A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books Read online

  Also by

  Nicholas A. Basbanes

  About the Author

  A World of Letters

  Editions & Impressions

  Every Book Its Reader

  A Splendor of Letters

  Among the Gently Mad

  Patience & Fortitude

  A Gentle Madness

  A Gentle

  Madness

  Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the

  Eternal Passion for Books

  With a New Preface

  NICHOLAS A. BASBANES

  Fine Books Press

  Chapel Hill, NC

  Fine Books Press

  is a division of Journalistic, Inc.,

  101 Europa Drive, Suite 150

  Chapel Hill, NC

  Copyright © 1995 by Nicholas A. Basbanes

  Preface copyright © 2012 by Nicholas A. Basbanes

  All rights reserved.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with

  the Library of Congress

  eISBN 978-0-9799491-6-6

  Fine Books Press books are available for special promotions and

  premiums as well as for classroom instructions.

  For details contact: [email protected].

  First published in hardcover in 1995 by

  Henry Holt and Company

  First Fine Books Press Edition 2012

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Fine Books Press Edition

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

  A digital edition of this book is available

  online for popular e-book readers.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following institutions for permission to quote from previously unpublished material: American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts; William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Columbia University Oral History Research Office, New York City; The Huntington Library, San Marino, California; The Newberry Library, Chicago; and the Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia.

  For

  Constance V. Basbanes

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  Prologue

  Part One

  1. Touching the Hand

  2. Balm for the Soul

  3. Rule, Britannia

  4. America, Americans, Americana

  5. Brandy for Heroes

  Part Two

  6. To Have and to Have No More

  7. Infinite Riches

  8. Mirror Images

  9. Instant Ivy

  10. Obsessed Amateurs

  11. Destiny

  12. Continental Drift

  13. The Blumberg Collection

  14. Carpe Diem

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  1. The Book Fool, by Albrecht Dürer. Courtesy of The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress.

  2. Sir Robert Cotton (1571–1631). Commissioned 1626. Attributed to Cornelius Janssen van Ceulen.

  3. A page from Beowulf (c. 1000). Courtesy of The British Library.

  4. Pepys’s library in York Buildings, London. Courtesy of The Pepys Library.

  5. Samuel Pepys (1633–1703). Portrait by J. Hayls, 1666. Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London.

  6. Copy of Areopagitica. Courtesy of The British Library.

  7. George John, second Earl Spencer (1758–1834). Portrait by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815). Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

  8. The King’s Library, assembled by King George III. Courtesy of The British Library.

  9. Isaiah Thomas (1749–1831). Portrait by Ethan Allen Greenwood, 1818. Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.

  10. Jeremy Belknap (1744–1798). Portrait by Henry Sargent, 1798. Courtesy of Massachusetts Historical Society.

  11. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872), about 1860. Courtesy of H. P. Kraus of New York.

  12. Statue of John Harvard (1607–1638). Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  13. Thomas Prince (1687–1758) of Boston. Courtesy of Trustees of the Boston Public Library.

  14. James Logan (1674–1751) of Philadelphia. From the Catalogue of the Books Belonging to the Loganian Library. Philadelphia: Library Company of Philadelphia, 1837.

  15. George Brinley (1817–1875), about 1850. Courtesy of The William L. Clements Library.

  16. James Lenox (1800–1880), about 1870. Courtesy of The New York Public Library.

  17. East Room of the Pierpont Morgan Library. Courtesy of the Gottscho- Schleisner Collection of Library of Congress.

  18. John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913). Courtesy of The Pierpont Morgan Library.

  19. Robert Hoe III (1839–1909). Courtesy of The Grolier Club of New York.

  20. John Carter Brown (1797–1874). Courtesy of The John Carter Brown Library.

  21. Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927). Courtesy of The Huntington Library.

  22. Page from the Ellesmere Manuscript of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, about 1410. Courtesy of The Huntington Library.

  23. New York Public Library. Photography by Irving Underhill, 1914. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

  24. The Harry Elkins Widener Library at Harvard. Photograph by Leon H. Abdalian (1884–1967). Courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

  25. The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas. Courtesy of University of Texas at Austin.

  26. A collector paid $66,000 at the Garden Ltd. sale for a two-volume copy of Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

  27. The Exhibition Hall of the Huntington Library. Courtesy of The Huntington Library.

  28. Title page of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works (1623). Courtesy of Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image.

  29. A first-edition copy of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794). Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

  30. Charles L. Blockson. Courtesy of Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University.

  31. Arthur Alfonso Schomburg (1874–1938) circa 1910. Courtesy Figuras Historicas De Puerto Rico, Vol. 2, Adolfo R. Lopez, editor.

  32. A page from the corrected typescript for the opening episode of Finnegans Wake. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

  33. Aaron Lansky, founder of the National Yiddish Book Center. Courtesy of National Yiddish Book Center.

  34. The Holyoke, Massachusetts, annex of the National Yiddish Book Center. Courtesy of National Yiddish Book Center.

  35. Summer interns working at the National Yiddish Book Center. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  36. Ruth Baldwin (1918–1990). Courtesy of the University of Florida.

