Henry Howard Harper and The Bibliophile Society

In the preface of his book,  American Book Clubs, published in 1897, Adolf Growoll, editor of Publishers' Weekly, distinguished book clubs from learned societies and other literary associations.  He regarded "a book club to be an association of two or more persons whose exclusive purpose it is to publish either original matter or reprints of  scarce or curious works (vi)."  Four years later, on the fifth day of February, 1901, Henry Howard Harper and six other persons formed a corporation under the name of THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY.  The purpose of the Society was the study and promotion of fine bookmaking and illustrations, and the publication of specially designed and illustrated books for its members.  And publish books, they did!

Henry Howard Harper (1871-1953) was the first and only Treasurer of The Bibliophile Society, from its inception in 1901 to its demise in the late 1930s.  Members of The Bibliophile Society paid an initiation fee to join, but paid no annual membership dues.  The Society limited its membership to 500 members, and published the books for members only.  Most of the members were from over 150 towns and cities across the United States.  The Bibliophile Society had no meeting place and held no monthly membership meetings.  For these reasons,  the club was known as The Bibliophile Society, and not The Boston Bibliophile Society or the Bibliophile Society of Boston.  The officers of the Society met in the office of the Treasurer in Boston, and decided which books to publish for its members.  Not counting the "Year Books," later called "Annual Reports," The Bibliophile Society published 40 separate works for its members from 1901 to 1929.

Here are some of the notable people who were listed as members of The Bibliophile Society in the 1904 Year Book:  J. M. Andreini, William Harris Arnold, William K. Bixby, Luther A. Brewer, William H. Perkins Jr., Walter M. Hill, Richard M. Hoe, Henry Cabot Lodge, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Ambrose Swasey.

And here are some of the notable people and libraries who were listed as members of The Bibliophile Society in the 1930 Year Book:  Bennet A. Cerf, Edward L. Doheny, J. K. Lilly, John G. Milburn, Carl H. Pzorzheimer, A. Edward Newton, Boston Public Library, British Museum (the Library),  Cleveland Public Library, Denver Public Library, Detroit Public Library, Library of Congress,  New York Public Library, New York Historical Society, Library of the University of Illinois, Library of the University of Michigan, and Princeton University Library,

Here's a list of the publications of The Bibliophile Society, as recorded in the 1930 twenty-eighth and last annual report of The Bibliophile Society:

I have seven of the twenty-eight year books The Bibliophile Society published from 1902 to 1930.

I have at least four of the works The Bibliophile Society published.

The stated publication year on the title page of The Letters of Charles Lamb is 1905.  But the year 1906 is listed on the copyright page and on the list of publications.  I used Lamb's letters to help catalogue Charles Lamb's Library on Library Thing in 2008 and 2009.  Volume I, containing facsimiles of Lamb's letters, was not included in my purchase of this set.

The next book, Thomas Peacock: Letters to Edward Hookham and Percy B. Shelley, is part of my collection of Other People's Collected Letters.  It was formerly owned by an H. Gilbert Black, whose bookplate is pasted on the ffep.  He was not a registered member of The Bibliophile Society.

I do not collect Charles Dickens, but The Dickens-Kolle Letters is also part of my Collection of Other People's Letters.

This book is part of my Harry B. Smith Collection as well.  The publisher printed a limited number of copies of this book to be used as presentation copies by Harry B. Smith.  Those copies do not contain the seal of The Bibliophile Society.  My copy was published for The Bibliophile Society.

The St. Louis bibliophile W. K. Bixby was a member of The Bibliophile Society, and permitted the Society to publish the Notebooks of Percy Bysshe Shelley.  He provided other clubs with originals of works in his library to publish for their members as well.

This next book had me scratching my head when I bought it I don't know how many years ago.  But I might have a handle on it now.

