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

by Nicholas Basbanes

  207 The volumes, all bought: The bill of sale for $36,500, dated Aug. 3, 1923, RCA, I:93:05.

  207 Muniments of Battle Abbey: Aug. 9, 1923, RCA, I:93:05.

  207 “It is unlikely that a collection”: Schad, 12.

  208 “above the spot where”: Letter from Huntington to Rosenbach, Dec. 18, 1924, RCA, I:93:09.

  208 “were not at all flexible”: Letter from Rosenbach to Huntington, May 27, 1926, RCA, I:94:02.

  209 “I have received”: Letter from Huntington to Rosenbach, June 4, 1926, RCA, I:94:02.

  209 “You will pardon us”: Letter from Bliss to Rosenbach, June 5, 1926, RCA, I:94:02.

  209 “Mr. Hapgood”: Letter from Huntington to Philip Rosenbach, June 5, 1926, RCA, I:95:04.

  210 “Two boxes are in from you”: Letter from Bliss to Rosenbach, May 24, 1927, RCA, I:95:04.

  210 “I should like to buy it”: Letter from Belle da Costa Greene to Rosenbach, March 21, 1928, RCA, I:126:03.

  211 “It is now dawning upon us”: Wolf and Fleming, 169.

  211 “As my collection has grown”: “Noted Kern Library Will Be Auctioned,” New York Times, Oct. 18, 1928, 19.

  212 “MY GOD WHATS”: Quoted in Bruccoli, The Fortunes, 204.

  212 “For many of the volumes”: “Kern Sees Prices of Books Mounting,” New York Times, Jan. 28, 1929, 24.

  213–214 “I am obliged to confess … to other volunteers”: Case and Case, 411–15. See “Young Collection of Rare Volumes Is Gift to Library,” New York Times, May 5, 1941, 1.

  214 “the greatest trial lawyer”: Washington Daily News, May 16, 1944.

  214–215 “In September I promise”: Letter from Frank J. Hogan to Rosenbach, July 18, 1931, RCA, I:088:33.

  215 “our four recent catalogues”: Letter from Rosenbach to Hogan, July 29, 1931, RCA, I:088:33.

  215 “untimely death”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, Aug. 3, RCA, I:088:33.

  215 “BEST WISHES”: Telegram, Dec. 30, 1931, RCA, I:088:33.

  215 “For the sleep I lost”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, Jan. 19, RCA, I:088:34.

  215 “I speak of temporarily”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, Jan. 28, 1932, RCA, I:088:34.

  216 “Come to the house … BRANDY FOR HEROES!!”: Letter from Rosenbach to Hogan, March 21, 1932, RCA, I:088:34.

  216 “I do not want to tempt you”: Letter from Rosenbach to Hogan, July 12, 1932, RCA, I:088:34.

  216 “Well, I hope I can pay you”: Wolf and Fleming, 434.

  216 “I am as hard up as the devil”: Letter from Rosenbach to Hogan, April 21, 1933, RCA, I:088:35.

  216 “appropriate to myself”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, April 22, 1933, RCA, I:088:35.

  216 “which involves more money than”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, May 19, 1933, RCA, I:088:35.

  217 “Folger has no copy as fine”: Telegram, June 15, 1933, RCA, I:088:35.

  217 “It gave me a real thrill”: Letter from Rosenbach to Hogan, July 11, 1933, RCA, I:088:35.

  217 “I am still thrilled beyond”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, Aug. 22, 1933, RCA, I:088:35.

  218 “Fate, and the traveling man’s”: Letter from Hogan to Arthur E. Houghton, Jr., Oct. 20, 1938; carbon copy in RCA, I:089:01.

  218 “I was just casting around”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, Dec. 18, 1934, RCA, I:088:37.

  219 “I am sure you will enjoy … as they appear in the press”: Letter from Rosenbach to Hogan, July 2, 1934, RCA, I:088:37.

  219 “Manifestly Pollard and Carter”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, Aug. 8, 1934, RCA, I:088:37.

  220 “I have known Thomas J. Wise”: Letter from Rosenbach to Hogan, Aug. 15, 1934, RCA, I:088:37.

