Old Books, Rare Friends

by Madeline B. Stern

  The S.S. Veendam was to depart from Rotterdam in late September. We would stay in The Hague to be ready for our exodus. And in The Hague we would do our last-minute book hunting. We arrived by overnight train to find a city as shabby and dilapidated as Switzerland had been bright and shining. At the long-established firm of Martinus Nijhoff, on the Lange Voorhout, we were received by an elderly gentleman, Mr. Kern, who introduced us to what would become one of the passions of our life in books.

  We were seated together at a table in his office when Mr. Kern brought to us a little collection of fifteen octavo French pamphlets printed between 1604 and 1610. Most of them were anonymous or pseudonymous, some supposedly by one Maître Guillaume, a cook, who, under the protection of Henry IV, became court fool. These little ephemeral nothings, brought together in a collection, seemed to assume significance for us. Leona especially, flipping through the pages, sensed in these evanescent issues the newspapers of their day, recording the political intrigues, the foreign alliances, financial problems, Turkish threats, bitterness between Catholic and Huguenot, battles fought, the longing for peace. The whole age seemed to be here in these nutshells. One of the pamphlets had an engraved title page, depicting the French soldier in full armor. Surely this was multum in parvo—pamphlets designed to be read hastily and thrown away, pamphlets that reflected the age that had spawned them, pamphlets that were now treasures. It seemed to us too that those pamphlets encapsulated in a way the postwar world we were about to leave. We too had been eyewitnesses, three and a half centuries later, to a gray peace born of war. This history we had seen ourselves.

  We paid for our French pamphlets in guilders and took them away with us. From our first European book hunt we had assembled 280 books, for which we had paid about $2000. Now the adventure was over. It had given us some slight insight into a postwar world whose stained glass had been shattered. On September 19 we boarded our ship, bound for New York Harbor. Our fellow passengers included a few Jews who had survived the concentration camps and many non-Jewish Europeans in search of a better world. Among them was a young boy with a constant craving for sugar, which he had been denied. He sat at the table next to ours with his parents, who told us also that he did not know how to tell the truth, because he had been taught to lie constantly to the Nazi invaders about his identity. We gave him all our sugar; but we could not give him a sense of truth.

  We two had a sense only of happiness. We were on our way to our own country. We were on our way home. “God help poor sorry Europe,” we wrote in our diaries. “We rejoice because we can leave it, and because we have all our wonderful books, and because we are together.”

  FINGER -

  SPITZENGEFÜHL

  Leona and Madeleine AS FAR AS WE know, the word Finger-Spitzengefühl never made it to a dictionary. It was originally Herbert Reichner who passed it on to us. A tingling of the fingertips becomes an electrical current of suspense, excitement, recognition. In an artificially controlled voice one of us calls to the other, “Look! This may be something.” And two heads look down upon the title page of a discovery. Sometimes the Finger-Spitzengefühl occurs on the spot as we scan the shelves of a foreign dealer. Sometimes it takes place only after the purchase has been made and we study our find. Whenever or wherever it occurs, it is an experience that makes the rare book business a hymn to joy.

  Through the decades, from “books after the Blitz” to our most recent bookhunts abroad, we felt our Finger-Spitzengefühl explode from time to time. Always on the lookout for ephemeral material, we’d glance over a pile of English Commonwealth decrees at a small dealer’s in the West End of London. We’d stare hard at a slim quarto pamphlet issued in London in 1652, and suddenly Leona’s Finger-Spitzengefühl began to erupt. She had done quite some research on seventeenth-century English printer-publishers, and the printer-publisher responsible for this little item was well known to her. He was named William Dugard and he had been the printer of several world-shaking items by one John Milton. Could John Milton have had anything to do with the pamphlet before us? It had been published in 1652, when Milton was Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth’s Council of State, and it was a declaration of war by the Commonwealth against the States of Holland. Nowhere in the course of this Latin text was John Milton’s name so much as mentioned. And yet, the Finger-Spitzengefühl was sending its electrical currents, and Leona was rapidly making connections.

