McMurtry, Pass By

Larry McMurtry & Kurt Zimmerman in 2012

Larry McMurtry died recently, and both the writing world and the antiquarian book trade mourn his passing.  McMurtry thought of himself as a bookseller as much as a writer, although that is not how he will generally be remembered.  For he was a good and prolific author of fiction; a natural storyteller that also ventured successfully into history, screenplays, and insightful essays which covered many topics.  I enjoy his essays the most.  But I still a have a tough time forgiving him for killing off Gus McCrae’s pigs at the end of Lonesome Dove.
        McMurtry scouted and sold used and rare books since his college days.  These scouting adventures were loosely drawn upon for example in his novel Cadillac Jack about a rodeo cowboy turned antiques hunter.  McMurtry had a predilection for buying whole book collections rather than straining out the rarities and leaving the rest.  He told me in 2012 he’d purchased the stock of twenty-six used / rare bookstores and over 200 private collections.  So, he dealt mainly in quantities of better used books rather than focusing on rare ones, although he sold plenty of the latter over a long bookselling career.  He would go on to establish used bookstores in Houston, Washington, D.C., and his hometown of Archer City, Texas.  He eventually closed the Houston and Washington, D.C. stores and doubled down on the Archer City location.  Here he filled a number of buildings he owned on the town square with over 300,000 books in all subjects.  He may have had an American vision of Hay-on-Wye in mind.  That didn’t quite happen, but he did attract a steady stream of book hunters to the tiny north Texas town far from big city amenities. 
I made my first book buying pilgrimage to Archer City in 2001.  I arrived on a toasty August day, stopped at the Dairy Queen for an Oreo blizzard, and got situated in my room at the Lonesome Dove Inn.  The Inn was owned by friends of McMurtry.  They were used to having a variety of book hunters come through – in fact, I think book people were their primary guests.  I still have my Lonesome Dove Inn t-shirt. 

Serendipity to Booked Up: An Associative Mailing Label

For the past seven years the heavy box has held miscellaneous issues of The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America.  The material falls within my collection’s gray area: worth keeping and dipping into for reading / reference but not worth taking up shelf space.  So occasionally the box and others containing similar material get shuffled around for one reason or another.   Today was such a day.  Sweaty, hot work in the attic.  A pause and wipe of the brow and a glance at the label on the box.  Lo, we have something here!

                The mailing label is addressed from Peter B. Howard (d. 2011), iconic rare bookman in Berkley, California to Larry McMurtry at his store Booked Up in Archer City, Texas.   What the box originally contained is unknown.  I utilized the box among others to pack my winnings after the McMurtry auction of stock in 2012.

                This unusual association item brought back memories.   I spent time with the idiosyncratic and brilliant bookseller Peter Howard during several visits to his shop, Serendipity Books. He was a prime driver over four decades of modern literature collecting, both books and archives, issuing catalogues and developing major collections.  Larry McMurtry I know less well but I enjoyed a couple of entertaining discussions with him, particularly at the well-publicized 2012 auction of an estimated 300,000 volumes of stock from his sprawling book emporium in Archer City.  Illness issues and a lack of a book heirs drove his decision to sell.  He continues as a bookseller but in a much more streamlined mode.  McMurtry is most famous as a writer but he has bought and sold used and rare books in huge gulps over an extended career as bookseller and book scout.   I’ve written previously about both men in the essays linked below.

                The mailing label deserves preservation.  It represents two well-known American bookmen plying their trade.  It conjures the imagination of the exchange. It’s ephemeral and displays well.  And if one adds historical perspective, how many similar associative labels from years ago survive?  But I’m not here to provide justification only a few thoughts.  I carefully remove the label and place it in a mylar sleeve, a story to a share.

Peter Howard Post

Larry McMurtry Post

Pamphleteering in the Storage Unit

The McMurtry Auction haul written about earlier has sat impatiently in a climate controlled storage unit awaiting Douglas and me to sort it and make sense of it all.  We’ve poked and prodded the 50 plus boxes a little over the last month but that damn making-a-living thing has slowed us down. 