  220 “the possession of a complete run … great collector of books”: Letter from Hogan to Rosenbach, Aug. 17, 1934, RCA, I:088:37.

  221 “my dear friend Frank J. Hogan”: Rosenbach, Book Hunter’s Holiday, 15.

  221 “I had thought of bequeathing”: Copy of Frank J. Hogan’s will, RCA, I:089:07.

  222 “This is no time”: Jordan-Smith, 13.

  Part Two

  6: “TO HAVE AND TO HAVE NO MORE”

  This chapter draws on the author’s interviews with David Redden, Bart Auerbach, Stephen Massey, George S. Lowry, Priscilla Juvelis, Justin G. Schiller, Fred Schreiber, Robert L. Nikirk, Colin Franklin, Owen Gingerich, Nicolas Barker, David Waxman, Arthur Freeman, and Michael Hoffman. See Bibliography, “Author’s Interviews” (pp. 575–82), for further details.

  227 For more on Codex Hammer, see Carol Vogel, “Leonardo Notebook Sells for $30.8 Million,” The New York Times, Nov. 12, 1994, 1; Christie’s, The Leonardo da Vinci.

  227 When Carrie Estelle Betzold Doheny: For further information on Estelle Doheny’s collection, see Christie’s, The Estelle Doheny Collection, and Ellen Shaffer, “Reminiscences of a California Collector: Mrs. Edward Doheny 1875–1958,” Book Collector, Spring 1965, 49–59.

  228 While that sale was taking place: For further information on the Martin sale, see Sotheby’s, The Library of H. Bradley Martin; Robert H. Taylor, “H. Bradley Martin,” Book Collector, Summer 1963, 184– 93; C. W. Cottrell, Jr., “H. Bradley Martin; The Ornithological Collection,” Book Collector, Autumn 1963, 316–32.

  235 “Michael Davis is a private investor”: Sotheby’s, Collection of the Garden Ltd.

  235–37 “Haven O’More was inspired … reality or essence”: ibid.

  244 The week after the sale: The docket sheet—Middlesex Superior Court, case no. 88–635, Michael Davis, Indiv., & as Trustee vs. Haven O’More, Indiv., & as Trustee, et als. & Trustees. Complaint entered Jan. 29, 1988, discharged July 5, 1989; eighty-five separate entries listed.

  244 On December 14, 1989: Letter from Brian T. Mulcahy, administrative attorney to the chief administrative justice of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to author, Jan. 17, 1990, reporting that Davis vs. O’More “has been impounded and is not available for public inspection.”

  245–46 Michael Davis is the son of: Biographical material on Leonard Davis from clips in libraries of the New York Times (July 7, 1961; March 17, 1965; March 31, 1974; May 13, 1975; Dec. 1, 1975; May 14, 1983) and the Philadelphia Inquirer (Oct. 17, 1967; May 13, 1976; May 7, 1978, July 2, 1978).

  246 “a New York limited partnership”: Middlesex County Registry of Deeds, Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 1, 1985, Book 16002, p. 452.

  246–47 Michael Davis, the certificate discloses: Certificate of Limited Partnership for the Garden Ltd., with power of attorney attached, recorded in Dutchess County Clerk’s Office, Poughkeepsie, New York; notarized Nov. 17, 1983; amendment notarized Oct. 10, 1984; Michael Davis allowed to withdraw, received Dec. 27, 1990.

  248 Most states have laws: Poughkeepsie Journal and Millbrook Round Table, legal notices on the filing of limited-partnership papers.

  248 “to explore the knowledge”: Articles of Organization, Institute of Traditional Science, Inc. (federal identification no. 14642), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Secretary of State, Corporation Division, recorded Sept. 27, 1974.

  249 At about the same time: Dolphin Realty Trust, Haven O’More, Lorea Honeycutt O’More, and Michael Davis, trustees. See Massachusetts, Commonwealth of, Middlesex County Registry of Deeds, Cambridge, Book 12758, p. 634.

  249 O’More’s efforts: Documents relating to Arsenal Square Moratorium, Cambridge, Mass. City Council Order no. 10, Sept. 25, 1978, filed in city clerk’s office. Motion approved by 7-2 vote on Jan. 29, 1979.

