A.S.W. Rosenbach in Photos

A.S.W. Rosenbach (1876-1952), legendary bookseller and collector, was a media darling in an age when important sales of rare books and manuscripts featured prominently in the news.  These three original news service photographs in my collection span the prime of his career from the early 1920s to the late 1940s.  A photograph may not always be worth the thousand proverbial words but it certainly can add an immediacy and texture to a collection not found on the written page.  The stories behind each photograph are given below.  The one thread that I found intriguing in all the original news wire descriptions was the emphasis on Rosenbach as a "collector" as much as a dealer in the eyes of the media-- even though it was obvious he was buying items for clients.  Rosenbach cultivated this image as a collector but it was no marketing mirage.  He salted away many items that he couldn't resist, showing them off to visitors while alive, and left behind the fine Rosenbach Museum holdings in Philadelphia are a testament to his acumen.

Rosenbach in 1921 entering his prime. He had just arrived back home after dominating the Christie Miller Library auction at Sotheby’s London where “[Henry] Huntington’s money and Dr. R.’s aplomb swept all before them.  .  . Lot after lot was offered; with boring consistency, no matter what others bid, the Doctor bid a little higher” (Wolf & Fleming Rosenbach).  He also had strong bids from Henry Folger. Now that makes for a happy bookman.

For further photographs read on....

Bookseller Henry Stevens Recollects Mr. James Lenox

I recently purchased an 1868 autograph letter from bookseller Henry Stevens (1819-1886) to a potential American client.  The letter itself is lengthy and informative but I'll save that for another time.  Enclosed with the letter as an after-thought, and not mentioned by the seller, was a four-page promotional leaflet for Stevens' classic bookseller autobiography Recollections of Mr. James Lenox of New York and the Formation of His Library (1886).  The rare little leaflet surprise stirred me bibliophilic juices.  Not only did it describe the book itself but cited excerpts from fourteen contemporary reviews.  These excerpts provide a glimpse into the contemporary reception of one of the greatest bookseller accounts written. The leaflet itself is quite a piece of marketing.  The opening salvo still holds true:

A VOLUME FOR EVERY LOVER OF BOOKS

 Full of humorous and romantic anecdotes of rare

 and unique books, and of desperate struggles in

 the Auction Room, interspersed with in-

teresting bibliographical gossip of the experi-

ences of half a century of book collecting

  The leaflet is reproduced below for your enjoyment:

Featured Item No. III: Bookman's Valhalla, The R. B. Adam Auction Catalogue (1926)

(R B Adam).  ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE LIBRARY OF MR. R. B. ADAM, BUFFALO, N.Y. TO BE SOLD BY HIS ORDER. New York: The Anderson Galleries, February 15 & 16, 1926. 433 lots.  Frontis., text illus. 8vo. Original flexible pebble cloth, spine stamped in gilt, original wrappers bound in as issued (see below).

Lathrop Harper's copy, inscribed "For Lathrop, the kindest and best, E. Byrne Hackett." Signed by twenty-five bookmen during the pre-auction dinner party hosted by A. Edward Newton for the highly respected collector, R.B. Adam--one of the most famous such gatherings in the history of American book collecting.  Signers include Ralph Isham, Seymour de Ricci, Barnet J. Beyer, Jerome Kern, Louis B. Shaw (?),  A.S.W. Rosenbach, Owen D. Young, William Jay Turner, James F. Drake, Charles S. Osgood, Lathrop Harper, Walter M. Hill, Gabriel Wells, Carl Pforzheimer, Christopher Morley, E. Swift Newton, Chauncey Brewster Tinker, R.B. Adam, A. Edward Newton, Mitchell Kennerley, Edgar H. Wells, George H. Sargent, and E. Byrne Hackett.

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.

The Quotable Currie

I wrote about collector Barton Currie, author of Fishers of Books (1931) in an earlier post.  He is a highly quotable guy and I jotted a number of quotations down while re-reading his classic work.  You'll find them below.  I also serendipitously came across two more nice Currie association items shortly after my original blog post.  The first was plucked from a booth at the LA Book Fair. . . .