            Tonight is different.  We are meeting at 7:00 pm to begin a serious examination.   In a preliminary trip we modified the single light bulb outlet to accommodate both a light and a standing fan.  I’d supplied a sturdy table.  Douglas brought folding chairs and two old school, pre-globalization metal shelving units entirely devoid of the plastic found in the current box store crap.

            Douglas arrived fashionably late tonight and brings beer—craft beers, God bless him—a couple of bomber bottles of Arrogant Bastard Ale and Abita Andygator Helles Doppelbock.  He calls me a beer snob, but I prefer the term connoisseur.  I’ve tried 214 craft beers (so far) and have each one ranked on my beeradvocate.com account so I’ll let you make your own call.

            We sat facing each other at an impromptu partner’s desk in the middle of our 10x14 storage unit.  We are on the second floor of a huge facility, no one else is there.  The automated hallway light goes out and we are illuminated by our single bulb casting shadows around us. The fan hums.  The beer tastes good, and the first pile of old bibliographic pamphlets is heaped upon the table.

McMurtry's Herd Yields a California Biblio-Nugget

I have not had time yet to thoroughly examine the thousands of items I purchased at the McMurtry auction.  This nugget surfaced randomly while moving a pile of miscellaneous pamphlets and catalogues.  Who knows what other goodies await?

John Howell. TYPED LETTER SIGNED FROM BOOKSELLER JOHN HOWELL TO FELLOW BOOKSELLER AND BIBLIOGRAPHER ROBERT E. COWAN, JULY 20, 1917. 4to. Included with the letter is Howell's mimeographed 32 page typescript catalogue containing 407 items for sale.  The first nineteen pages describe 265 titles from the Robinson collection, the rest of the volumes are from Howell's stock.

Howell writes Cowan that he has acquired a large selection of fine books & manuscripts from the library of Honolulu businessman, Mark P. Robinson (1852-1915).  Robinson had a predilection for English literature and fine bindings.  This acquisition was fairly early in Howell's illustrious bookselling career and must have been a major coup even with WWI in progress and the book trade in the doldrums.  Howell writes, "On account of conditions the books from the Robinson library are offered at prices in many cases from one-half to one-fourth the cost to the original owner, which was nearly a half million dollars for the collection.  Moreover, I will accept in payment, liberty bonds at par, if preferable to you, for any of the books on either list."

The two men were the most important San Francisco antiquarian booksellers of their time.  Cowan (1862-1942) was twelve years older than Howell (1874-1956) and by the time of this letter was selling books privately out of his home at 867 Treat Ave in the Mission District.  Howell had an open shop at 107 Grant Ave in the business district.  (His son, Warren Howell, would carry on the business until 1984.)

Mark P. Robinson's good but now forgotten collection was scattered to the winds.  A privately printed catalogue had been issued some years before:  Catalogue of the Library of Mark P. Robinson, Esq. of Honolulu. Philadelphia: 1909.  Anderson Galleries in NYC auctioned off other material from the library in 1918 (McKay 7928, 7956).  See Dickinson's Dictionary of American Antiquarian Bookdealers for more details about Howell and Cowan.

Thinning the Herd: Larry McMurtry Cuts 300,000 Books Loose in a Two Day Auction

The Royal Theater in Archer City, Texas, inspired Larry McMurtry’s novel, The Last Picture Show, and featured prominently in Peter Bogdanovich’s both brilliant and unrelentingly bleak 1971 film adaptation.  The renovated theater hall was now serving as a large dining room for a pre-auction barbecue dinner Thursday night August 9th complete with all the fixin’s and a truckload of Shiner Bock beer.  The heat outside, even at dinner time, was stifling enough to irritate native Texans and cause consternation among attendees from more northern climes.  Inside however the air blew cool and some 150 book enthusiasts enjoyed food and conversation, all glancing occasionally toward the entrance door for sight of McMurtry.

                He showed up fashionably late, moving slow and steady, suspenders in place, white shirt mildly untucked, tennis shoes and jeans worn easy, completing a look that was a cross between local rancher and bohemian college professor: both wellsprings that flow through his complex personality.  He’d suffered a second heart attack a few months back and at age 76 was physically frail and quiet spoken but mentally sharp.