Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs | Page 3

and due care taken against over-decoration of the covers. These few technical hints will serve to acquaint the book-lover with some at least of the many important features which must be regarded in the preparation of a fine book,--a book fitted to demand and merit a place upon the library shelves of discriminating bibliophiles, and as well increase in demand and price whenever thereafter its copies may "turn up" for sale.
Next in importance, after considering literary and mechanical fitness, and the limitation of the work, is the question of distribution; its scope, and the class of subscribers. The stock of a corporation, if limited to a reasonable number of shares and issued only to a few expert investors of high standing, and for tangible considerations, will obviously be considered a safer and more attractive investment than if it be scattered indiscriminately among a class of professional manipulators for stock-jobbing purposes. With such a stock where thus closely held for investment purposes, an order for a few shares may largely elevate its market value. But if the stock were issued in unlimited quantities, the monetary value would be entirely lost. Again, if the stock had no corporeal assets as a basis for its issue, the "limited and registered" clause could not sustain it in the market.
So it is with books: if the number of copies issued be held within a reasonable constraint, consistent with the price charged per copy, and if they are subscribed for by book-lovers who prize them for their literary or historic value and luxurious appearance no less than for pecuniary values, they are not likely to find their way into the bookstalls, or to be "picked up" in auction rooms at less than their original price. This condition applies particularly to legitimate club editions and privately printed editions. If an edition of five hundred copies is widely distributed throughout the country, it is reasonable to assume that the speculative market therefor would be less apt to suffer from congestion than if the sale of the whole number of sets were confined to one locality.
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Passing now to those who, in one way or another, are to meet with and handle the completed book, we may begin with a class of literary barnacles who stick about the libraries of their friends and of the public institutions, and feed their bibliophilistic appetites on what others have spent much time and money in collecting. These may perhaps more appropriately be called biblio-spongers, and are of all ranks in the community, many even owning beautiful homes, and having ample resources at command; but while enjoying the congenial atmosphere of a well-furnished library, and the delights of caressing the precious and wisely selected tomes of others, they are still of such temperaments that they would no more think of buying books than would another of buying an opera-house in order to satisfy theatre-going propensities. These people should be taught that fine books, like friends, are not loanable or exchangeable chattels. They will argue that there is no use spending money for books, because they reside within easy reach of a public library where such books as they desire are readily obtainable, or perhaps suggest that "I have free access to my friend Smith's library; he scarcely ever uses it;" without reflecting that Smith would probably use it more, if his friends used it less. And yet such folk will still incur the needless expense of providing their own homes with chairs, unless, haply, such homes may chance to be within convenient reach of some park or public institution where free seats are provided.
Most of us are disposed to idealize a besotted bibliomaniac as a harmless being whose companionship and favor are neither to be courted nor particularly avoided,--a sort of shellfish basking on the bank of life's flow in whatever sunshine it may absorb, and paying little heed to the thoughts or actions of others.
The following curious inscription which is found on an old copperplate print of the famous bibliomaniac, John Murray, will illustrate one of the varieties:--
Hoh Maister John Murray of Sacomb, The Works of old Time to collect was his pride, Till Oblivion dreaded his Care: Regardless of Friends, intestate he dy'd, So the Rooks and the Crows were his Heir.
Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole, President of The Bibliophile Society, aptly describes a miserly bibliomaniac as a
Victim of a frenzied passion, He is lean and lank and crusty; Naught he cares for dress or fashion And his rusty coat smells musty;
while in characterizing the natural impulses of true bibliophilism, he says that
Bibliophiles take pride in showing All the gems of their collections; They are generous in bestowing, They have genuine affections.
Peignot says a bibliomaniac is one who has "a passion for possessing books; not so much to be instructed by them as