Books and Bookmen [0]
Books and Bookmen
by Andrew Lang
Contents:
To the Viscountess Wolseley
Preface
Elzevirs
Ballade of the Real and Ideal
Curiosities of Parish Registers
The Rowfant Books
To F. L.
Some Japanese Bogie-books
Ghosts in the Library
Literary Forgeries
Bibliomania in France
Old French Title-pages
A Bookman's Purgatory
Ballade of the Unattainable
Lady Book-lovers
TO THE VISCOUNTESS WOLSELEY
Madame, it is no modish thing,
The bookman's tribute that I bring;
A talk of antiquaries grey,
Dust unto dust this many a day,
Gossip of texts and bindings old,
Of faded type, and tarnish'd gold!
Can ladies care for this to-do
With Payne, Derome, and Padeloup?
Can they resign the rout, the ball,
For lonely joys of shelf and stall?
The critic thus, serenely wise;
But you can read with other eyes,
Whose books and bindings treasured are
'Midst mingled spoils of peace and war;
Shields from the fights the Mahdi lost,
And trinkets from the Golden Coast,
And many things divinely done
By Chippendale and Sheraton,
And trophies of Egyptian deeds,
And fans, and plates, and Aggrey beads,
Pomander boxes, assegais,
And sword-hilts worn in Marlbro's days.
In this pell-mell of old and new,
Of war and peace, my essays, too,
For long in serials tempest-tost,
Are landed now, and are not lost:
Nay, on your shelf secure they lie,
As in the amber sleeps the fly.
'Tis true, they are not "rich nor rare;"
Enough, for me, that they are--there!
A. L
PREFACE
The essays in this volume have, for the most part, already appeared
in an American edition (Combes, New York, 1886). The Essays on 'Old
French Title-Pages' and 'Lady Book-Lovers' take the place of 'Book
Binding' and 'Bookmen at Rome;' 'Elzevirs' and 'Some Japanese Bogie-
Books' are reprinted, with permission of Messrs. Cassell, from the
Magazine of Art; 'Curiosities of Parish Registers' from the
Guardian; 'Literary Forgeries' from the Contemporary Review; 'Lady
Book-Lovers' from the Fortnightly Review; 'A Bookman's Purgatory'
and two of the pieces of verse from Longman's Magazine--with the
courteous permission of the various editors. All the chapters have
been revised, and I have to thank Mr. H. Tedder for his kind care in
reading the proof sheets, and Mr. Charles Elton, M.P., for a similar
service to the Essay on 'Parish Registers.'
ELZEVIRS
The Countryman. "You know how much, for some time past, the
editions of the Elzevirs have been in demand. The fancy for them
has even penetrated into the country. I am acquainted with a man
there who denies himself necessaries, for the sake of collecting
into a library (where other books are scarce enough) as many little
Elzevirs as he can lay his hands upon. He is dying of hunger, and
his consolation is to be able to say, 'I have all the poets whom the
Elzevirs printed. I have ten examples of each of them, all with red
letters, and all of the right date.' This, no doubt, is a craze,
for, good as the books are, if he kept them to read them, one
example of each would be enough."
The Parisian. "If he had wanted to read them, I would not have
advised him to buy Elzevirs. The editions of minor authors which
these booksellers published, even editions 'of the right date,' as
you say, are not too correct. Nothing is good in the books but the
type and the paper. Your friend would have done better to use the
editions of Gryphius or Estienne."
This fragment of a literary dialogue I translate from 'Entretiens
sur les Contes de Fees,' a book which contains more of old talk
about books and booksellers than about fairies and folk-lore. The
'Entretiens' were published in 1699, about sixteen years after the
Elzevirs ceased to be publishers. The fragment is valuable: first,
because it shows us how early the taste for collecting Elzevirs was
fully developed, and, secondly, because it contains very sound
criticism of the mania. Already, in the seventeenth century, lovers
of the tiny Elzevirian books waxed pathetic over dates,