The Love and Pursuit of Books Unites Us

 

It’s a pleasant thought, isn’t it?  That the free-ranging, capitalistic mind, linchpin of our economy, pauses for a moment and rises to a larger cause.  In this case, my book collection.  Booksellers and book collectors share a symbiotic relationship.  We are bound together with ecstatic moments and occasional torment, in the best of cases a fulfilling long-term union develops between us, in rare instances, an acrimonious separation.
            Most professional rare booksellers I’ve met tune in quickly to a serious collector’s interests.  I collect material about rare booksellers themselves, past and present, so this uncommon bypath usually is met with surprise and curiosity by those currently active in the trade.  It is not often a bookseller gets a request for their own material – previous catalogues, perhaps a bibliography written by them, an essay contributed to a journal, and so on.  I love this kind of stuff, and once we get through an awkward courtship period (“You really want my first catalogue, inscribed?”) they often become enthusiastic supporters of my collection.  And this is a good thing, for rare booksellers are always on the hunt.
            I’ve acquired many items through the kindness and thoughtfulness of the rare booksellers.  I don’t see enough of these two traits mentioned in print.  It’s not always a merchant mentality of buy low / sell high.  Placement of an item in the right home is a priority to many booksellers.  Two of my recent acquisitions are good examples.

William Reese (1955-2018): A Personal Homage

Bookseller William Reese stood with my wife and me in his private room / biblio-lair at his shop at 409 Temple Street, New Haven, Connecticut.  It was a beautiful fall day in 2015.  The juxtaposition of large, blue exercise ball upon a bed surrounded by bookcases of bibliographic delights was momentarily disconcerting.  Reese gave a hearty laugh as we discussed the importance of keeping one’s back and “core” in good shape.  The tall, lanky Reese had been a long-distance runner in his younger days and was no stranger to exercise.  Today however it was all about the sentimental library that surrounded us.  For he and I both shared a love for the history of book collecting, particularly copies with interesting associations.  And this was his private stash.  And he had granted me unfettered access to browse at will.  Nicole said later that it was the only time she’d seen me star struck.  And I was.

We all talked briefly, too briefly, Bill pointing out a few things, then he excused himself for a doctor’s appointment.  Stay as long as you want, he said, as he exited.  It was my first visit to his shop and the last time I saw Bill Reese.   Unknown to us at the time, the doctor’s visit was one of many in a long battle with cancer that would eventually take his life last week on June 4th.  Few knew his condition or how sick he'd become.

I suspected, though.  In the last couple of years, he wrote and published a flurry of five bibliographic works and a collection of essays.  He was running his last race and wanted to make it a good one.  These final publications round out a career of rare bookselling matched by few in the long history of the American book trade.  Reese assumes his place in the pantheon among Henry Stevens, A.S.W. Rosenbach, Lathrop Harper, and the Eberstadts.

Reese specialized in Americana of all periods, spanning the arrival of Columbus to the settling of the West and beyond.  He was a bookselling prodigy as a teen, beginning his career while an undergraduate at Yale, and cutting his teeth in Texas working briefly for bookseller Fred White, Jr, before venturing out on his own in 1979.   His friendly nature, wit, raw intelligence, and acumen at buying and selling, let him command the Americana market for almost forty years.  The best material passed through his hands both at auction and privately.  The best collections bear his influential stamp.  But I’m not here to list his professional accomplishments in detail.  Others will certainly do that.   I want to share something more personal in my homage to Bill Reese.

Bill given his stature in his field, could have been arrogant, dismissive, pretentious, or unresponsive.  But he was not. His interaction with yours truly is certainly as good example as any.

While in graduate school, ca. 1990, I took Michael Winship’s bibliography class.  Winship noted my already incubating interest in the history of the rare book world and loaned me a copy of Bill Reese’s senior thesis, Winnowers of the Past: The Americanist Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (1977).  Reese details the history of 19^th century Americana collecting with a focus on the famous collectors and dealers of the period.  This still unpublished thesis blew me away.  I dove right in and when I surfaced I was one inspired book hunter.  So, this serendipitous read is foundational to my own collecting and by extension provided much of the related joy I’ve experienced over the years.

