Even booksellers like me, who consider themselves to be pros, commit errors with books. Which is no doubt good, for it mitigates our tendencies to arrogance. And as a bonus, for both collectors and institutions, those errors will often provide opportunities to acquire good books at much less than their real worth. My two esteemed bibliographers and cataloguers—and most important—sellers of books, Debra Dearlove and Halina Pashkievich, are constantly on the watch for my errors and they take great pleasure in bringing them to my attention at each opportunity. Their most recent discovery was the most amusing one we’ve had here in quite a while. Even I liked it since it reversed the usual result of bookselling errors. Mostly our errors cost us money, sometimes a lot of money, which is why booksellers must learn quickly in order to survive. This one, caught by my stalwart crew, actually made us money.

Forty-some years ago I began major collections of the output of two 19th-century authors, both enormously popular writers in their time and both almost forgotten today. The idea was that their original popularity meant many reprint editions would still be available. Everything about books provides clues for bibliographers and scholars; reprints give a clear indication of popularity during a period by demonstrating widespread readership. And their vanished popularity would mean that they would be cheap—a necessity—for I envisioned a very long-term project. These collections were meant to be the basis of sustenance in my old age, for booksellers have no pensions except their books. The plan was that in 30 years or so I could build extensive research collections which should then be very desirable to an institution and demand commensurate value. Not least, from my point of view, was the fun I would have searching out the components.

The two authors I chose, Edward Bulwer Lytton and Marie Corelli, had been enormously popular writers in their periods. Bulwer Lytton was as popular as his contemporary Dickens, and Corelli was probably the most popular writer of her time, even though you have never heard of her. (You probably can’t imagine it, but 95% of your favourite authors will be literary footnotes a hundred years from now.) So popular Corelli was that one still sees copies of some of her novels marked “250th Edition.” And she still gets reprinted, mostly for her ersatz pseudo-mystical take on Christianity. In her great bestseller Barabbas, Judas Iscariot has a sister named Judith Iscariot, which will give you some indication of what you will encounter should you try reading Corelli. Still, if you like puzzling contradictions, Henry Miller was urging young people to read her as late as the 1960s. Anyway, my original reason for choosing them—cheap and plentiful—didn’t last long. I ended up spending quite a lot of money over all those years as most of their books have become scarce. But I had a lot of fun building the collections, and I strongly recommend this practice to young booksellers for what it teaches. For one truism that old dealers know, and which the young need many years to comprehend, is that today’s common unexamined books will be tomorrow’s valuable rarities. Every old dealer can give you countless examples of this significant truth of book collecting. And that axiom parallels literary history, where mass popularity dies in time, while the truly important from the past always rises back to the surface.

Now that I’ve reached old age, I am testing the practical wisdom of my early plan. So far, it appears to be paying off. My collection of Marie Corelli was sold last year by Debra Dearlove to an American institution. What this university really bought, whether they knew it or not, was not simply a bunch of assorted books, but the skills and dedication of a knowledgeable collector/dealer applied over many years. I had purchased every appropriate Corelli item which I had seen on the market in that period. And further, I had the help of many of my most experienced colleagues while I did it. An example: the late David Holmes, a much-lamented colleague who specialised in that same period but focused especially on manuscript material, offered me every letter and manuscript of Corelli’s he encountered over 30 years, all of which I bought. Since David had different sources than me, and visited England regularly, I profited by his experience as well, just as I did from many other dealers. No library can focus to the extent that a collector or dealer can; they need to cover too large an area. Which is why dealers and the private collector are far more important to the growth of public institutions than many realise.

So, Corelli has gone and I find I miss her greatly, for my affection for that horrible but fascinating woman—long safely dead—increased in proportion to the amount of work, money, and emotion I expended on her. It’s not over, of course, for my interest was not based just on profit and I still watch for, and buy, every Corelli I see lacking in the collection. So that astute librarian who bought it (she and Debra Dearlove worked together for a year before she could induce her library to see its importance and raise the money for it) will continue to benefit from our services to add to it.