  Not until she studied the pamphlet carefully would she be able to establish the connection she so strongly suspected—that John Milton, as supervisor of state papers for the press, had indeed been involved with this indifferent-looking tract. As Latin Secretary to the Council of State he had prepared the text and supervised its printing. This modest-looking Scriptum of the Parliament of England bore the stamp and the style of the second greatest poet in the English language. Moreover, it had never before been assigned to or associated with Milton. Leona’s Finger-Spitzengefühl had pointed the way to an extraordinary discovery that was promptly added to the great Milton collection at the University of Illinois.

  It was at a larger and far better known London bookstore, at the famous address of 84 Charing Cross Road, that Mady’s Finger-Spitzengefühl began its thrilling vibrations. Although we seldom deal in manuscripts, she was immediately drawn to a ninety-five-page handwritten notebook bound in Italian vellum, dated 1820, and filled with pen-and-ink sketches. The notebook, she saw, had been kept by one William Paget, and it recorded a journey he had made to Italy between April and October. As Leona had immediately thought of John Milton when she saw the Latin Scriptum, Madeleine thought of Percy Bysshe Shelley when she flipped through the autograph pages describing the streets of Pisa, the sights of Genoa and Leghorn, Lucca and Florence. Had not Shelley visited the Italian villages and cities at the very same time as Mr. Paget? Had he not written his “Witch of Atlas,” his “Skylark,” and his “Sensitive Plant” there? Paget’s notebook was filled with descriptions not only of vine and olive but of food and dress, theaters and carriages, the politics that followed the “iron reign of Napoleon.” All this Shelley too had experienced at the same time.

  And so the little notebook that William Paget had bought in Pisa to preserve his Italian impressions was a vicarious source for Shelley’s life. Unknowing, the traveler had followed in Shelley’s footsteps and seen the Italy that was enchanting the great poet. Paget’s sketches and notes set the scene for Shelley’s Italian drama. The Finger-Spitzengefühl had given its electrical signal. The link had been made. A previously unknown source in the Romantic movement had been uncovered at 84 Charing Cross Road. It can be viewed today in the renowned Shelley collection of the Pforzheimer Library.

  We discovered more than a Romantic source in a bookshop at one end of the rue Bonaparte—actually, we discovered a continent. True, we weren’t aware of all this when we found the sixteen-page French pamphlet printed in Paris in 1617. We were aware of enough, however, to set the Finger-Spitzengefühl in action. We had come upon a small group of eight unbound seventeenth-century French tracts, the kind of ephemera we had learned to love. One of them had a couple of words in its title that electrified the Finger-Spitzengefühl. The title read: Copie de la Reqveste Presentee Av Roy d’Espagne … sur la descouuerte de la cinquiesme Partie du monde, appellee la terre Australle—or Copy of the Request Presented to the King of Spain on the Discovery of the Fifth Part of the World called the Austral Land. Although Austral Land sounded to us very like Australia, we thought at the same time that this might have been a fiction or a hoax. How could it possibly be the report of the discovery of a fifth percent of the planet Earth, here at the end of the rue Bonaparte, here now in our hands?

  We made a lot purchase of the eight pamphlets for the equivalent of $2.90, and calmed down. It was only when we returned home and studied our pamphlet that we realized, with mounting excitement, that we had indeed made a great discovery. Reading the pamphlet was for us like reading a serialized suspense page-turner. It had been written by Pedro Ferna
ndes de Queiros, who, we learned, had been a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain. In 1606 he had sailed from Peru and found what he believed to be a new continent. He named it Australia del Espiritu Santo, and he claimed it for the Spanish crown. When he returned from his explorations he wrote about his discovery, asking for funds and ships to colonize his newfound land. One of the requests he had circularized was on our desk. In it the enthralled navigator described the Terre Australle as a fifth part of the terrestrial globe. It was populated by Indians, he wrote, and its soil was fertile, its rivers and forests fruitful, its birds beautiful. It was rich, he said, in silver and pearls, spices and natural resources. It was comparable if not superior to America or Peru, Nicaragua or the Philippines. Whether or not our author had actually discovered Australia—a fifth part of the universe—he thought he had. And his memorandum, our Reqveste, was cited in scholarly bibliographies of books and pamphlets relating to Australia.