Bill Reese had gotten my attention, although it would be awhile before I returned the favor.  I worked for bookseller Dorothy Sloan who knew Bill well.  I was present when she spoke with Bill on the phone – always an interesting exchange of book minutia, trade talk, and occasional gossip.  I recall talking to him directly, but it was punctual and of no great import.  I had heard his voice though, exchanged pleasantries and the connection was established.  I also began reading the William Reese catalogues, marveling at the material offered and descriptions within.  Ironically, I purchased from the Reese literary catalogues, not the Americana.  My impecunious budget (and interest) led me to the literary side managed by Terry Halladay, a symbiotic bookselling match with Reese, the two working together for four decades.  I should note here that Bill Reese was not confined to Americana.  His personal collecting interests were wide: for example, he assembled over many years an impressive library of color plate books and what is certainly the best collection of Herman Melville in private hands.

By the mid-1990s, I was a cataloguer and then director of the rare book department at Butterfield’s & Butterfield’s (now Bonham’s) auction house on the West Coast.  Bill Reese was an important buyer of Americana at our sales.  I would send advance copies of our catalogues and personal emails to market them.  We began to interact formally.  He bid and was highly successful.  Sometimes he and dealer Graham Arader, another major figure, would unwittingly butt heads via phone bidding to the delight of our department.  If Bill lost an item, he was a gracious loser (unlike some others), although it personally bothered me because by now I was a member of the Reese fan club.

I was fortunate to be present several times when he bid in person at auction.  The most memorable was our Los Angeles sale of February 14, 1996 in conjunction with the ABAA Book Fair.  A rare copy of Smith’s The Generall Historie of Virginia (1632) with maps of New England and Virginia was being offered.  Reese entered the room and soon had a big smile, shaking hands and talking with colleagues, towering over them literally (at about 6’ 4”) and figuratively.  But then the action began, and he calmly, quietly and relentlessly bid against E. Forbes Smiley III for the book.  Smiley was a big man, heavy set, sweating, and nervous as he raised his paddle.  They went back and forth tennis match style until the book hammered at $41,400.  I savored the moment.  Many years later, the competing bidder would be found guilty of stealing millions of dollars’ worth of maps from libraries and sent to prison.   

When I left the trade and assumed “collector only” status, our contact was intermittent.  I began to gather material related directly to Reese—books written by him, special catalogues, inscribed material, ephemera. I would see him at the ABAA Book Fairs and visit him briefly at his booth. But he was in work mode and typically didn’t have time to chat much. 

My friend and fellow collector, Douglas Adams, knowing my admiration for Bill, prodded me to have more interaction with him.  Look at this, he said, and showed me his copy of The Immense and Distinguished Half-Title Collection Formed by John H. Jenkins III, Esq. of Austin, Texas, Now Elucidated (1980), an elaborate spoof played on Johnny Jenkins in which Reese played a primary role.  Only ca. 25 copies were produced.   Douglas had sent his copy to Bill for examination and comment.  Bill wrote a full-page inscription in the book outlining the story and his role. 

I listened.  And when I acquired a batch of material from Texas bookseller Ray Walton’s personal library I sent a special item to Reese to peruse.  Reese had known Walton well.  Walton was a colorful cohort of Johnny Jenkins in the Texas bookselling scene of the 1970s and 80s.   The item was Walton’s heavily annotated copy of Reese’s first book Six Score: The 120 Best Books on the Range Cattle Industry (1976).  Reese not only inscribed it to me but went through the book, writing comments on Walton’s earlier notes both negatively and positively.   This was well beyond the call of duty and I was thrilled.  Another catalyst in our burgeoning friendship was Jeff Dykes, the noted collector and bookseller of Western Americana.  I had an 8 x 10 glossy of Dykes dated from the 1960s inscribed to Ray Walton.  A scan of this amused Bill and he recalled his early encounters with Dykes.  Walton had what I can only describe as a book dealer photo fetish and other photos of bookmen inscribed to him found their way into my collection, including ones to Jenkins and Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough, a prominent collector.  I sent scans of these to Bill, too.  One of my regrets is not printing up an 8x10 of Reese and having him inscribe it to me as an amusing aside.

