a cheque by return post.

Alaa, it is not as simple as that. (And fortunately it is not atj sinipio as that. Else where would the stiap-por-up oi unconsidered trilles get his iun?) Did books nre not always valuable. Most of tlicm arc cheap as dirL tho::gii dirt to-day may be trans muted to finer substance to-morrow , and when they are sought after and precious, it is never because they nro old. nor solely because they are rare. Not all rare lxx>ks are worth much money. If what tho book-collector pursues and pays dear for were rarity and nothing else, then book-collecting would bo a game, not indefensible perhaps, but defensible; only as the collection of any other material relics is defensible. A man might give up books and Iks as happv with snuff-boxes or samplers worked in coloured wool. Hut; crudely as tho retired pork-packer uses hi« money to buy books which, since he doe.s not understand or love them, lim ci'n only boast of, he obeys, though Mindly, anil he must obey, standards set by tastes and interests not his own. Kj cannot hoist Martin Tupper above John Prvdeii. If he insisted on bidding 10,000 dollars for the first edition of the ''Proverbial Philosophy." he would not start a Tupper boom but only a laugh against himself. To gloat in his purse-proud way over possessions that other men cannot afford, he has to buy the "Lyrical B.illads," "Kndymiou," "The Vicar of, Wakefield," and Dickens in the fortnightly parts, bocause these books are "worth" buylii; an <l they are worth buying because they are worth road.ing and studying and treasuring. It is only to the very great books that commerce, in the end, pays its utmost tribute of respect, in the only terms it knows.

There is in Mr 1010 Williams's '"Klcments of Book-Collecting" an excellent defence of the book-collector and of his regard for first editions. Mr Williams's practical argument about first editiens, that (apart from the manuscript, generally lost), they are the only first-hand evidence of what tho ruithor said, bij first an<l personal statement, which in later editions may b<> corrected (if the author revised them) or may be "mere hearsay" this argument is quite sound. it means tnat first editions have a unique evidential value. Further, and not to bo lightly dismissed, there is their sentimental value.

Ib it not Bomelhinj* added to one's pleasure in reading: a favourite book to foci that the copy on® ib handling in exactly similar to that which the nuthor himself ssw—with nil ih® pride of parenthood—upon the morning of its first publication? It may—who knows?—be the very copy which he himself gloated over, and handed across the breaktnblo to hi« wife with a "Well, my dear, how do you it looks?" ... A first

edition h»*s, for me. aomething about it which Fets tho imagination on fire and brine:* mo into closer contact with the author's mind.

Good as the defence is, it is bettered by Mr A. Edward Newton's refusal to defend himself.

Book-collectors are constantly beinx ridiculed by scholars for the pains they tnke and the money they spend on their favourlto author*; and It must be that they smart under the criticism, for they are always explaining; nnd attempting rather foolishly to justify their position. Would it not be better to any. as Leslie Stephen said of Dr. Johnson's rouqh sayings. that "it is quite useless to defend them to anyone who can* not enjoy them without defence!"

But perhaps Mr knew that his hobby was so richly justified by its fruits, in "Tho Amenities of BookCollccting," that only very ill-disposed, contemptible j>eople would trouble about tho roots and the soil. There is only one book, about a collector's library, that I like better than Mr Newton's, and that is quite different in treatment: Mr E. H. M. Cox's "The Library of Edmund Gosse," a descriptive and bibliographical catalogue, with an introductory essay by Gosse. To this delicious piece of writing and autobiography I promise myself an early return. —J.II.E.S.