by David Mason
I doubt there’s a book person in Toronto who doesn’t pass that grand old store with Albert Britnell’s name still embossed on the lintel in ever-more-green copper letters without experiencing the feelings of distaste and depression that its present occupant, Starbucks, arouses in me every time I go by.
Albert Britnell’s bookshop had moved up to Yonge Street north of Bloor during the worst of the depression. Although I don’t know for sure, it can’t have been much later than this that the focus on new books pushed the used books into near oblivion. From what surfaced when Roy began to clear the basement it was obvious that most of them had been in the storage crates at least since that depression move, some of them much longer, probably from the nineteenth century. By the time I began to go in, in the late sixties, there was a single table in the front holding used books and a shelved office in the rear of the store which occasionally was stocked from the basement.
Roy handled all the used books and he seldom bought libraries by that time.
Roy Britnell loved to talk to the collectors and dealers who came in. It seemed to me that, successful as the new book business was, he missed the old and rare trade and the sort of people he had met through it.
He told me many stories about all the people he had dealt with over those many years, from Robert Service to the Canadian Prime Minister who, knowing Roy wielded great power in the downtown Toronto business community, invited him to lunch, only to be refused bluntly: “I told him I had work to do, unlike some.” Roy told this anecdote with enormous self-satisfaction. For a long time I assumed it was Lester Pearson, the Prime Minister then, but as I got to know Roy I learned as everybody did that he was a life-long passionate Liberal. I was confused until I realized that it must have been John Diefenbaker and that Roy was reliving a triumph which he must have savored for at least ten years or so.
Now, with Roy getting elderly and his son Barry, who owned and ran the shop, both uninterested in and ignorant of used and rare books, Roy realized that he had better start disposing of these books while he could still handle them. Up till then there had been a couple of tables in the store containing used books, priced very cheaply, and a 25¢ bin set up outside the store in warm weather.
So Roy began filling a glass case a couple of times a week with desirable books, rendered even more desirable because Roy had not been active in rare books for many years, and his feel for values was thirty to forty years out of date. Once Roy held a Saturday sale, even advertising it in the newspaper, a sale entirely of Canadiana. The line-up on sale day was long and so cheap were the books that I’ve never forgotten the displays of almost insane greed I witnessed.
People were grasping and pulling whole piles right from Roy’s arms as he brought up fresh stock. That many of the people who demonstrated such disgusting displays of avarice I knew to be quite wealthy astonished me.
Or it did until I read years later Graham Greene’s masterful fictional study Doctor Fischer of Geneva, perhaps the greatest book I’ve ever read on that disease. For avarice is a disease as deadly as any psychological disease I’ve seen, easily as repugnant
in its effect on observers as the many cases I’ve witnessed of self-
destruction from alcohol and drugs. For as with alcohol and drugs, greed seems to feed on itself; wealth, rather than assuaging greed, seems to inflame it, often pathologically.
Britnell’s basement had been legendary for a long time. No one had ever been down in it, although I was told that Edwin Harris, a tiny, pugnacious Yorkshireman and a lifelong collector (who will appear in these pages later), had simply walked down there one day uninvited. Roy kicked him right back out again. During many late-night sessions in the backroom of the Village Bookstore we dealers and collectors plotted elaborate
ruses to get access to that fabled basement treasure trove. When the Hudson’s Bay Company was being built next door (“They offered me $3,000,000.00 for my store, Mr. Mason,” Roy would chortle: “I told them I didn’t need the money”), we
discussed sneaking into the excavation site in the night and tunneling through into the basement. One of my many ideas, and my favourite, involved us all dressing up as firemen and rushing through the store carrying firehoses and yelling “Fire!” as we ran into the basement. Our firemen’s coats would have special large pockets sewn inside to carry out the loot. This will give some indication of the quality of some of the treasures which came out of Roy’s basement.