  250 In 1988: Unrestricted grant of $221,142 from Institute of Traditional Science (04-2577162) to Leonard and Sophie Davis Foundation, recorded with 1988 IRS Return of Private Foundation, Form 990-PF, copy filed in Massachusetts State Attorney General’s Office, Boston, Division of Public Charities. Similar form for Leonard and Sophie Davis Foundation (13-6062579), filed with Florida State Attorney General’s Office, Tallahassee, shows receipt of that amount during overlapping reporting period.

  251 “matchless in the history … clearly electrified him”:
Nicolas Barker, in his foreword to Sotheby’s, Garden Ltd.

  252 “Dr. Haven O’More”: Keynes, 327, 328.

  254 “must submit to sacrifice”: O’More, 4.

  254–55 “It is hard”: Waxman, Delighting All Who Pay (Millerton, N.Y.: SADEV, 1988), 5–16.

  260 For George Brinley, Robert Hoe III, Jerome Kern, Estelle Doheny, and H. Bradley Martin, see general bibliography. For Thomas W. Streeter, see The Celebrated Collection of Americana Formed by the Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter, 8 vols. (New York: Parke-Bernet Galleries, 1966).

  261 Bettmann: Steve Lohr, “Huge Photo Archive Bought by Software Billionaire Gates,” New York Times, Oct. 11, 1995, Al, D-5.

  261 SIBL: Paul Goldberger, “Grandeur and Modernity in New Library,” New York Times, April 24, 1996, Al, B2.

  262 CD-ROMs: Owen Gingerich, “Good Heavens,” New York Times Book Review, Feb. 11, 1996, 21.

  7: “INFINITE RICHES”

  This chapter draws on the author’s interviews with Edwin Wolf 2nd, William H. Scheide, William P. Stoneman, Nicolas Barker, and Paul Needham. See Bibliography, “Author’s Interviews,” (pp. 575–82), for further details.

  264 “Pray ponder”: Invoice dated Feb. 10, 1873, for Gutenberg Bible now in Scheide Library.

  264 “an institution”: William H. Scheide, “Anecdotes from a Family Library,” speech given March 16, 1992, transcript in Grolier Club archive, 15.

  265 “the uniqueness of this collection”: Julian P. Boyd, “A Toast to Happy Alliance,” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 27, 1965–66, 22.

  265 “grew up with a library”: William Scheide, “Love for the Printed Word as Expressed in the Scheide Library,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 51, 217.

  265 “Growing up with”: Book Club of California Quarterly News-Letter 51, no. 3 (1986), 76.

  267 Humfrey Wanley wanted to buy Blickling Homilies: See Wright and Wright, vol. 2., 458–59.

  268 “unquestionably the finest”: Boyd, 126.

  269 “Some of the greatest”: Boyd, 9.

  269 “To be returned”: Boyd, 24.

  269 “amid the passions”: William T. Scheide, unpublished memoir, quoted in Boyd, 13. Copy of the memoir on file in the Scheide Library.

  269–70 “that would have done credit … greater library”: ibid., 31.

  270 “The dear Mother”: ibid., 23.

  270 “I am quite anxious”: Letter from John Scheide to Rosenbach, June 20, 1914, Rosenbach Company Archives (hereafter cited as RCA), I:152:20.

  270 “Books that are desirable”: Letter from Rosenbach to John Scheide, July 29, 1914, RCA, I:152:20.

  271 “I have just returned”: Letter from Rosenbach to John Scheide, Dec. 6, 1918, RCA, I:152:20.

  271 “if we can agree”: Letter from John Scheide to Rosenbach, June 15, 1923, RCA, I:152:20.

  271 “imperfections”: Letter from Rosenbach to John Scheide, June 19, 1923, RCA, I:152:20.

  271 “by express today”: Letter from Rosenbach to John Scheide, Aug. 31, 1923, RCA, I:152:20.

  271 “is indeed a delicious copy”: Letter from John Scheide to Rosenbach, Sept. 5, 1923, RCA, I:152:20.

  272 “we had a hurried word”: Letter from John Scheide to Rosenbach, Jan. 3, 1924, RCA, I:152:21.