We were having a little fun now.  And I must thank my wife Nicole for her role in a memorable chat with Reese at a book fair a few years ago that also broke the ice.  I’d said hello to Reese earlier in the day but played my usual role of hanging back, not wanting to bother him.  Nicole thought this all rather silly.  In a quiet moment on a Sunday afternoon of the fair she linked arms with me and literally dragged me to his booth.   Fortified by her presence, I relaxed and had an entertaining talk with Bill and Terry Halladay.  It wasn’t a lengthy conversation, but it was informal and for the first time I felt that Bill fully recognized me as a kindred spirit with our shared biblio interests.

Momentum built.  The visit to his shop in 2015.  And in July of 2016 I wrote a blog essay about another copy of Bill Reese’s Six Score with a sentimental inscription.  I had acquired the book years earlier and only of late discovered the importance of the association.  I surprised Bill with the essay and he much enjoyed it.  I added his commentary as postscript and we corresponded further.  And I knew it was time.  Time to share with him the full extent of my biblio-collection.  He would not find it overwhelming.

I realized a personal visit to my home was remote, or at best in the future, so I printed out a copy of my private library catalogue—some 800 pages in 9-point type—bound it in old school stiff red covers and metal clasps (the same as his senior thesis was issued forty years before) and sent it on.  No word for a little while.  Not unexpected, he was a busy man, and sicker than most of us knew, and I’d just dropped a phone book-sized catalogue on him unsolicited.   Then it came. 

Dear Kurt,

                 Yesterday we had a nice blizzard here in New Haven, and as everybody was exhausted from the Book Fair we just closed for the day, and I spent a pleasant day at home catching up on reading. This gave me a chance to really spend some quality time with your catalogue, which I had not previously been able to do with back-to-back fairs and much going on business-wise. Nothing like a snow day! In any case, I want to congratulate you both on the accomplishment of putting the collection together and on your excellent annotations, which open up a vast trove of bibliographical and bibliopolical lore. I very much enjoyed running across many old friends, both ones I knew personally and ones I had encountered in book history. Also, I'm impressed by your willingness to have multiple copies of the same book!    All best, Bill Reese

Writing this has become hard now.  The memories have me deeply saddened and I’m lamenting the fact there will be no further interactions.  There was so much I wanted to tell him and so much more I wanted to hear.  We were both big admirers of Charles Everitt’s Adventures of a Treasure Hunter (1951), one of the best bookseller memoirs.  I prodded Bill to write his own memoirs and he said he was, but I don’t think it happened—fleeting time, illness, and life cruelly short.   It would have been the best of them all.  I know it.  But I’m grateful for what he did write and gave to the book world and while he was busy building important collections, buying and selling great books, and becoming one of the finest antiquarian booksellers of all, he took time to be my friend.

 

Capturing the moment in the biblio-lair.

Book Hunter Bypaths Explored & Exposed

Book Hunters are a focused lot but they do find time for other pursuits.   Even the most dedicated need a break occasionally.  There are numerous examples of rare bookmen who write fiction, mysteries, even poetry with varied success.  But that is too close to the flame.   Rather let’s look at more diverse bypaths that flesh out the following bibliophiles' interests.  Naturally for my purpose these pursuits resulted in something printed.  The examples are from my own collection.  (The fact that I collect them certainly adds a layer of complexity to me which we shall not explore here.)