At first glance it appears that there are pages missing because the book begins on Page 7.  But in looking at the binding, it does not appear that any pages were detached.  Moreover, all other copies on the web and in university libraries begin on page 7.  This book has the seal of The Bibliophile Society on the front cover, but it is not readily identified in the list of the works of The Bibliophile Society.  Henry Howard Harper was the author of this book.  Harper might have sent this book to the members of The Bibliophile Society in 1921 as an added bonus to the four volumes of RLS's Unpublished Poems and Prose, which was the Club's selection for that year.  The preceding pages of this book might have been purposely deleted before publication because of possible copyright infringement.

Other Books Written By Henry Howard Harper
The condition of the cover of this next book leaves something to be desired.  But I am completely satisfied with the book's provenance!

In the Prefatory of this book, Harper says that he had been asked to write about book-loving, book-buying, and book clubs "for the exclusive use of members of a private book club." I took that to mean that he wrote it for the members of The Bibliophile Society; however, this book is not listed as one of the publications of The Bibliophile Society, and does not contain the Society's seal.  Moreover, the articles did not appear in any of the Society's Year Books. 

 Harper presented the St. Louis bibliophile W. K. Bixby with a copy of this book.  And in his presentation letter, Harper says that he wrote the book "for his own pleasure and for the pleasure of his friends."

Bixby gave this book to the Missouri Historical Society on February 18, 1920, which later deaccessioned it, possibly because of the condition of the cover.

 In my January 2013 post, Memories of Things Experienced and Things Missed,  I briefly mentioned W. K. Bixby as the first former owner of Will H. Low's copy of Across the Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson.  And that cover looked like it had been dragged across the Plains, before I replaced it.

On Saturday Evening, December 19, 1908, Henry Howard Harper gave a talk before the Rowfant Club.  The Functions of a Book Club was the title of his presentation.  Rowfant Club member Ambrose Swasey, a member of The Bibliophile Society himself, and soon to be the next Vice President of the Rowfant Club, invited Harper to speak before the Rowfant Club.  Swasey requested that Harper "say something which might stimulate the members of the club to greater activity in the line of publication."

In addition to Rowfant Club members, there were members present from the Caxton Club of Chicago, the Grolier Club of New York, and The Bibliophile Society as well.

I reread Harper's presentation and thought his tone to be condescending.  He was giving advice on how a book club should  function to a club that was twice the age of his own club––as if the Rowfant Club needed to learn something from The Bibliophile Society!  Swasey, however, specifically requested that Harper inspire the Rowfant Club members to increase their publications, so maybe there was a problem there. I was curious to see if Rowfant Club members heeded Harper's advice and increased their publications, so I read a few of the Rowfant Club's year books that were published before and after Harper's presentation in 1908 (You can click on the hyper link to read them yourself).

Early Year Books of the Rowfant Club

Prior to Harper's talk, the Rowfant Club sometimes couldn't get enough subscriptions from its members to pay for the publication of a book.  The Club was only able to get 157 subscriptions for its  Puckles Club book in 1900, and was left with copies that had to be sold at auction.  The Rowfant Club published no books in 1907 prior to Harper's 1908 talk, and no books were published in 1909.  In the 1911 Year Book, the Publication Committee of the Rowfant Club wrote:

It might appear from the fact that no publication has been issued during the past year, that the Committee has been hibernating, and I am not altogether sure but such a state would be perfectly acceptable to many if not most of the members of the Club.  In other words, it might be perfectly satisfactory if no publications were issued....

The President' Address in the 1911 Year Book is also worth reading.  President Frank Hadley Ginn gave a mostly favorable history of all the various book clubs, and emphasized that the Rowfant Club was a book club and not a literary society.  Here is what he said about The Bibliophile Society.