  37. Chef Louis Szathmary II. Courtesy of Szathmary Culinary Arts Collection, Johnson and Wales University, Providence, Rhode Island.

  38. Louise Taper of Beverly Hills, California. Courtesy of Louise Taper.

  39. Harry Huntt Ransom. Portrait by Robert Joy. Courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin.

  40. William H. Scheide of Princeton, New Jersey. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  41. The Federalist, with George Washington’s autograph. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

  42. H. Bradley Martin’s copy of the Declaration of Independence. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

  43. A page from Leonardo da Vinci’s seventy-two-page manuscript. Courtesy of Christie’s.

  44.
First page of the handwritten copy of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. Courtesy of Karpeles Manuscript Library.

  45. Four-time Emmy award winner John Larroquette. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  46. David Karpeles of Santa Barbara, California. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  47. William Self, California collector. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  48. Dr. Haskell F. Norman of Marin County, California. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  49. The bibliokleptomaniac enjoys a moment in the “California Room” of his Ottumwa house. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  50. Stephen C. Blumberg gives a guided tour of his Ottumwa, Iowa, house. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  51. Blumberg peruses a book from his Ottumwa warehouse. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  52. “Dumpster diving,” one of Blumberg’s favorite pastimes. Courtesy of Nicholas A. Basbanes.

  53. The Library of Richard Manney. Courtesy of Elliott Kaufman.

  Acknowledgments

  Roger E. Stoddard, curator of rare books at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, listened, offered wise counsel, and read substantial portions of the manuscript.

  For courtesies too numerous to enumerate: Bart Auerbach, bookseller, New York City; Sidney E. Berger, director of special collections, the University of California, Riverside; George B. Griffin, journalist, Douglas, Massachusetts; Priscilla Juvelis, bookseller, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the late William A. Moffett, librarian of the Huntington Library, 1990 to 1995.

  For showing me the treasures: Nicolas Barker and Mirjam M. Foot, the British Library; William R. Cagle and Joel Silver, the Lilly Library, Indiana University; John Dann, the Clements Library, University of Michigan; Raymond W. Daum, Kathleen G. Hjerter, and Dave Oliphant, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas; Florence de Lussy, the Bibliothèque Nationale; Catherine Denning, the John Hay Library, Brown University; Kimball Higgs and Martin Antonetti, the Grolier Club; Norman Fiering and Susan L. Danforth, the John Carter Brown Library; H. George Fletcher and Elizabeth Poole-Wilson, the Pierpont Morgan Library; Paul Gehl, Newberry Library; William L. Joyce, Firestone Library, Princeton University; Alan Jutzi and John Rhodehamel, Henry E. Huntington Library; Barbara Kuck, Johnson & Wales University; Thomas Kren, J. Paul Getty Museum; John Lannon, Boston Athenæum; Richard Luckett, Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge University; Marcus A. McCorison and Georgia B. Barnhill, American Antiquarian Society; Bernard McTigue, New York Public Library; Laura V. Monti, Boston Public Library; Leslie A. Morris, Elizabeth E. Fuller, and Ellen S. Dunlap, Rosenbach Museum and Library; Stephen Parks, Christa Sammons, Archibald Hanna, and Marie Devine, Yale University libraries; Stephen T. Riley, Massachusetts Historical Society; Julian Roberts, Bodleian Library, Oxford University; Rita Smith, the University of Florida; William P. Stoneman, Scheide Library, Princeton, New Jersey; Sem Sutter, Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago; John Van Horn, Library Company of Philadelphia; Peter M. Van Wingen, Library of Congress; Elizabeth Walsh, Folger Shakespeare Library; and David Zeidberg, University of California, Los Angeles.

  For help in securing public documents: Mary Allison Foster, Dutchess County Registry of Deeds, Poughkeepsie, New York; James R. Vosburgh, attorney, Washington, North Carolina; Mary Elizabeth Hugeback, clerk’s office, United States District Court, Des Moines, Iowa; and Glenn V. Longacre, National Archives, Chicago depository.

  Robert and Christine Liska, owners of Colophon Books in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Robert Fleck, owner of Oak Knoll Books in New Castle, Delaware, found the old and out-of-print titles I had to have. Appreciation also to Phyllis Button Whitten for her translations; Andrea Braver for her assistance in California; Ray Cornell for his help in Iowa; George J. Basbanes for legal advice; and Everett M. Skehan for his friendship and unwavering encouragement.

  My literary agents Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu were champions from the beginning, and made significant contributions to the book that emerged. The careful reading I received at Henry Holt from production editor Jenna Dolan and copy editor Katherine L. Scott was steady and professional. Allen H. Peacock, my editor at Holt, called me on Thanksgiving Day in 1993 and told me he would publish this book, “and publish it well.” His unshakable support of the project will forever be an inspiration.