  272 “I shall, of course”: Letter from Rosenbach to John Scheide, Feb. 5, 1924, RCA, I:152:21.

  272 “My library is supposed”: Letter from John Scheide to Rosenbach, Feb. 7, 1924, RCA, I:152:21.

  272 “This magnificent copy”: Letter from Rosenbach to John Scheide, RCA, I:152:26.

  272 “makes my mouth water”: Letter from John Scheide to Rosenbach, RCA, I:152:26.

  273 “is one of only five libraries”: Needham, Princeton University Library Chronicle 37 (1976), 85.

  273–74 Margaret Stillwell’s translation of Catholicon colophon: In Frederick R. Goff, “Johann Gutenberg and the Scheide Library at Princeton,” in The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 37, Winter 1976, 82.

  274 Now gathered under one roof: For more on Scheide library Bibles, see Boyd, chaps. 5 and 6.

  8: “MIRROR IMAGES”

  This chapter draws on the author’s interviews with Carter Burden, Peter B. Howard, Ralph B. Sipper, Leonard and Lisa Baskin, Colin Franklin, Louis Daniel Brodsky, Carl A. Petersen, Michael Zinman, William S. Reese, Stephen Massey, and Irwin T. Holtzman. See Bibliography, “Author’s Interviews,” (pp. 575–82), for further details.

  275 “Friend and fellow bibliophile”: Robert, xii–xiii. Eratosthenes of Alexandria’s starving himself to death has been cited by numerous authorities. See Cim, 661–62.

  275 Retired Archdeacon buys back his books: Burton, 12–16.

  275 “How does a shepherd know his sheep?”: Anecdote told by Leigh Hunt, cited by Irving Browne, “Famous Book Collectors,” in Targ, Carousel for Bibliophiles, 85. See also Amy Cruse, “A Supper at Charles Lamb’s,” in Targ, Bouillabaisse for Bibliophiles, 163–72.

  275–76 Earlier this century: Eagle, “Moving a Library,” Eagle, 143–45.

  276 “You can never be too thin”: Burden, 126. See also Rhoda Koenig, “Baring the Burdens,” Vogue, August 1989, 318.

  278 “tall, blond, handsome”: David Grafton, The Sisters (New York: Random House, 1992), 185.

  278 “young locomotives”: ibid., 186.

  282 “I do not know”: Leon Edel, Happy Birthday to Waller: A Salute to Clifton Waller Barrett on His Eightieth Birthday from Friends and Admirers, Charlottesville, Va., privately printed, June 1, 1981, unpaginated. For more on Clifton Waller Barrett, see Cahoon; see also C. Waller Barrett, “The Barrett Collection,” Book Collector, Autumn 1956, 218–30.

  283 Marguerite A. “Margie” Cohn founded the House of Books in Manhattan in 1930 with her husband, Louis Henry Cohn, who died shortly thereafter. She operated the business by herself for more than fifty years and established important relationships with numerous collectors, institutions, and writers such as Frost, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe. For more, see “Special Section in Honor of Marguerite A. Cohn,” a collection of essays, in American Book Collector 1, no. 5, new ser., September/October 1980, 3–24; her death in 1984 is noticed by Jack W. C. Hagstrom in American Book Collector 6, no. 1, new ser., January/February 1985, 17–18.

  284 February 1992 issue: See John Russell, “All Booked Up,” Vogue, February 1992, 229–36; John Richardson, “Imprint of the Connoisseur,” House & Garden, September 1992.

  287 “against the background”: Franklin, “Fifty Years of the Gehenna Press,” in Baskin, 7; “must one day”: ibid., 26; “chronic addiction … informs this exhibition”: ibid., 8.

  291–92 For more on pop artist Andy Warhol’s obsessive collecting, see Paul Alexander, Death and Disaster: The Rise of the Warhol Empire and the Race for Andy’s Millions (New York: Villard Books, 1994).

  295 “in one place the sum”: Petersen, 14.

  304 Put another way: For more on Mark Hofmann forgeries, see Gilreath; Nicolas Barker, “A Scandal in America,” parts 1 and 2, Book Collector, Winter 1987, 449–70, and Spring 1987, 9–28; and Kenneth W. Rendell, “The Mormon Forger, Con Man, and Murderer,” in Rendell, 124–40.

