by David Mason
“I couldn’t get that puzzle out of my mind,” he began. “I couldn’t let it go, so I finally asked my boss for permission to check out that kid’s story. I phoned Louisville and they sent a detective out to his town to check it out.
“They questioned the kid’s aunt and he checked out. The whole story the kid gave us is true. The aunt remembered very clearly. She was a cleaning lady and one of her clients was a wealthy doctor. The doctor had died and the cleaner told us that the doctor’s wife hated her husband’s books so much that she wanted them right out of the house, at once. She had given the whole pile of them to her cleaner. The aunt remembered them so clearly because they were all pretty picture books with all sorts of bright colours and gold in the pictures.
“But the reason she really remembered them was because one of her daughters was retarded and very difficult to amuse. She had given the largest book, which was also the prettiest one, to this child, hoping it would keep her quiet for a while. And it worked. The child was amused for several days. She cut out all sorts of pretty scenes of ladies with wings and angels with halos and stuff and pasted them into a scrapbook.”
But I hope you have noticed that while I’ve been recounting stories of cranks and crooks I’ve not mentioned any crooked dealers, and that’s because I have encountered surprisingly few crooks in the trade.
They do show up from time to time, but they are quickly recognized in a trade where the gossip is as international as the trade, and they seldom last long.
In spite of saying that, at least two long-term Canadian booksellers I know of were so crooked as to measure up (or down) to any of the crooks the rest of the book world has ever produced. In case you suspect I exaggerate, one of these men went to jail for stealing books from several libraries in New England. This man, whose name was Borden Clarke, was one of the great characters in the trade, whom I unfortunately never met. He was the proprietor
of Old Authors Farm, and there were many stories about him. Whenever you bought books from him in person you had to pack them and remove them at once. If you allowed him to pack your boxes, which he always offered to do, when you got home you’d find entirely different books in the boxes. His catalogues were prefaced with grammatically near-illiterate editorials extolling, not just his books, but his sterling personal qualities. Sometimes, in old magazine articles I’ve exhumed, he offered elaborate
justifications for his unjust incarceration. If you ordered a book you might or might not get the book you thought you were ordering, and it might or might not be the first edition as he described it. It could easily be an entirely different book and in the book club edition, but Borden Clarke would always have a glib explanation. If you complained that you had no interest in the copy of some nineteenth-century clergyman’s pompous sermons on the origins of the world that he’d sent instead of the important book you’d ordered, Borden would counter that this man was considered Darwin’s most dangerous opponent.
One of Clarke’s most famous ploys was to have printed
bookplates or rubber stamps made up which he would affix to otherwise worthless books and then sell them as part of some famous person’s library. We still see the occasional rubber-stamped ownership of Hannibal Hamlin, the American Vice-President under Abraham Lincoln. The only feasible explanation I can think of as to why he would produce Hamlin’s when, had he raised it a notch and done one for Abraham Lincoln, it would have been very lucrative, was because he must have at sometime bought part of Hamlin’s library, so he would have a justification for having so many of his books. It was probably a great way to get rid of unsaleable junk.
For Canadians, the most dangerous of Borden’s depredations was when he reprinted Sir John A. Macdonald’s bookplate, affixing it in his unsaleable Canadian books. I think he may also be responsible for another ownership rubber stamp one still occasionally
sees, that of Sir Sandford Fleming, although I have no proof for that one. No one today, except a fool, would add a penny to the price for a Hannibal Hamlin bookplate, but Sir John A. Macdonald is a different story. Sir John’s bookplate will increasingly command large premiums on any book where it is found, and the problem is compounded by the fact that MacDonald was a reader, had a library and did indeed have two or three different bookplates that I know of.
In fact, I have in my own library an important book, the first collected edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s Works in four volumes (New York, 1849), all of which contain Macdonald’s bookplates and in two different versions.
I paid quite a bit for this set from a collector who, like me, believed it important, and even though I knew that every Macdonald bookplate should be treated with great skepticism, I myself succumbed for the same reason that dealers and collectors are at such risk when faced with the forgeries which increasingly are appearing in rare book circles. I chose to believe it was real because I wanted it to be real. And it is real—at least until I die—for since I won’t be ever selling it, I am justified in believing that I own the first collected edition of Poe owned by Canada’s first Prime Minister. Another problem for Debbie to deal with when I’m gone.
For many years I have been acquiring as I find them Borden Clarke’s catalogues. They were printed on cheap newspaper stock, and I suspect not many had survived. Recently however, I bought a pretty good archive of material relating to Clarke, not just a good run of his catalogues, but considerable correspondence, well demonstrating his nefarious methods, and numerous articles about his activities, wherein he ludicrously extolled his virtues when he got to supply the details to some naïve journalist. But some of the articles do give details of his thefts and incarceration.
Clarke began most of his catalogues soliciting people to simply ship him all those old books from their barn or their father’s library, and it seems many people did. There is considerable correspondence in my archive from people he blatantly cheated. Mostly, he never paid any of these people, who innocently shipped him books, and his elaborate justifications for those thefts are very amusing (except, of course, to the people that he cheated). Later on his editorials consisted of attempts to sell his business, the greatest in all of Christendom according to him. Part of his pitch included the offer to train worthy buyers. I would love to know what he asked for it but that was never mentioned.