            Formidable bibliographer Fredson Bowers tormented me early on via his Principles of Bibliographical Description (1949).   The work is as hearty and dense as German dark bread.  I was very much used to peanut butter and jelly on white bread.  So, choking down the Principles while taking a bibliography class in graduate school was healthy but unpleasant.   Negative thoughts of Mr. Bowers crept in.  Then I discovered a biographical essay of Bowers by his student and disciple G. Thomas Tanselle.  Tanselle confirmed Bowers’ intensity of purpose, his willingness to actively defend his scholarly views, his domination of the bibliographical and textual studies of his time.  But he also mentioned that Bowers liked dogs.  He liked them a lot as do I.  Bowers raised and bred them, particularly Irish wolfhounds, and became an expert in the field.  Bowers was so immersed that he wrote The Dog Owner’s Handbook (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1936), his first book, preceding any of his bibliographical publications. Tanselle notes that “The front of the dust jacket was labeled ‘A Guaranteed Dog Book,’ and the flap explained, ‘Any purchaser who is not satisfied with it may return the book within five days for refund’. . . The book had some success, for it was reprinted by the Sun Dial Press in 1940 and was still mentioned in the 1950s in some of the lists of recommended books that appeared in the American Kennel Club's magazine.”

            I have a number of association copies of Bowers’ bibliographic works in my collection.  None gave me quite the thrill as finding a rare presentation copy of the first edition of The Dog Owner’s Handbook, the only example I’ve ever encountered.

Six Score and More: Wallowing in It with Bill Reese

I've been recently wallowing in rare books with noted bookseller Bill Reese.  Not literally, but via the Rare Book School podcast of his June 15, 2016 talk, “Starting Out: My Early Days as a Rare Book Dealer,”  Bill’s entertaining account of his biblio-youth in the 1970s that focuses primarily on Yale and Texas, two seemingly disparate paths connected by his early interest in Western Americana.  Reese discusses a brilliant sky of prominent bookmen and women who influenced him.  He ends with an observation about his pre-digital experiences garnered at the Yale libraries and via the rare book trade:

“In the pre-digital age . . .  one could really only learn and obtain knowledge of material by being absorbed in it and soaking in it.  I had the great good fortune to have the ability to wallow in vast amounts of material and be able to soak in a huge amount of knowledge through it.  . . . One of the things that has obscured the digital age is the difference between knowledge and information.    Information is now readily available all the time in every form, we think we can look it all up, and to a degree we can look things up in ways we never could before, but being able to look things up without the knowledge, and the knowledge that only can be obtained by literally wallowing in the material is I think the difference between true deep book knowledge and simply accessed information.”

             I’m familiar with this pre-digital wallowing.  I had the opportunity in my college days in the late 1980s to have three years free-reign of the stacks of the Ransom Center at the University of Texas (and other libraries on campus) during an internship.  I combined this with frequent visits to bookshops in Austin and San Antonio and all served as a marinade of biblio-learning that no amount of internet surfing can replace.  Wallowing is still available by the way—libraries are still filled with books, bookstores are still out there, rare book classes and schools are flourishing, and most dealers are more than happy to share their experiences.  One just needs to make a concerted effort to dive in.    

            Reese’s talk is delivered to me digitally but it feels like an old-school radio show with no video or a printed transcript as a crutch.  I pause the recording for a moment to crack open a Live Oak Hefeweisen, settle back on the couch sipping my brew, pet the fat cat sprawled next to me, and close my eyes to listen.  About twenty minutes into his lecture Reese discusses his four primary mentors at Yale: Archibald Hanna, Charles Montgomery, Donald Gallup, and Fritz Liebert.  All but Montgomery are familiar to me as prominent bookmen.  As Reese talks about Montgomery a flicker of recognition ignites in my mind but it is a slow burn.  My eyes are open now and I listen intently. 

