TURNBULL LIBRARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20243, 1 May 1929, Page 13

TURNBULL LIBRARY.

FINE NATIONAL POSSESSION.

GREAT GROWTH IN VALUE.

MILLION WITHIN A DECADE.

BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINGTON, Tuesday.

Speaking at the Rotary Club luncheon to-day on the Turnbull Library, Wellington, Mr. Johannes C. Andersen, the librarian, said that when the late Mr. Turnbull died 12 or 13 years ago he had been collecting books for only 25 years. In that short time ho had acquired a library of about 60,000 books. These were largely composed of the cream of English literature, so that the quality of the library was even superior to its quantity.

"Some people think," said the speaker, "that it is mere age that gives value to a book. But age is only incidental. First of all it is the fact that the book is by a man who has made his mark in literature, and secondly, the fact that there are not enough of the books to go round, that give the extraordinary value to books that have lately fetched remarkably high prices. "Mr. Turnbull intended it primarily as a collection of New Zealand and Australian literature, including also the islands of the Pacific, and as a collection of this kind it has only one rival for completeness, the Mitchell Library in Sydney. Even in this section of the library there are books of inestimable value, such as the manuscript journal kept on Captain Cook's ship, the Endeavour, on its first visit to New Zealand." Mr. Andersen said three volumes of Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (first, editions) were recently sold lor £2500. If, then, the first edition of these volumes was worth £2500, what was the full set of nine volumes worth, which the Turnbull Library contained ? For a copy of the first edition of Browning's first book. "Pauline," Mr. Turnbull paid 130 guineas. For the first edition of Mrs. Browning's first book, "The Battle of Marathon," he paid 70 guineas. A few months ago these two were sold in America, one for £2300, the other for £3500. Again, for a copy of the first edition of Milton's masque "Comus," Mr. Turnbull paid £854. The book is now worth £3OOO or move. The "Wessex Poems" of Thomas Hardy, a poet only recently dead, now fetch £3OO. Mr. Turnbull bought a copy of the late Joseph Conrad's first book, with an inscription in it by Conrad himself, for 13 guineas. A similar book,'with an inscription not so good, was recently sold for £425. A top price fetched by a novel recently, Folding's "Tom Jones," was £SBOO, and a copy of this was in the library. The Turnbull Library at the present time was worth between £250,000 and £500,000, and within 10 years it would be worth nearly £1,000,000. The only thing to regret, said Mr. Andersen, in conclusion, was that the English section was not now being kept up to date. The proper policy was that it should be a collection of New Zealand works principally, and English literature incidentally, but it would be wise if thai policy could be amended, so as to include the current works in English poetry especially, because it was the current writers who were producing the works that would command high figures in the future.