The Bibliophile Society of Boston has for several years held high rank as a book club, and through a large membership (something over 500) scattered over a vast expanse of territory, has been able to secure the financial support to issue books practically without limit as to expense.  It is, however, primarily not a club but a society or syndicate of book underwriters.  The Society holds no meetings of members, its entire affairs being managed by a council, and the council, in  turn,  being managed by Mr. Henry H. Harper, its Treasurer, who has a remarkable faculty and the time for working out the countless and minute details involved in making the perfect book.  Mr. Harper is a non-resident member of our Rowfant Club, and many of you will undoubtedly recall the very interesting talk he gave us two or three years ago as to 'What a Book Club Should Be.' The Bibliophile Society's publications are indeed perfect examples of master work in book-making.

Ambrose Swasey became the President of the Rowfant Club  for the 1912-1913 season and the Rowfant Club hit it big with its publication of The Tempest, receiving numerous accolades.  None other than the Shakespeare authority, Sidney Lee, wrote the Introduction to this book.

As a side note about The Functions of a Book Club, my copy was formerly owned by the Cincinnati printer Allen Collier, who couldn't help but notice an error on page 15:

The next book, Bob Hardwick, was first published in 1911.  It was "issued privately by the DeVinne Press, and printed only on advance subscriptions from members of The Bibliophile Society."  It is not, however, listed as one of The Bibliophile Society's publications.

This book is purported to be the life story of one Bob Hardwick.  But, in actuality, it is the autobiography of Henry Howard Harper.  I verified this from a genealogy website. The frontispiece of the book might even be a portrait of his own daughter.  The Dedication Page reads, " To the Sacred Memory of My Mother."  Harper's mother died a few days after he was born.  I actually enjoyed reading the book, although it mentions nothing of his later life in books.

My copy of Bob Hardwick  was formerly owned by the Altoona, Pa. bibliophile William F. Gable.

By now Henry Howard Harper thought he could write just about anything.  And the next book in my library that he wrote is the novel The Tides of Fate, which was published in 1918.  

A former owner, possibly Isaac Joseph, a member of The Bibliophile Society from Cleveland, tried reading this novel, and got as far as page 31.  I know this because at least one of the leaves from every gathering from page 31 to page 324 was unopened.  I read up to page 31; however, I found the novel too interesting to stop there, so I cut open all the leaves and continued reading.   At that time, I was halfway thru reading Leo Damrosch's book, The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age.  But I put The Club aside, and I'm still reading The Tides of Fate.

Harper's book, Byron's Malach Hamoves was also published in 1918.  It was written for  and included in the Seventeenth Year Book of The Bibliophile Society.   In the book, Harper lambasts Leigh Hunt for his treatment of Lord Byron in Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries.  A few copies of Byron's Malach Hamoves were privately printed as complimentary copies to be distributed by Harper. He presented this copy of the book to the New York publisher O. A. Morgner.

In 1924, the Torch Press privately printed Harper's book, Library Essays:  About Books, Bibliophiles, Writers, and Kindred Spirits. 

Six of Harper's essays were previously published in the Year Books of The Bibliophile Society.  Another essay was previously published as the Prefatory Note to the Society's 1909 book selection, Thoreau's Walden. The other essay was previously published as the Introduction of the Society's 1918 book selection, Letters of Mary W. Shelley.

The recipient of this book, John G. Milburn, has an association with President McKinley. When Milburn still lived in Buffalo, he invited President McKinley to the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, and McKinley stayed in his house. Milburn was standing next to McKinley greeting visitors to the Exposition's Temple of Music when the President was shot. McKinley returned to Milburn's residence to recuperate after surgery, but died from gangrene poisoning several days later, possibly in Milburn's library.

Harper's letter to Milburn was typed on paper containing the letterhead of The Bibliophile Society.  The book, however, is not listed as one of the Society's publication.


The Twenty-Eighth Annual Report, published in 1930 was the last year book published for the members of The Bibliophile Society.  And I believe the Great Depression had something to do with that.  But it was not the last book published for the members of The Bibliophile Society.  Henry Howard Harper had a hand in publishing these "after works"  And he continued to have his own works published as well.