            Montgomery (1910-1978) was an “extraordinary character” says Reese.  He began as a dealer in decorative arts and antiques and was hired as a curator in 1949 by Henry Francis DuPont to develop the Winterthur Museum and Library in Delaware.  In 1954, Montgomery became director of Winterthur.  After retiring, he came to Yale in 1970 to teach.  Reese took a class from him and soon learned that Montgomery, like Archibald Hanna, “knew everybody and had been everywhere.”   Montgomery was “absolutely fearless in taking his classes out to see things.”  

Reese recounts an example when “he took a group of us to the Frick Museum. . .  there was this amazing Boulle table that even in those days was probably worth a couple million dollars. . .  Charlie was very insistent that everybody understand the woods involved and things like that.  So, we’re standing in the Frick’s drawing room . . . and Charlie turns to me and another and says, ‘Bill, Joe, turn that table over’ . . . before the director could say anything we picked the table up and turned it over and I look up and the director of the Frick is standing there with his jaw hung open but it was too late to do anything about it so we got away with it.  That’s the way Charlie was, you went in, you wanted to see something, you picked it up and looked at it.  That was a great lesson, too.  That gall could get you a long way,” Reese says finishing his recollection with a laugh.  Charlie’s “brashness” and knowledge made quite an impact on the young Reese.

The flicker of recognition becomes a bonfire and I pause the recording.

 “Son of a biscuit,” I say loudly to the cat that is startled awake.  I can still move fairly quickly when motivated and motivated I am.    I’m up from the couch and heading full tilt for the bookshelves in the master bedroom.  There is no exact order to my books but I know the general area to search.  I can’t find it right off, damn it –take a deep breath--and then success:  the tall, thin tome is top shelf left, and I soon cradle it in my hands like a newly discovered relic.   The book is Reese’s precocious Six Score: the 120 Best Books on the Range Cattle Industry (Austin: 1976).  I bought the book on Ebay in 2010 from a dealer in New Hampshire.  The copy was inscribed and the price modest and that was enough. 

The inscription reads: “For Charles Montgomery, My first book—far afield from decorative arts, but another side of Texas from Miss Ima Hogg.  Best, Bill Reese, July 27, 1976.” 

My original catalogue slip is in the book.  I’d dutifully researched the information then available on the web to identify Charles Montgomery and sketched out a biography.  I explained briefly Reese’s reference to Ima Hogg, Texas philanthropist, patron, and collector of the arts, but I certainly didn’t realize the full importance of the association—until now.  

I immediately phone Douglas Adams, my friend who tipped me off to the Reese podcast, “I just found an awesome association copy,” I say excitedly. 

            “What did you buy?”

            “Nada.  It is already in my collection,” and I tell him the story in full.

            I gently place the book on the shelf and linger a moment admiring it from a fresh perspective.  Now is time for a catalogue revision and a surprise email to Bill Reese. 

I’m wallowing in it, indeed.

Postscript

Bill Reese read the essay and was kind enough to reply:
"A few further notes on your copy of SIX SCORE. I finished writing the book in late 1975 and gave it to Jenkins, who got it out in a boxed set with Ramon Adams' book in July, 1976. I spent that June and July cataloging books in Texas, including a lot of time at the Jenkins company going through Eberstadt books. I had the first copies with me when I came through New Haven briefly in the last week of July to organize my apartment for the next year. Charles Montgomery's wife Florence and I shared a birthday-July 29- and several years had a birthday dinner together. We did it early in 1976 because I was turning 21 that July 29 and was having dinner with my family, then going to Europe for the rest of the summer the next day. So I had dinner with the Montgomery's a few days early, on the 27th, which is when I gave Charlie the book.

As I suggested in my talk, Charlie was a great inspiration to me, and he and his wife became good friends as well as mentors. Sadly he died in the fall of 1978, of a heart attack.   All best,   Bill"

 Reese's Lecture Can Be Found Here Under the June 15 Entry.

William Reese Company