When John Metcalf urged me to write a book utilizing the articles I'd been writing for CNQ, then under his editorship, my reply was that I could never write a book. Then I wrote enough for two books, which forced us to excise great pieces of it, including a whole chapter on writers as collectors. In retrospect, what was most disappointing for me was deleting considerable anecdotal matter on the many interesting book people-collectors, scouts, and dealers-I've met during the fifty years I've been a bookseller. The majority of these excised people were Canadian, for Metcalf felt that if we hoped for some international sales-and we seriously needed them, since the book shouldn't have been published in the first place, bookselling, being under the radar anywhere, never mind Canada-then Canadian dealers, collectors, and scouts would be of less interest to foreigners. I had to agree with him, and although it was painful to remove many of my friends and acquaintances, I did so.

Necessary as it was, I still regret it, and that is why you perhaps didn't see yourself in the book and missed some of the people you've known yourself, whom you would have expected to be in any book about the antiquarian book world in Canada during our time. A few got in, mostly my mentors and close colleagues who were much involved in my adventures and misadventures. Others I had to insert under various pretexts just because I couldn't bring myself to fully exclude them. For instance, George Flie, the best all-around scout I've known and a friend for some fifty years, I could include only by putting his picture in, where I was able to praise him in the caption, at least slightly. But there were lots of others I couldn't even sneak in and I still feel badly. Eric Robertson, Ian Young, and Steve McCaffery, my oldest living clients, were also inserted in picture captions, along with a few brief notes; it was loyalty that incited my ingenuity. Then my equally old friend Karen Mulhallen was mad at me because I didn't mention the book I sold her on the Ward's Island ferry in 1967. Our friendship began with us both living there fifty years ago.

Brooding on those excisions over the years, I came upon a solution that I liked, and which I've been pursuing for some time now. I'm constructing files on all those missing people in the form of anecdotal vignettes, in the manner of John Aubrey's Brief Lives, an old favourite of mine. I write of people or occurrences when I think of them. Some vignettes are short, others longer, and lots of them I consider unfinished. I am casual about it all, adding people or expanding existing pieces as it occurs to me. I'm having a lot of fun, and I tell myself that someday it may even get published. (It will need to be self-published since, enthusiastic as my publisher Dan Wells is about the antiquarian book world, even he knows that such a book would not merit the expense of commercial publishing. He has a family to feed, too.)

It was while pursuing this personal pleasure that I came on the idea of the "secret mernoir," with which I've been having considerable amusement lately. One day, having written a single sentence about a dealer I don't much care for, I was stumped as to what else I could add about him that wouldn't be libelous. For I knew what might follow.

Some fifteen years ago, another litigious colleague threatened a libel suit, then attempted to dun me for money. Finally, I lost interest and told my lawyer to ignore his threats. He then sent me his lawyer's bill, which I also ignored. I haven't spoken to this man in fifteen years, and now when his name comes up I simply smile and tell that anecdote. It never needs more. Everyone knows who it is, and everyone just smiles. This invariably leads to more anecdotes, which has considerably thickened his file.

Anyway, after ten minutes of frustration I suddenly had a thought, "I should write what I really think of those sons-of-bitches and leave it to be published after I'm dead, when I'm out of reach of legal penalties." I then happily wrote several pages for each of those two dealers, describing several despicable sins of which I knew they were guilty.

Then I started on every other Canadian dealer I had a grudge against. After that, it only made sense to detail all the collectors and scouts and various other creeps and crooks who have robbed or cheated me over the years.

Later, the fun increased. I mentioned my secret memoir to some friends, and the looks on their faces as they thought of the implications stimulated me even more.

"Yes, wait until you read what I've said about you," I took to adding, greatly enjoying their looks of apprehension while they speculated what I might know of their shameful secret sins, those memories all of us are burdened with. They showed the same shock. This soon became my own private little game. "Do you know about the 'secret memoir'?" I slyly ask now, then describe it, watching their looks change as they begin to comprehend.