  There are thousands of seventeenth-century French pamphlets on every subject imaginable, from the Huguenot wars to peace alliances, from the birth of a dauphin to the death of a king, from the price of wheat to the cost of a burial. Individually they did not command a great price when we began to forage for them. Indeed, many were tagged at no more than the paltry sum we had paid for our Fernandes de Queiros: thirty-seven American cents. During the decades that have passed since that purchase, its price has risen. At one time we saw our Reqveste listed in a dealer’s catalogue for $2000. More recently, the English translation of our pamphlet was estimated not in four but in five figures. Fernandes had found, he thought, a new continent. We had found, we knew, a pot of gold. But—far more important—we too had adventured and explored, and, like our Portuguese navigator, we too had been discoverers.

  In his way, Pierre Samuel Du Pont had also traveled widely. The distinguished French statesman and philosopher had, we knew, helped implement foreign recognition of our United States, and in 1799 had voyaged to America, where he worked with Thomas Jefferson. He had also fathered Éleuthère Irénée Du Pont, founder of the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Company. In 1947, when we were looking for our books after the Blitz, we visited the Welshman Ifan Kyrle Fletcher at his home in Wimbledon and there had taken from a shelf a volume bound in boards, published in Paris in 1799, entitled Philosophie de L’Univers. It was the work of our pro-American French philosopher Pierre Samuel Du Pont. Indeed, there was a finely engraved portrait of the author in the book and there was also an author’s presentation inscription. “À Myladi Davy,” he had written, “avec les respects de l’Auteur.”We knew who the author was, all right, and we were fairly certain we knew to whom he had inscribed his respects. Surely “Myladi Davy” must have been the wife of the great English chemist Sir Humphry Davy. We added Monsieur Du Pont to our little pile of Wimbledon purchases, and when we returned home decided to offer him straightaway to the current head of the Du Pont empire, the bibliophilic Irénée Du Pont.

  Irénée was receptive but also skeptical. Our Finger-Spitzengefühl may have assured us that Pierre Samuel Du Pont had inscribed his work to Sir Humphry Davy’s wife, but our Finger-Spitzengefühl was not trustworthy enough for Irénée. “I already have 35 copies of my ancestor’s disquisition,” he informed us, but if we could prove that the author had actually given this particular copy to Sir Humphry Davy’s wife, he would add it to his collection. We took up the challenge. We would prove not only that the lady in question was the recipient of Du Pont’s gift, but that our sparkling Finger-Spitzengefühl was to be trusted. The Davys themselves collaborated in our research. At the New York Public Library we learned that Sir Humphry Davy had not only conducted revolutionary chemical experiments but had kept a diary. Obligingly, he had recorded in it a visit he and his wife had made in 1799 to Nemours. That was the year Du Pont’s book had been published. Nemours was the location of DuPont’s home. We put two and two together, found they equaled Finger-Spitzengefühl, and made a little sale to Irénée Du Pont.

  With happenings like these punctuating the early years of Leona Rostenberg—Rare Books, the partners rejoiced in the firm’s expansion. It was appropriate for the Du Pont empire to play a small part in that process. By 1948 we felt a kinship with the family and therefore hastened to inform them that a forthcoming New York auction was featuring numerous items by the eminent French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, a close friend of their illustrious forebear. Our letter, which listed estimated prices, was immediately acknowledged by a telegram: “Letter with estimated prices received. Will take any one or all of collection at higher prices named by you … Total … amount may be used to acquire the total list regardless of price of individual items.” The Du Ponts had placed such trust in us that we could not help wondering whether they were confusing the name Rostenberg with the renowned name Rosenbach. Years later, when the family asked us to appraise two Du Pont collections, we would be assured that no such confusion had occurred.

  Yale University Library played a more important role than the Du Ponts in our development. We metamorphosed ourselves into itinerant peddlers and journeyed periodically to New Haven. Each of us carried a satchel of small, carefully selected sixteenth-century volumes, some of which we had “enhanced” with our own decorative wrappers. It was always a special day when we tripped aboard the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad or sped along the Connecticut Turnpike for Yale University, for at the end of the trip Donald Wing was waiting to receive us.