In 1932, the Torch Press printed one hundred and forty-nine copies of Harper's book, Letters From an Outsider to an Insider.  These copies were sent to members of The Bibliophile Society who subscribed prior to the issue of the book.  The seal of The Bibliophile Society is not present on the title page.

 In fact, the only mention of The Bibliophile Society is the Printing Statement tipped into the book.  The book itself was sent to Joseph Bancroft, who still used the family bookplate of his father,  Samuel Bancroft, Jr.

I have yet to read Letters From an Outsider to an Insider.  But in reading Harper's notes and from skimming the pages, the letters are to Harper from a playwright friend of his who is dying from an incurable disease.  John G. Milburn was a mutual friend.  The playwright was probably a member of The Bibliophile Society because he received books from Harper.  The book looks like a good read!

This Thing Called Fame: Dramatic Episodes in the Private Life of a Literary Genius by Henry Howard Harper and his wife is housed in not one, but two slipcases.  I recently ordered this book on a whim, thinking and hoping that it was a sequel to Bob Hardwick.  The book, however, is not about Harper's life.  Instead, it is a play about Charles Dickens and his friends and family.

Harper sent this copy to Henry Benning Spencer, a member of The Bibliophile Society from Washington D. C.  According to Harper's letter,  he found new material for the play after it was first published, and paid for the publication of a new edition out of his own pocket.

Again, the letter, dated October 1, 1936, was printed on the letterhead of The Bibliophile Society.  But there is nothing else in the book that identifies it as an official publication of The Bibliophile Society.

I have one other book in my library by Henry Howard Harper: The Fruit of Experiment, privately printed for the author by the Torch Press in 1937.   There are no marks of provenance for this book.

 This book contains two short stories.  I read the titled story, and it was quite good.  It concerns a business man whose business has taken a turn during the time of The Great Depression. I have yet to read "The Pink Ribbon," but will read it before I get old and gray.

Henry Howard Harper had at least one more book published for the members of The Bibliophile Society.  In 1939, the Torch Press privately printed a small edition of the book for the members of The Bibliophile Society.  And the seal of the Society was printed on the title page.

Finally, Murray Blander, a student at Palmer Graduate Library School, Long Island University, had his thesis accepted in 1970.  It was titled, History of the Bibliophile Society, Boston, Massachusetts, 1901-1939.

Here is the entry of Blander's work in the Catalog of Copyright Entries.  University Microfilm Services at Ann Arbor published a microfilm facsimile of Blander's thesis.

WorldCat shows four copies:

Here's the listing from the State Library of Massachusetts:

The Huntington Library has a five-page periodical article about Blander's work.

A Librarian's Atta-Girl Book

Most authors keep copies of their published books.  Mary Wescott (1889-1955), a librarian at Duke University, was no different. What was different was that her book was composed of six parts,  each of which was published separately in wraps.  The first two parts were published in 1932, the third in 1933, the fourth in 1936, and the fifth and sixth in 1937.  There were 1145 pages running consecutively in all.  When the book was finally completed, her six parts were bound in two volumes. And Mary Wescott signed her name on the front free endpapers of both volumes.

The first volume served as Mary Wescott's Atta-Girl Book.   Inserted in the front of the book were thank-you letters from other librarians across the country––and even one from a librarian in England!   These librarians thanked her  and her co-compiler, Allene Ramage, for sending copies of the checklist to their libraries.  Moreover, the letters included praise for their bibliographical contributions.

Duke University Library had one of the largest newspaper collections in the South.  And the book Mary Wescott and Allene Ramage compiled was Bibliographical Contributions of the Duke University Libraries:  A Checklist of United States Newspapers (And Weeklies Before 1900) in the General Library.
Part I:    Alabama––Georgia
Part II:   Idaho––Massachusetts
Part III:  Michigan––New York
Part IV:  North Carolina
Part V:    North Dakota––Vermont
Part VI:  Virginia––Wyoming

Mary Wescott enticed William K. Boyd (1879-1938), the Library Director of Duke University Libraries, to write the Introduction to the book (Boyd was a noted historian of the South, particularly of the history of North Carolina).