  I wish to record profound gratitude to my parents, John and Georgia Basbanes of Lowell, Massachusetts, and to my father-in-law, Louis G. Valentzas of Pompano Beach, Florida.

  My thoughts go out to the memory of four fine and wonderful people who also believed in me and in my work: Stella Valentzas, Stella Koumoutseas, Raymond Morin, and E. Nelson Hayes.

  My daughters, Barbara Georgia Basbanes and Nicole Stella Basbanes, have given me their love and their patience and inspired me to do my best.

  For Constance V. Basbanes, my wife, reader of first resort, and most demanding critic, words, for once, fail me. She has my love, respect, and deepest admiration.

  • • •

  For the Fine Books Press edition of 2012, many thanks to William Cloud, Rebecca Rego Barry, Greg Sanders, Kathryn Haller, Jeremy Howell, and Sonya Chudgar, whose close reading and technical know-how have been of enormous value in perparation of a clean and authoritative text. Webb Howell, publisher of Fine Books Press, and a dear friend, is responsible for making this book accessible to the next generation of readers, and in exciting new formats.

  O blessed Letters, that combine in one

  All ages past, and make one live with all:

  By you we doe conferre with who are gone,

  And the dead-living unto councell call:

  By you th’ unborne shall have communion

  Of what we feele, and what doth us befall.

  —SAMUEL DANIEL,

  Musophilus, 1599

  I cannot live without books.

  —THOMAS JEFFERSON,

  Letter to John Adams, 1815

  In nature the bird who gets up earliest catches the most worms, but in book-collecting the prizes fall to birds who know worms when they see them.

  —MICHAEL SADLEIR,

  The Colophon, Number 3, 1930

  Anything can be anywhere.

  —ZACK JENKS,

  Cadillac Jack, by Larry McMurtry

  Preface

  The idea to explore bibliomania past and present began to take shape for me toward the end of the 1980s, a decade that can be fairly judged from this remove in time to have been a transitional period in the history of book collecting, not a Golden Age in any traditional sort of way, but certainly one of unquestioned consequence, with ramifications that resonate well into the twenty-first century.

  A series of high-profile auctions that electrified the bibliophilic community— the sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s of rarities amassed over many years by Estelle Doheny in California, H. Bradley Martin in New York, and a mystery man in Massachusetts who enigmatically called himself Haven O’More (an anagram for Have No More)—provided the backdrop for a feeding frenzy among well-heeled collectors to acquire fabulous things most of them believed were out of circulation forever.

  I have written elsewhere about how A Gentle Madness grew from a modestly conceived overview of book passion through history into an unfolding portrait of the contemporary scene, and need not digress further on it now except to stress that a project that began as an inquiry finely focused on what had gone before quickly became an ever-widening consideration of the here and now. My motivation at first was scholarly, and the traditional research methods I employed should speak for themselves, but let it be affirmed also that my primary instincts are journalistic, and that I have always known a good story when I see one.

  So from the dazzling auction galleries of Manhattan, I set out through much of the United States to find the great living collectors of the day, my all-consuming goal to show how so much of what we value of our literature, our history, and our culture would be irretrievably lost if not for the dedication and purpose
of these remarkable individuals. It is a given in the news business that one epiphany inevitably leads to another, a truism that accounted for the quirky road map I followed in search of my subjects, and for the striking variety of fascinating people I came to meet along the way.

  With a few notable exceptions—Harry Huntt Ransom and Lew David Feldman in the chapter about institutional bibliomania at the University of Texas I called “Instant Ivy,” and the children’s books collector Ruth Baldwin in Florida—pretty much everyone who is featured in Part II was living when A Gentle Madness first appeared in 1995, and let it be clear also that those who were living then remain alive here now. When the first paperback edition of this book was published in 1999, I did bring a few of the key stories I had featured up to date, but only in the confines of a new preface, and not in the fabric of the original text.

  My reasoning then was that the unexpected deaths in 1996 of three major collectors who had figured so prominently in Part II—Carter Burden of New York City, Chef Louis I. Szathmary of Chicago, and Dr. Haskell F. Norman of San Francisco—were of particular moment to a central premise articulated in the very first chapter of the book. More to the point, I was genuinely astounded by how the disposition of their respective libraries had paralleled so closely those of three French bibliophiles from the late nineteenth century, each contributing in separate but equally compelling ways to the life cycle of books and book custodianship.

  Like the famed orientalist Silvestre de Sacy many decades before him, Carter Burden made no plans for the fate of his sixty-five thousand-volume library, acknowledged at the time of his death to be the greatest gathering of twentieth-century American literature in private hands. In the weeks that followed his passing at the age of fifty-four, a solution was formulated in which Burden’s widow gave the core holdings to the Pierpont Morgan Library, and consigned the remainder to various booksellers for resale on the open market, a balanced solution applauded by scholars and collectors alike.