COSTLY BOOKS

Evening Star, Issue 21905, 17 December 1934, Page 15

COSTLY BOOKS

TREASURES OF AUTHORS Reports are coming from the' 1 auction rooms of better prices for rare books and MSS.—another symptom of world recovery, for on the whole the prices of these treasures rise and fall with the economic tides (writes T. Porter Wood, in the ‘ Daily Mail.’ I say “on the whole, ' because there are exceptions on the general rule—certain rare books and MSS. which, like certain pictures and pieces of sculpture, are so nearly priceless that they never change hands except at a higher price than the one previously paid. There was a 1928-29 boom phase, for instance, when a lot of. people who suddenly found themselves with' easily-made money paid absurd prices for a Bernard Shaw post card, a.Kipling first edition, a Napoleon letter. Those inflated values have come down with a run. But in the depths of the slump a Button Bwinnett signature fetched its £5,000: Button Gwinnett being one of the men who signed the American Declaration of Independence, but was so thoughtless as to leave behind him not a single complete letter. and less than twenty known signatures.

And a treasure like a Cervantes loiter (onlv one private collection can boast possession of one), or the ‘ Venus and Adonis ’ of Sbakesneare, which reposes in the Huntington collection (only one other copy is known), will af ways maintain its value and grow more precious as the years pass —always provided that it retains its rarity. It is just possible, tor instance, that a trunkful of the letters of Cervantes is lying around somewhere, waiting to buret on an excited collectors' and dealers’ world—and break the price. Stranger things have, happened. The MS. of Conrads ‘Victory*' having fetched £1,600, and the MS. of Galsworthy’s ‘Forsyte Saga,’ now in the British Museum, being tentatively valued at £lO,000. and the original manuscript .of Dodgson’s ‘ Alice in Wonderland ’. having realised £15.400. one would guess that the lost MS. of Barrie’s ‘ Peter Pan ’ must he worth at least several thousands. In dustv corners of the Continent and England (for British noblemen and nabobs once ransacked Europe’s libraries as American millionaires to-day -search England’s) there may lie hidden sneb lost treasures as a Boucher Mcliere of 1734. a Foligno Dante of 1422. From the New World Columbus wrote several letters home to Spain. These should be about somewhere. Back home, he wrote to Em’s de Santangel about his great discovery.. The letter was printed and m-ny copies were distributed far and wide Yet the original letter has never been found, and of the printed copies only one of the first printing and one of the second printing lies ever turned up fthe firrt is preserved in the New York Public Librarv „ud the othc- ia Hie great Ambrosia Library in Milan). ' r hcre must be other conies somewhere. A new one _wo>dd he wort' l a verv big sum. The original lettei w-uld be worth a lame fortune.

The old poets of Rome published their works, end scribes were kent busy eonvin.g them But the earliest specimen of Latin wiling known is a. fragpient dated a.p 53. The discovery of envthing earlier than 'te first century would be a treasure worth thousands.