Mary Wescott sent Boyd the first section of the checklist to review.  She also sent him a poem that best described their work in compiling the checklist.

Then she sent Boyd a second letter (the real letter) asking him to write the Introduction:

In pencil in the margin, Mary Wescott wrote, "We did not make notes for the foreign papers as there were so few of them we could find things for."   Allene Ramage would later compile A Checklist of Foreign Newspapers in the Duke University Library, which was published separately in 1949.

As promised in her letter to Boyd,  Mary Wescott provided him with acknowledgements for the work completed on compiling the checklists.  I suspect she was primarily responsible for the wording of the acknowledgements in the second paragraph of Boyd's Introduction:

The collation and classification has been entirely in the charge of Miss Allene Ramage; but, for the general plan of the Checklist, particularly in matters of arrangement, credit must be extended to Miss Mary Wescott.  Miss Eva E. Malone, head Cataloguer of the General Library, has given assistance at critical points in the venture.  Misses George Lee Garner and Ruth Ketring, assistants to Miss Ramage, displayed meticulous care and accuracy in carrying out details relating to collation and revision.

As a sidenote, Miss George Lee Garner would later become George Lee Garner Harvill, the founder of International Friends, and  the wife of the President of the University of Arizona, Richard A. Harvill.  Ruth Ketring would later become Ruth Ketring Nuermberger,  the author of The Clays of Alabama: A Planter-Lawyer-Politician Family.  Allene Ramage would later become Allene Ramage Fitzgerald, and was acknowledged under that name by Ruth Ketring Nuermberger in the Preface of The Clays of Alabama for assisting the author.

There were seven letters from other librarians that Mary Wescott kept in the front of her Atta-Girl Book.  The first letter was from Clarence S. Brigham (1877-1963), librarian and director of the American Antiquarian Society.

 Brigham's Bibliography of American Newspapers 1690-1820  in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 1913-25 proved useful to the Duke University compilers in researching newspapers published before 1820.  Brigham's work was later published as a separate work in 1947 (Brigham's note on the bottom refers to the death of William K. Boyd on Jan. 19, 1938).



If praise from Clarence S. Brigham wasn't enough, the next letter was from the scholar, editor, collector, and librarian, Esmond Samuel de Beer (1895-1990).

De Beer is best remembered for his Clarendon Press editions of The Diary of John Evelyn and The Correspondence of John Locke.

The Trinity College librarian, Arthur Adams (1881-1960) was noted for his genealogy work in the research of his Adams ancestors.  He should also be noted for stretching his last name as far across the page as possible.

Robert M. Kennedy (1866-1948) helped form the South Carolina Library Association in 1915, and was instrumental in the formation of public libraries at the local level.

Edna Ruth Hanley (1900-1972) is the author of College and University Library Buildings, an annotated bibliography of libraries built from 1917 to 1938.

George A. Osborn (1874-1947) was the librarian at Rutgers University for forty years.  His article, "The Use of the Library," was published in Vol 1 No. 1 of The Journal of Rutgers University Libraries.

Dorothy Hale Litchfield (1902-2001) was the editor of Classified List of 4800 Serials Currently Received in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania and of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges.

Mary Wescott, whose 1914 portrait is above, graduated from Duke University in 1914, and then worked as a teacher and librarian at Carolina College.   She began working at Duke University Library in 1920, and retired in 1954.  She died in her sleep of suspected coronary occlusion on July 6, 1955.

Mary Wescott's obituary notice appeared in the October 1955 issue of College and Research Libraries.

Mary Wescott's  Atta-Girl Book made its way to a bookseller in Pensacola, and then recently to me.