  310 “the finest assembly”: Peter B. Howard, “American Fiction Since 1960,” in Peters, 268–69.

  9: “INSTANT IVY”

  This chapter draws on the author’s interviews with Thomas F. Staley, Roger E. Stoddard, Robert L. Nikirk, Roger G. Kennedy, Nicolas Barker, Warren Roberts, Kathleen G. Hjerter, Dave Oliphant, David Kirschenbaum, Bart Auerbach, Ellen S. Dunlap, Colin Franklin, William Self, John R. Silber, Charles Hamilton, John Maggs, Mary Beth Bigger, Raymond W. Daum, Howard B. Gotlieb, James A. Michener, Carlton Lake, and Florence de Lussy. See Bibliography, “Author’s Interviews,” (pp. 575–82), for further details.

  313 “I propose”: Ransom, viii–xiv. See also Hazel H. Ransom, ed., The Conscience of the University (Austin, Tx.: University of Texas Press, 1982).

  313 “Twenty-five years”: Molly Ivins, Molly Ivi
ns Can’t Say That, Can She? (New York: Random House, 1991), xiv.

  313 “It is an obvious law”: Ransom, 73.

  314 “Actually,” Ivins, 58.

  318 “seven-figure deal”: Carlton Lake, “Ed the Collector, Jake the Dentist and Beckett: A Tale That Ends in Texas,” New York Times Book Review, Sept. 6, 1987, 3.

  318 “Thomas Edward Hanley”: Warren Roberts, “D. H. Lawrence,” 31. See also Hobson, 307–10.

  319 For Hanley’s relationship with, and gifts to, the University of Arizona and other institutions, see Lee Sorenson, Determined Donor (Phoenix: Friends of the University of Arizona Library, 1989).

  319 “visits to heirs”: Warren Roberts, “D. H. Lawrence,” 36.

  319–20 “to pay for what an author”: Hobson, 308.

  320 “this is the last decade”: William Rees-Moog, “Sellers’ Market in Books,” The Sunday Times (London), April 19, 1964.

  320–21 “This is an action”: Fleming vs. Beutel, 1. A copy of the documents relevant to the suit can be found in the Louis Silver file, box 7, at the Newberry Library. The full title of the complaint is: John F. Fleming, Incorporated, a New York Corporation, Plaintiff, vs. Clarence A. Beutel, individually as Co-Executor of the Estate of Louis H. Silver, deceased, and AMERICAN NATIONAL BANK AND TRUST COMPANY OF CHICAGO, a national banking association, individually and as Co-Executor of the Estate of Louis H. Silver, deceased, Defendants. Civil case no. 64-C-1372, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, Chicago, Illinois. (Hereafter cited as Fleming vs. Beutel.)

  322–23 “Dear Amy … Affectionately”: Letter from John Carter to Amy Silver, Jan. 2, 1964, reproduced in ibid., 25–27. The perception in some quarters that Texas has an “overweening appetite” for rare material persists to this day. Early in 1994, the British Library announced it would pay £1 million for the sole surviving complete copy of William Tyndale’s 1526 translation of the New Testament. The price, reached after nine months of negotiations between Bristol Baptist College, owner of the book since 1784, and the British Library, was described as a “remarkable bargain.” Numerous “higher offers from abroad” had been made for the book, according to Roger Hayden, a college official, but the lower offer was accepted to make sure this “cornerstone of English Protestantism” remained in the United Kingdom. “We felt it might end up in a Texas vault,” Hayden told the Daily Telegraph (London, April 27, 1994, 9). Only one complete copy of the book survives because most were destroyed in a wave of reactionary fervor that attended its publication. Tyndale’s stated aim had been to produce a Bible that was accessible to the common man, but the result (90 percent of which was ultimately incorporated in the King James Bible of 1611) antagonized ecclesiastical authorities, including Sir Thomas More. Tyndale fled to the continent, where he was hunted down, strangled, and burned at the stake as a heretic in 1536. For more, see Ditchfield, and David Daniell, William Tyndale: A Biography (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994).