During the famous Canadiana sale, Roy brought out in one pile about ten copies of the very scarce and desirable three-
volume History of the North-West by Alexander Begg, published in 1894 and even then $150.00 to $200.00 a set. All the copies were in brand new condition, telling me that Britnell’s had probably bought them new in 1880 and that they had sat in the basement ever since. They were $15.00 that day.
Only two people ever got calls from Roy before he put books out: Allan Fleming and Hugh Morrison. One day Hugh called me and advised that it might be a good idea if I dropped into Britnell’s. Roy had that evening put out a whole case full, of which Allan and Hugh had chosen a few but left most. I went the following morning and found wonderful books in this case. Literature from the 1890s to the 1920s, all in new condition and all from the library of one of the most interesting and mysterious collectors Canada has known, a man called W. MacDonald McKay. All McKay’s books bore his distinctive bookplate (I now own examples of three distinct McKay bookplates). There were prime first editions and special editions from the significant writers of the time, from Oscar Wilde through Yeats and “AE” (George Russell) to those beautiful limited editions of the contemporary writers of the 1920s. My hands were shaking as I made a huge pile, partially because even at their prices of $1.00 to $3.00 they were so ludicrously underpriced as to be essentially free. But still there was enough that my bill that day added up to close to $1,000.00.
How I would pay Britnell I neither knew nor cared; I knew I just had to take them. And, of course, part of my anxiety was that some other dealer might appear before I had secured all the real plums. I found myself leaving things like limited signed editions of vellum-bound special issues by people like Galsworthy and Masefield at $1.00 each because of worry about the size of the bill. One of the books I found was an 1893 edition of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, with illustrations and a cover designed by Laurence Housman, in a large-paper edition of one hundred and sixty copies. This large-paper issue had the Housman illustrations coloured by hand (one source claims the colouring was done by the Guild of Women Binders). This book is considered not just one of Laurence Housman’s greatest designs but a highlight of that wonderful flurry of incredible publisher’s design-bindings of the nineties. In new condition, in the dust wrapper, the book was priced at $1.50. After much research where I found literally no trace of it I worked my courage up and priced it at $12.50. That was the first book I sold to Sybille Pantazzi, the self-described Fifty-cent Queen, librarian at the Art Gallery of Ontario and one of the greatest collectors I’ve known, whose flamboyant personality was such that anyone who met her was unlikely to ever forget her. Sybille liked to claim that she never paid more than 50 cents for any book. In spite of that claim, when she saw it in my window shortly afterwards, she entered the store, her chequebook open, already writing in it. “Young man, I’ll have that Goblin Market book in your window, if you please. I’ll just finish making out this cheque when you tell me the price. Thank you. Thank you, young man. I’m sure this is merely the first of many mutually profitable exchanges we shall conduct in the future,” she said, as she marched out with her prize.
I watched for that book to appear in the market for many years, very aware that my lack of experience had caused me to grossly underprice it, but unsure by how much. Thirty-five years later I saw it in a prominent U.S. dealer’s catalogue, a nice copy, but not nearly as nice as mine had been, for $4,500.00 (US). This when our dollar was 60¢ U.S., so the Canadian price would
have been close to $7,000.00.
Another book I got at this time from Britnell’s was a German edition of Oscar Wilde’s Ballad of Reading Gaol, done in an edition of fifty copies with stunning woodcut illustrations by Frans Masereel. This copy was handbound in a beautiful full morocco binding, and I priced it at $25.00. At our first ABAC book fair at York University I overheard a librarian say to another librarian, “$25.00 he wants for that. And it’s not even signed.” I expect $500.00 would have been cheap for it then and $5,000.00 would be cheap for it today.
One day I found a book in the quarter-box called The Fiend’s Delight by one Dod Grile. Only a couple of days earlier I had been reading about Ambrose Bierce, the great cynic, and had found that, although he was an American, his first two books had been published in England under the pseudonym Dod Grile. This book, a fine copy, priced at 25¢ was the English edition, the true first edition of his first book, and I sold it the next day for $75.00. Twenty-five years later, with a modest collection of my own of Bierce’s work, I had to pay $750.00 to get a lesser copy of that book for myself. This anecdote allows me to quote here my favourite Bierce quote, and one of my all-time favourite quotes, a pretty good example of why Bierce is still so worthy. Says Bierce, “We wouldn’t worry so much about what people think of us if we realized how seldom they do.”
Bierce also wrote one of my two favourite short stories ever, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, yet another of the many stories turned into a movie which doesn’t come close in emotional impact to its literary source.
Not long after, reading somewhere about Willa Cather, I learned that, working for the publisher S.S. McClure, she had ghostwritten or rewritten a life of Mary Baker Eddy by one Georgine Milmine, in 1909, which had become rare because the Christian Scientists did not like it and bought every copy they could find and destroyed them. The very next morning I found a copy in Britnell’s, this time for 75¢. A perfect copy, I sold it quickly as well for $75.00, $75.00 apparently being what I thought the highest possible price in
those days.
Ever since that great find I have gone through the religious sections in used bookstores looking for another copy, but so far I’ve not found it again. Another book one looks for in religious sections is Strauss’ The Life of Jesus in its English translation, in three volumes (London: Chapman, Brothers, 1846). The translation was by George Eliot and was her first book publication, preceding all her novels. I found that book at a bookfair recently and bought it for $600.00, curiously in a booth right beside that of one of my most despised competitors. Entering my colleague’s booth I couldn’t resist casually asking him why he hadn’t bought it, as I changed the price right in front of him from $600.00 to $13,000.00.
He was suitably chagrined. And yes, you’re right, that was a petty, malicious thing to do. But a lot of fun.
But what I hadn’t counted on was that this activity was raising my education in the art of scouting to a new and higher level, even though prices at Britnell’s were not much more than at the Crips.
Because my bill at Britnell’s seemed to be permanently at around a $1,000.00 and because Roy, when he filled the back shelves with a large load, could double that amount in one shot, I had to buy with those financial consequences in mind.
Indeed, I had already devised a system where I tried to go in and navigate the aisles to the back room without meeting Roy, because from time to time he would confront me with the extent of my indebtedness.
There were in fact two Britnell shops a couple of blocks apart. The other, John Britnell’s Gallery, up near Davenport, sold art and antiques and usually had books in the basement. I believe John Britnell was a cousin of Albert’s and had emigrated
at around the same time. Sometime in the intervening years there had been a parting of the family ways and the two branches spoke neither to each other nor of each other in my experience. To differentiate, us book people referred to John Britnell’s store as Junky Britnell’s. It had a staff as ignorant, sleazy and downright repugnant as Roy’s bookshop staff was upright, competent and proper.
I have plenty of stories about Junky Britnell’s, almost all of them nasty, and I’ve heard plenty of anecdotes from others. The books in the basement were never priced. An old woman, greed and guile etched on her face, would assess you, not the books you were interested in, no doubt measuring you to see how much she could get away with gouging. Those of us who were dealers would never have admitted that we were or we would never have got to buy a book. After these sessions became too repugnant for me to care about profit in the face of such
disgusting displays of greed, I severed our relationship one day by very quickly handing her the $5.00 she asked for a book, breaking into a large smile and repeatedly saying “Wow, wow they’ll never believe this!” as I walked away. Naturally she thought she’d sold a very valuable book for $5.00, and the look of rage and spite on her face made up for the many instances I had seen where she showed smug satisfaction after cheating another innocent. I never went back.
The John Britnell shop is long since closed but at an antique show a few years ago I bought a painting which bore a printed description of the artist as “A famous West Coast artist. He is considered one of the best scenery artists (sic) in B.C.” Curious, given that the artist, whose work I know well, is in fact a woman, and all her paintings are of P.E.I. It was quite cheap and as I left the booth I noticed the name, “John Britnell.” So they got the gender wrong, and the ends of the country wrong—but at least the price was right, although that could never have been their intention. As with so many money-grubbers I’ve seen, their guile and crookedness was regularly and ultimately defeated by their ignorance.
In the world of collecting, knowledge will always triumph over ignorance and greed. If you want to be an effective and successful collector take the trouble to educate yourself. Of course, as an added bonus, learning what you’re doing also adds greatly to the subtle pleasures of collecting. “Connoisseur,” that ultimate compliment paid to all collectors, comes from the French ‘to know’, and properly denotes that knowledge is the essence of the pleasures to be derived from beautiful things.
Living around the corner on Church Street, my first stop every day was Britnell’s, just before nine am. First, one hit the quarter-box outside, which often held novels from the very early twentieth century, which were usually found in new condition, indicating they had probably been in the basement from the time they were published. They became a major source for my Canadian editions project and were especially important to my already serious collection of publisher’s bindings. Most of these books would be priced at 25¢.
Or one would find such things as multiple copies of poetry series, like the Ariel Poems. These last would usually be 5¢ or 10¢ each and sold in the market for $7.50 to $15.00. The quarter-
box scouted, it was quickly to the back room, which would be replenished often by Roy from the crates which had often remained untouched in the fabled basement.
My great daily rival for these treasures was Bob Stacey, then a student at the University of Toronto but working part-time at the Rare Books Department, then situated in a temporary space on Charles Street while the Robarts and Fisher libraries were being constructed.
We competed fiercely, both at the quarter-box and in the rear, but shared the same basic problem at Britnell’s. Which was how to make our way through the store to the back room without being accosted by Roy Britnell. This was because Bob and I had no money at all and generally would owe Roy up to $1,000.00 each, no small sum then, especially for a starving, fairly new bookseller and a student. For years afterwards Bob and I would trade stories of our pathetic excuses to Roy when he did confront us about the level of our debt. I usually blamed institutions for their slow payment systems, whereas I think Bob blamed the accounting systems at the University of Toronto for errors which slowed up his salary. I don’t think Roy believed any of that, but he liked us both, and no d
oubt recognized our lust for books. He was really just reminding us that he was aware of our debt load.
One day I approached the quarter-box to find Bob ahead of me. As I approached he maliciously waved a handful of the Yeats’ Ariel poem issue, which then sold for $15.00. “10¢ each Mason. Beat you this time,” he chortled. Quickly assessing the situation I passed right by him without answering and went directly to the back room, my only hope being to beat him there. When Bob entered five minutes later I waved at him a large handful of a much better Yeats pamphlet, a play then selling for $35.00 per copy, “25¢ each, Bob,” I gloated, his chagrined grimace more fun than my anticipated profit.
Another day I entered the back room one morning to find some ten or fifteen copies of a four-page pamphlet by Robert Louis Stevenson, which, from the short preface, by whomever had printed it, seemed to be an introduction by Stevenson to a book by Andrew Lang, the nineteenth-century poet and essayist, mostly remembered now for the series of fairy tales he edited (The Golden Fairy Book, The Purple Fairy Book, etc., all of which are important; but even more significant, all published in beautiful and elaborately gilt, decorated bindings).
I didn’t know what these pamphlets were. I was going to buy a couple, but then I realized that at 10¢ each I should probably buy all of them just to protect my investment. Whatever they were, I would at least control the source. So I bought them all. But the next day when I went in there was another big pile of them, this time priced at 5¢ each. Using the old principle “in for a penny,” etc., I decided, even though I figured I would probably die with them all, I should buy them too. So I did.
No more came out. When I counted them I had twenty-nine copies of this weird pamphlet, at a cost of approximately $2.00 to $2.50. I did a fair bit of research but never found out much. Then about a year later in a catalogue from John Howell Books, a very prominent San Francisco firm, then in its second generation, I found a copy offered. It was described as a piracy of a preface by Stevenson for a book which never got published, until then unrecorded, and of great rarity. It was priced at $200.00 (US). I had twenty-nine copies of this great rarity. Some years later I found in the collection of the Fisher Library a copy with an annotation added in the hand of the man who had in fact printed that piracy, the famous