Now, we are arranging and cataloguing the Bulwer Lytton collection in the hopes of doing the same.

And now the profitable error. The other day they brought me a short note, the kind dealers call the “Can’t come to tea note,” very common in the 19th century and really only pertinent for containing the writer’s signature. This note “regretted ” then added the cryptic addition, “Please give the divine A my respects.” It was signed “Lytton.”

I couldn’t understand why they were so amused. It was an ordinary note, which I could see by my code I’d paid $30 for in 1982 and had no interest except for the small mystery of “the divine A.” (Note: all booksellers have codes which they use to record costs and sources. These codes are made up of a ten-letter word with no letters repeated so the dealer and no one else can see what they paid for an item. Many dealers, me among them, add other information. I also add the initials of the dealer I bought it from, the city, and the date, all useful information when things go wrong, or for future decisions like getting rid of unwanted or defective stock.)

Here, the address from which Lytton sent his note became pertinent.

Nearly 40 years after I acquired it, my bibliographers had the Internet to check the address given on the note. There are lots of reasons to despise many aspects of the electronic world we now inhabit, but for some reference purposes it saves enormous time and work. In 1982 I could have made a trip to the library and spent all day trying to pin down the address on Lytton’s note, but in this case the ladies had great pleasure in telling me that it only took 30 seconds to ascertain the address from which Lytton wrote his “regret” note.

“Yes, Ham Spray House was Carrington’s home, in Wiltshire County.”

“Carrington? Carrington who?” I inquired, perplexed.

“Dora Carrington. That’s not a note from Bulwer Lytton, it’s from Lytton Strachey, 100 years later. And furthermore, we’ve discovered that the “Divine A” to whom our newly unmasked Lytton refers is Anita Loos, recently famous for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a dear friend of Carrington’s and obviously someone who had had an appreciable effect on Lytton Strachey.”

My bibliographers made no attempt to hide their delight in catching me out. In fact, they both were laughing openly at catching their self-described infallible mentor in such a ludicrous error.

But my enjoyment was greater than theirs, for my $30 investment in 1982 might today merit the price of $100, and now I have a fairly interesting Lytton Strachey letter which I can expect to sell for quite a lot more. Woolf and all her Bloomsbury friends are amongst the most desirable of modern writers in the collecting market now. The bibliographers also found a mention of Lytton’s comment on Loos in a literary source, which they gave me, too. When I read it I realised the author must be quoting the actual note I now owned. This made me immediately believe that my note was not real but a copy. But examining it closely refuted that necessary paranoiac reaction. It is real. Now, I have a note which is already important enough to be cited in a book. The price goes up.

There was still a mystery because my coded information was incomplete, probably through my carelessness, for I had not noted the dealer I’d bought it from (probably because $30 was too negligible a price to bother about). The only pleasure in more detail now would be to add humour to the anecdote, for it would tell me which dealer was dumber than me. It is a lesson now in why we should be consistent, for the record is now lacking detail. My old friend Richard Landon formed the habit, from his earliest days in collecting, of writing in the back of all his purchased books the price he paid, the dealer he bought it from, and the date. Now that Richard’s books are gradually being donated to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, future students of bookselling and book collecting in the 20th century will have a precise and valuable resource on prices and much else, further illuminating the practices of the book trade.

So, the joke is not on me but also on my unknown colleague who erred in 1982 to my great benefit now.

Lytton went immediately to our favourite Bloomsbury client, whose delight in it allows her to forgive us our profit but for me, far more valuable than the financial gain is this anecdote. The only sad loss is the inability to phone up my unknown colleague and laugh at his or her error. Now my staff is making fun of me and will until they discover my next mistake. But, for a change, an error causes the final price to go up, a profitable change.

For me the real lesson is: Everything teaches—look carefully, think, and then look again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-David Mason