For quite some time now Old Author’s Farm has been owned and run by a quite reputable couple. I expect they bought it after Clarke’s death and I guess they would be embarrassed to know all the old stories about Clarke. Only the earliest surviving members of the Canadian trade will have met Clarke; most of the current dealers, including me, never met him. Most of what I know of him comes from the stories of Jerry Sherlock, Grant Woolmer, Phil McCready and Marty Ahvenus, all either retired or dead. So Borden moves into the realm of legend, along with the other famous fraud artist: Raymond Arthur Davies.
Davies, another of the several capitalistic communists I have met and another who would undoubtedly be immediately eliminated if the revolution were to triumph, was a fraud artist of international stature.
Like many of those men, he was brilliant. He not only dealt in books, he wrote several books himself from a far-left slant. I had always wondered if he was a party member or just a fellow traveller, until I recently saw a letter written by a party official warning other members that Davies had no right to use the party letterhead for his personal business, so I guess Davies was a member. Because of his connections, he must have travelled in high circles in the Soviet Union, and when that empire collapsed he found some way to gain access to the libraries of Russian institutions, where he purchased runs of obscure Russian periodicals which he then brought back and sold to North American institutions, where they were much sought-after. There were, however, a couple of problems with this ostensibly clever system. First, Davies would sell them as complete runs, thereby cheating the buyers who paid big prices for what had been described as complete, when they weren’t. And when he got paid fo
r them he never paid the Russians, thereby cheating both parties in the transaction. He didn’t seem to be concerned that the KGB might come after him, perhaps because he usually had the Mafia after him for money he had borrowed from loan sharks and had not repaid.
Jerry Sherlock told me that every time he entered Davies’ office Davies would try to borrow money from him pleading that “the Mob” was threatening to break his legs. When that didn’t work he would then try to borrow less, claiming he had no money to feed his kids. Jerry was pretty sure he didn’t even have kids. Jerry told me that on one trip to Davies’ office, Davies, in desperation, offered him a very substantial discount if he bought a large amount. So Jerry did, spending about $1,500.00 on some important communist material. Just as Jerry finished writing out the cheque the office door opened, Davies’ secretary entered (she must have been spying through the keyhole, Jerry thought) took the cheque from Jerry’s hand and said, “Thanks. I’ll just take that. This man hasn’t paid me in two months.” And she then left to cash it at the bank.
Davies, of course, then tearfully tried to borrow money from Jerry, but Jerry knew the game and told Davies that the cheque the secretary had taken was every cent he had in the bank.
You also couldn’t phone Davies because his phone was usually disconnected for non-payment.
Davies entered my Queen Street store one day in the eighties, unaware that I knew who he was, and handed me his business card. We chatted for a half an hour or so. Like most accomplished conmen, he was extremely charming and had wonderful anecdotes, which were always fascinating, even when one knew that they might not be true.
After half an hour of this he prepared to leave, shook my hand warmly, and then casually added, as though he’d just remembered, “Oh, by the way, I think I’ll take those three sections,” pointing at the whole of my modern history section, about
fifteen feet long, and floor to ceiling high. “Would you just pack it up and send it along with a bill?” he said, as if he was in the habit of buying half a store every time he entered a bookstore.
Since he was quite unaware that I knew his reputation, he may even have believed he had won again, as I, just as casually, responded, “Sure. I’ll start packing it up first thing tomorrow.”
Naturally I did nothing, and, of course, I never heard from him again. Like Borden Clarke’s permanent note in his catalogue, “Just ship me your old books and I’ll send you lots of money,” Davies was also working on percentages. If only one in ten worked it was probably profitable. The archive which I recently purchased relating to Clarke was full of correspondence from people who had shipped him books and received only disdain in return, while Davies, I guess, since he wasn’t worried about the Mafia or the KGB chasing him, would hardly feel menaced by a lowly used bookseller.
My supply of anecdotes concerning this sort of bookman is almost endless. If it is true that I, who have recounted stories of a seemingly endless supply of apparent imbeciles, am offering
stories with the ostensible motive of amusing the reader, it should be understood that underlying our sly pointing-out of the eccentric foibles of so many bookmen is an enormous amount of true respect. So often, these apparent nuts, who might be incarcerated in mental institutions in a normal world, have a range and depth of knowledge in the areas that interest them which will astound anyone who tests that knowledge.
Here’s another example, from another country, another continent, but you may notice, except for the crankiness, it is strangely similar to the case of Mr. Honsberger.
This story was told to me by William Fredeman (“Dick” to his friends), the great collector and bibliographer of the Pre-Raphaelites.
Dick’s personal collection, the basis for his important study, Pre-Raphaelitism: A Biblio-Critical Study (Harvard University Press, 1965), was a lifetime project, and like all the best of the scholar-collectors he pursued its components with great dedication for his whole life. Once, scouting in England, he was told that there was a man in a village some way away who claimed to be a bookseller, although he was in a house with no sign and nothing to indicate it was a shop. The man was said to be an expert on the Pre-Raphaelites. Dick travelled there with some difficulty and knocked at the door several times before a visibly irritated elderly man finally opened it, stating, “Can’t you see I’m busy? What do you want?”