J. H. Slater's Books About Books

Books About Books was one of the first genres of books I collected when I started collecting books almost 35 years ago (I now have over 1200 Books About Books).  I was serving my last overseas tour before retiring from the U. S. Air Force in 1989.  RAF Mildenhall was where I was stationed.  And believe me, England was the best place ever to begin collecting books!  After I returned to the States, I catalogued my Books About Books and some of my books about essays in  A Book Lover's Journal.

In the back of the journal, I listed the names of the authors of 114 books in my library.  Half of the authors were British, which makes sense, because I bought about half of the books while I was stationed in England.

 J. H. Slater (1854-1921) was one of the British authors whose books I read to learn about books collecting.  He was a lawyer by trade, but made a name for himself in the book trade.  He was the former editor of Book-Lore: A Magazine Devoted to Old Time Literature.  And he was the first editor of Book-Prices Current: A Record of the Prices at Which Books Have Been Sold at Auction....  

To begin with, I had five of his Books about Books:

Round and About the Bookstalls:  A Guide for the Book-Hunter, London: L. Upcott Gill, 1891.

The Library Manual: A Guide to the Formation of a Library and the Valuation of Books, London: L. Upcott Gill, 1892, Third and Enlarged Edition.

Book Collecting: A Guide for Amateurs, London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1892.

The Romance of Book-Collecting, London: Elliot Stock, 1898.

How To Collect Books, London: George Bell and Sons, 1905

Although Slater's Books About Books were written to help book collectors of an earlier era, the knowledge they contained was still beneficial to me when I went book hunting in England almost one hundred years later.  And I would recommend them to newbie collectors today.

Here is my journal listing for Round and About the Bookstalls:

There's one error in my journal listing: I paid £19 for the book, and not $19.  Round And About the Bookstalls is listed on page 114 of Leo Hart's Bibliotheca Typographica: A List of Books About Books.  But the comment is not Hart's; it's mine.  Winslow Webber, in his Books About Books: A Bio-Bibliography for Collectors, lists three of Slater's books, but not Round and About the Bookstalls.

A former owner from the 20th century had this thing about Slater's use of the phrase, "the present century."  He crossed out the word present four times and inserted "19th" in its place:

When the publisher identified the 1892 edition of The Library Manual as "the Third and Enlarged Edition," he wasn't kidding.  The first edition only contained 120 pages.  The third edition contained 424 pages!

The values of the books in the second section were outdated; but I didn't care.  This book provided me with a list of the collectible books in each genre and by author.


Book Collecting: A Guide for Amateurs

Don't let the sub-title fool you.  This book contains knowledge even the professionals find useful.  My copy was formerly owned by the Denver book dealer and collector Donald Beaty Bloch, No. 329 of 500 copies printed of the large paper edition.

Besides providing information on manuscripts, ancient libraries, early book hunters, and bibliographical aids, this book has separate chapters on the Aldine Press, the Elzevir Press, and early English presses.  It even has a chapter on books to buy!

This book, however, is part of the reason for the poor reputation of Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual as a reliable reference work: that it was imperfect and full of errors.  But it is not the fault of Slater, but rather the fault of later authors who didn't bother to read Slater's entire paragraph before quoting from it.   Slater identifies the faults of the Lowndes book as well as its good attributes, but in a rather long-winded manner.  And later authors never quoted the good attributes of Lowndes:

Here is the paragraph on Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual in its entirety:

Every bibliographer, and also every collector of any eminence, has within reach certain books of reference which experience has shown to be absolutely necessary.  Chief among these is Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual of which two editions have been issued.  The first was published in 1834; the second in seven parts from 1857-61, with an appendix volume in 1864, having been re-issued from the stereotype plates without a date in 1871. The latter may frequently be picked up at auction sale for about 25s., but there is this peculiarity about the work, that it really would not seem to be very material which edition is purchased.  The book is imperfect and full of errors: it cannot be relied on, and the second edition, which was edited by the late Mr. H. G. Bohn, the eminent bookseller, is as untrustworthy as the first.  The original plan, which has never been departed from, was to give the names of English authors in alphabetical order, placing under each the title of the works he wrote, with the date of each edition, number of volumes, in many cases the collation, and finally the sums realised at auction.  Nothing fluctuates so greatly as auction values, and it is not surprising, therefore, to find that not a single entry in Lowndes under this head can be accepted at the present day.  Some of the variations between past and present prices are ludicrous in the extreme, and there is no doubt that anyone who attempted to obtain his knowledge of the value of books from Lowndes' Manual would find himself in possession of a mass of old-time information which would be rather a hindrance to him than otherwise.  The Manual is useful because it gives a full and tolerably complete list of English authors, and collates many of their works with considerable care; it is, moreover, the authority quoted by catalogers, and, being a copyright publication, practically bars the way to any rival work on the same subject.  for these and other reasons it is indispensable.

This book is for the beginning book collector as well, and covers practically every imaginable subject pertaining to book collecting.  Slater recommends Lowndes' Bibliographer's Manual in this book as well, but is less verbose. "...mention must, of course, be made of Lowndes' "Bibliographer's Manual," useful in every way, except for the quoted prices, which have long been obsolete."

I would regard the four Slater books listed above as instructional books.  This next book, The Romance of Book-Collecting, is more anecdotal than instructional, although there are some lessons to be learned from reading the book.

In a chapter about old hunting grounds in London, Slater mentions Grays's Inn Lane, and the premises of Thomas Osborne, where Johnson clobbered Osborne with a folio.  But Slater adds a new twist to the story.  I have always read that Osborne was belittling Johnson, and Johnson finally had enough, and hit him with a folio.  But on page 80 of The Romance of Book-Collecting, Slater writes that Johnson wanted to buy a huge folio, but Osborne refused to sell it at any price, so Johnson hit him with it.  The folio in question was the 1594 edition of Biblia Græca Septuaginta, the same book identified in other versions of the tale.

I have added three more of Slater's books to my library in the last 20 years, one of them in just the last month:  Early Editions: A Bibliographical Survey of the Works of Some Popular Authors, first published in 1894.  And that was because of the Wise forgeries.  Only recently did I read that forty years before Carter and Pollard exposed Thomas J. Wise's forgeries in 1934, that in Early Editions, J. H. Slater had called Wise out about his forgeries.  So I had to have a copy of Early Editions.  None of the reasonably priced copies currently available from stateside booksellers was in good condition, so I acquired a reprint published by Forgotten Books in 2012.

In Early Editions, under the listings of George Elliot's works,  Slater wrote about Brothers and Sisters, Sonnets, which was reportedly printed in 1869 for private circulation only:

This work is supposed to be a fictitious and ante-dated edition reprinted from the "Legend of Jubal and Other Poems," 1874, in which the Sonnets perhaps really first appeared....

For Swinburne's Siena, Slater writes:

A good copy would sell by auction for about £10 or £12, and it is worthy of note that the market value of genuine copies of the work has at least doubled within the last three or four years.

A pirated reprint is occasionally met with, and, having been very carefully executed, is almost impossible to detect it from the original.  It is in every respect but one a masterly production, the only apparent defect being in the description of the paper, which it was probably found impossible to match exactly.  There is no doubt that many forged copies are on the market.

This next book, Book Plates and Their Values, published in 1898, is one of the reference books in my library.

I don't even bother to look at the values of the bookplates listed in this book since they are outdated.  And I don't collect individual bookplates either.  But the information about the bookplates and their owners has aided me in my provenance research of books.


This next book,  Engravings and their Values, is the thickest Slater book in my library.  But I don't collect engravings or prints.  In fact, the only reason it is in my library is because, at one time, I may have had fleeting thoughts of becoming a completist, and collecting all of Slater's works.

A completist I am not.  But a Books About Books Collector I am!



ADDENDUM

One more book by Slater that arrived in the afternoon mail today: