FIRST PICKWICKS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 46, 6 February 1928, Page 8

FIRST PICKWICKS

RECORD PRICE OF £3260 ORIGINAL NINETEEN PARTS. SALE BY DICKENS LOVER When it was recently reported from New York that a first edition of Pickwick Papers, published in 19 parts, had been sold at auction at the record price qf £3260, the collector of the books, Mr Thomas Hatton, a retired Leicester boot and shoe manufacturer for whom they were sold, said that he was sorry. He was surprised at the price, which is more than double the previous record—£l6oo at a sale in England—but he confessed that at that moment he regretted having parted with tnem. Mr Hatton, who is a private collector, and formed the nucleus of the library of Leicester University College with a gift of 2000 valuable books, said : “Perhaps 1 am not so much a collector as a Dickens lover. 1 have devoted 20 years to forming this collection of 19 books—lB single shilling issues and one Christmas double number. 2/- issue, that are supposed to make a 20-part 'Pickwick'—and now it has gone. Some Americans who were visiting England this summer heard of mv collection, visited me, and persuaded and per. suaded until I s aid I would sell. The moment the books were gone 1 beg-, to regret my decision. “I loved Dickens as a boy and with my first few shillings ■ began to buy what 1 thought were first editions. Then it dawned on me that 1 wanted the paper-bound issues and not stiff covers, so 1 began to buy them. While hunting for the 19 copies 1 was continually tin-owing out one copy tor a better one discovered somewhere, so that at one time 1 had more than 40 copies on my hands. You must remember that only 400 of Par ts 1,2, and 3 were sold, and that when Sam Wellor arrived there was such a surge of interest that Parts 1,2, and 3 were reprinted. “it was the first of the first edition that I always wanted—the first ott the machines. Thousands of such things as broken letters and blurs had to be searched for. I think m> set particularly valuable because it has the advertisements—little slips that used to be sewn in. “1 got one bv buying up the whole Dickens stock of a London bookseller. Another time 1 had to buy a huge quantity of mixed books for £lO6 to get one paper-covered copy Although money was not my aim. I sold off my remainders at a price that pai ( ) for every Pickwick I ever bought so that this £3260 is all profit. I am going on as a Dickens collector but this time not to sell.’’