“I’m so sorry,” replied Dick diplomatically, not attempting to point out that he couldn’t know that the man was busy, since the door was shut and the windows were coated with twenty years or so of grime. He had met this sort before and he knew how to play the game.
“I collect the Pre-Raphaelites,” he quickly explained before the man could slam the door. “And I’m told that you know more about them than anyone north of London and that you might have some of their books for sale.”
“Well, I might,” said the man. “But you can’t come in, you know,” he added, glaring defiantly.
Dick knew he couldn’t come in. After all, if he could, someone might mistake it for a bookshop or something.
“Well,” he said meekly, “how can I find out what you might have that I need?”
“Don’t you have a list?” the man accused. “I thought you were a collector. Are you a dealer?”
“Oh no,” Dick responded. “I hope I don’t look like one of them. I’m a professor. I teach the Pre-Raphaelites.”
“Give me a list,” the old man answered. “I’ll see what I have.”
Dick didn’t know what else to do, so he gave him a list of around ten titles, all Pre-Raphaelite rarities, that he had unsuccessfully sought for years.
“Come back tomorrow!” barked the man, slamming the door in Dick’s face.
Dick returned the next day with the hopes of a collector, but with little real expectation. The old man answered on only the second knock.
“What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“I was here yesterday, remember? I gave you my list of books I need. I stayed over hoping you might help me. That you might find some of them.”
“Oh, those. Well, as a matter of fact I did,” said the bookseller.
“You have some of them?” said Dick—he could hardly believe his luck.
“I have them all,” said the man.
“Every one?” said Dick. He couldn’t believe it. Books he’d been seeking with diminishing hope for twenty years or so, and they were all here.
“Yes I have them. Which ones do you want?” said the bookseller.
“Well,” says Dick, still stunned at his luck. “Well, actually, I’d like everything on the list. I want them all.” Not allowing himself to even think of the horrendous price this might entail, knowing he’d be dead before he ever got such an opportunity again.
“Oh no,” said our eccentric bookseller. “You can’t have them all. You can only have two of them.”
By this time, as he recounted his tale, Dick was visibly affected by the recollection of his dilemma. He didn’t waste time telling me of his piteous pleas, except to mention his attempt to impress on the man that he was rich—a very rich North American, for whom money was no object, an attempt to play on the man’s greed.
He and I had both encountered many such people in the book world. We both knew that for whatever demented reason, there would be no way around it. The man was adamant: he could have only two.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“What could I do?” said Dick, near tears. “I did the only thing I could do. They were his books. I chose two.” He added sadly, “And to make it even worse, after such a crazy scene, the price he quoted me for those two was almost nothing. I chose two books which I had despaired of ever seeing, never mind buying. He only asked about a tenth of what I was prepared to pay.”
Dick stayed over and returned the next day. This time the bookseller didn’t even answer the door at his repeated knockings. He probably had
a spy hole somewhere in one of those filthy windows.
Returning the next year, hoping he might get another two and if the man lived long enough, maybe all of them, Dick found the house had different tenants, the windows clean. The man must have been dead and his books dispersed.
Dick and I stood in silence for a moment, awed at life and the problems of dealing with crazy booksellers.
My next example comes from Rupert Croft-Cooke, the prolific English writer who published a series of memoirs in the fifties and sixties, one of which relates how, in his youth, he had entered the book trade in England and had successfully held his own in the very competitive provincial trade of that time (in the twenties or thirties). He mentions a man who had a tiny shop in some village who suffered what I have come to call “the Bookseller’s disease,” in his case the most bizarre manifestation of it I’ve heard of. The nature of this disease is exactly commensurate to the bookseller’s degree of ignorance about his wares. It usually starts when the bookseller sells a valuable book for a fraction of its worth—or when he thinks he has done so, which is an integral part of the syndrome—and becomes progressively more paranoid and sure that every book bought by a more knowledgeable person, especially a dealer, is worth a fortune and that he has been robbed. The only antidote for this mind-poisoning state is knowledge, but curiously, the sort of booksellers who succumb to this disease never want to cure themselves by learning about the books they handle. They prefer to suffer. And, it being a progressive disease, it automatically gets worse with every book sold. That dealer robbed me, says the suffering bookseller, sure that he has been exploited.
I was very lucky in my apprenticeship with Jerry Sherlock, because he constantly reiterated the only known antidote to the insidious progression of that disease.
“Dave, remember the only reason a dealer should worry about selling a sleeper is because it demonstrates his ignorance. And the only reason a serious dealer should want to find out that he has sold a sleeper is to avoid doing it twice. But … you must realize that if you sell a sleeper it’s because the other dealer knew more than you. For that reason he deserves to get that book. If you don’t like that, then learn your trade. That’s the only solution. It’s all a game, but it is a game of skill and you need to play by the rules. And accept the consequences—that’s what a pro does.”