Nowadays, I use that threat regularly during business transactions and disputes with book people. "Well," I'll say with a pause and a meaningful stare, "This one will be in the secret memoir for sure." And then I tell them the nature of the secret memoir. I've since noticed both a significant altering of behaviour and greatly increased deference to myself, which I rather enjoy. It's a bit like being a kid and your mother saying that Jesus is watching you always and keeping track. Or that Santa Claus mayor may not visit, depending on how you behave. Now I can share that wonderful feeling of moral superiority that we see in all those "hell and damnation" preachers, who so enjoy pointing out to us sinners what we can expect if we don't repent.

I've evolved several variations on the general theme, which I use to great effect. And always there are the looks as they calculate, wondering if I really mean to do such a dreadful thing. And, of course, my reputation as a hothead who has periodically caused considerable trouble in the Canadian trade adds to those fears. Many of my colleagues are well aware that I'm quite capable of publishing things like that. Even my wife, the renowned Canadian rare-book dealer Debra Dearlove, reacts with horror or outrage at some of my threats, never quite sure if I'm serious or not, even after all these years. Not long ago I sent out an open letter accusing all my colleagues of self-serving chicanery and moral cowardice. I generally forgive my fellow booksellers eventually, for my uncontrollable urge to preach like some irascible fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist would be seriously compromised with no one to fulminate at. Now they'll be aware that, even if I forgive them, I may not forget their sins. It's just that a moralist without an audience is like a weapon without a target; one must be found. I have to forgive them if for no other reason than to retain my audience.

So, I'm enjoying this new project.

I could certainly publish it now-both my age and the slowness of our law courts would save me from retaliation. This seems to increase their apprehension even more. Of course, this also confers a certain large gift from me to Debra Dearlove, who will not just carry on the business, but will be my literary executor. Which means she'll be in charge of publishing the secret memoir. This will, I would guess, cause a noticeable difference in people's treatment of her when the extent of her power is revealed.

I was informed through the grapevine that the colleague mentioned earlier, whom I have cordially despised for many years, had threatened to sue me if he didn't like what I said about him in my memoir. When the book came out and he wasn't even named, I was told he was so chagrined to find no mention of himself that he threatened to sue me for leaving him out. This man has twelve pages so far in the secret memoir, with fresh gossip being added almost every month, for his public style constantly produces more fodder. Maybe he'll sue the estate when I'm gone, in which case he'll find himself in combat with the redoubtable Debra Dearlove. I'll be sorry to miss that one.

But mostly the process has provided an antidote to what disappointed me most when I tried writing a memoir. The recollection of a person or an event, instead of providing passing pleasure, now causes me to halt, think about the anecdote, arrange it in orderly fashion, and write it down. Sometimes in the "clean" version, sometimes in the "secret" one. Thus does history get written, even such trivial history as I am talking about. And the pleasure one gets is surprisingly rich.

And, of course, that is why diaries, day books, notebooks, and letters provide us with the meat of history. Another reason to write it all down-record it-maybe someday it will be useful. Whatever else, we add to the record.

In spite of the fun I'm having using the secret memoir as a punitive threat, the truth is quite different. I spend much time these days assessing my fifty years in the trade and have concluded that, in the end, it wasn't the books that gave me most of the enormous pleasure and fulfillment I've had; it was the people. It's been all those knowledgeable, passionate, curious, clever, crazy-to-eccentric, incredibly-Iearned-to-profoundly-wise people. All those people who amused me, taught me, without knowing they were teaching; entertained me with their wit and brilliance and, in so many cases, gave me not just their knowledge but their friendship. These people have been the greatest reward I've had from being a bookseller, and my real pleasure will be sharing my view of them with some unknown future reader.

But don't forget the secret memoir. Be nice to me while you can. You can't be sure what I know.

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-David Mason