  His office was crammed with books, fileboxes, shoeboxes filled with his bibliographical slips. An old folio volume supported one leg of his desk, and the desk itself was obliterated under a mass of catalogues, quotations, reports—and, of course, books. A library van stood in a corner, teetering under the weight of books. “If you can find a chair, sit down,” Donald Wing remarked laconically in his gravelly, nasal twang. He was tall, gaunt, slightly stooped. He was enamored of his profession. When, years later, he was interviewed by the New York Times, he said of his lifetime in books, “It has been marvelous. I have actually been paid to read second-hand catalogues.” After some small talk we opened our satchels and he placed the books on an empty van. “I’ll check them myself right away.” Then, as he eyed our homemade wrappers, he chuckled and commented, “Boudoir bindings?” Within an hour he returned. Our books were now in two sections of the van. “I want the books on the top shelf. Have the ones below. Nice to have you come. Visit me again.”

  Trips to Yale, Harvard, and Cornell swelled our income. No one confused us with Rosenbach, but from time to time we felt like Rosenbach, and soon we began the search for a downtown office.

  In 1948 the New York Times carried our ads under “Business Places Wanted.” What we wanted was a “Store, or first-floor front room, for rare book business between the East 40s and the East 70s.” Periodically, we inspected possibilities, including one on Herbert Reichner’s East Sixty-second Street. But our search was desultory. Although we might dream about some ideal open shop in mid-Manhattan that would attract the elite among collectors and librarians, we were always of two minds about implementing such a dream. For this ambivalence there was a powerful reason.

  We did not wish to curtail our freedom with the nine-to-five schedule necessitated by an open shop. We were both working not only on rare books but on what we liked to call “our own books”—the books and articles we were researching and writing. Confined during business hours to an open shop, we could not go to the library whenever we wished and spend long days in research; we could not visit Concord or Cambridge whenever the spirit moved us. The double lives we had begun to lead would be in jeopardy if we had to keep tight office hours. And, to ensure the rent of a downtown office, those hours would indeed be tight and long. And so we continued as we had been, enhancing our Bronx quarters with magnificent glass-enclosed oak and mahogany bookcases and retaining the freedom of our double lives.

  The midcentury was momentous for us. Nineteen-fifty brought us the worst and the best. For Leona it was the year of her father�
�s death:

  For a long time I had known of his heart ailment and I had dreaded the approach of finality. When it actually happened it was not only tragedy but melodrama. I customarily had dinner at Mady’s on Tuesdays, and so I was not present when it happened. My uncle had been invited to the Bronx that evening, and he collapsed at the table. My father—ever the doctor, despite his weak heart—rose to help him and he too collapsed. Babette phoned and summoned me home. Mady and I confronted a house filled with police and a mother overwhelmed by tragedy and loss. I quickly realized that my uncle had had a fatal seizure, but I was not aware of my father’s death until later. He had been stricken while trying to help his brother-in-law and had died immediately. The shock of the double tragedy soon gave way to unadulterated grief for my darling father. For months I was assailed with an obsessive selfish grief. I could no longer tell him about my little triumphs; I could not take delight in his delight with our growing success. Part of me was cut off.

  In contrast, that same year of 1950 held jubilation too, for it was the year when Mady’s Louisa May Alcott was published:

  Madeleine IN AN ARTICLE I HAD WRITTEN for Publishers Weekly on “The Mystery of the Leon Brothers”—two Polish refugees who had become New York booksellers and issued the first catalogue of American first editions in 1885—the editors inserted a biographical note about “Miss Stern,” concluding with the statement that I had “recently completed, under a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, a biography of Louisa M. Alcott.” Aware that public interest was centered less in the career of Louisa May Alcott than in books about the aftermath of World War II, E. P. Dutton had waived its option on my second book. Unlike Dutton, Savoie Lottinville, head of the University of Oklahoma Press, responded enthusiastically to the note in Publishers Weekly, immediately asking me to send him my manuscript. The war had not stifled his interest in the Alcotts; moreover, he had recently accepted a biography of Louisa’s mother, Marmee; by Sandford Salyer. Savoie Lottinville, as astute as he was charming, appreciated the chance of a companion piece for Marmee and contracted to publish my Louisa May Alcott.