JOHN MILTON AT THE TURNBULL

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 8, Issue 1, 1 May 1975, Page 14

JOHN MILTON AT THE TURNBULL

J. E. Traue

V. G. Elliott

V. G. Elliott

I. The Purchase of a Collection

On 3 November 1974 a press statement from the Library confirmed that the Alexander Turnbull Library had purchased a major collection of 694 volumes of Milton and Miltoniana from a dealer in the United States which elevated its already good collection into one of the leading collections in the world. The collection was that of G. William Stuart Jr, a former librarian of Princeton University and the owner of the foremost Milton collection in private hands. Stuart’s collection of seventeenth century Milton items was ranked eleventh equal with the Turnbull Library’s collection in William Riley Parker’s census published in 1968.*

A portion of Stuart’s collection, some 450 volumes, was sold to the University of Western Ontario in 1969 for $190,000 Canadian; the remainder together with additional purchases since 1969 constituted the Turnbull purchase. The announced purchase price was NZ594,000 to be paid in equal instalments over five years. The cost is to be met by a grant of SIO,OOO from the T. G. McCarthy Trust, a guarantee of up to $25,000 from the Alexander Turnbull Library Endowment Trust and the remainder from the National Library’s book buying vote. The announcement was the culmination of eleven months of research and negotiations. It had been rumoured early in 1973 that a major Milton collection was likely to be offered for sale but it was not until early January 1974 that various enquiries led to the identification of the Stuart Collection and the Ravenstree Corporation of Pasadena as the vendor. The first approach to the vendor was made on 24 January 1974 eliciting a response dated 4 February suggesting that he could ‘either do a little’ for the library by offering selected duplicates ‘or we can do a great deal’.

The ‘great deal’ consisted of a collection estimated then at 360 items to be listed in September for sale as a collection ‘en bloc’. On 26 February the vendor was invited to place a price on the collection on the understanding that if it was within the Library’s reach a statement of intent to purchase would be forthcoming with a firm offer to purchase or a withdrawal made after the receipt of a detailed catalogue of the collection. On 11 March the vendor replied that ‘a fair price to both parties will be in the neighbourhood of NZs9B,ooo’. By 4 April after discussions with the Chairman of Trustees, Sir Alister Mclntosh, the Endowment Trust Board and the National Librarian, a reply was cabled to the United States indicating that guarantees to cover

payment of up to $98,000 spread over five years had been made and that on receipt of the catalogue a firm offer would be made. The catalogue arrived on 22 April and the evaluation of the collection began. Once a decision had been made in principle that a purchase of Milton and Miltoniana was a proper object of the Library and that finance was available without affecting seriously other collecting activities, a number of major questions required examination. What would the purchase add to the existing collection; what was the duplication rate and was it acceptable; what would be the true market value; what would be its value to Turnbull; would the advantage be such that it would be worthwhile to purchase the collection entire, and if not what would be the chances that the collection would not find another purchaser and would be offered for sale piecemeal? The answers were outlined in

a letter of 12 July to the vendor. ‘Although we should rather like to have first option in a piecemeal sale so that we could fill our gaps [because the total financial outlay would be less] on my calculation of the rate and the nature of the duplication against the value of the duplication in a research collection of this kind it is still in the Turnbull’s interest to purchase the collection entire. My argument is not that the price is too high in terms of the gains in new items to Turnbull but that it is too high on a realistic calculation of current market prices and of demand in absolute terms.’ After outlining the basis of the calculation and the weighting given to the various factors an offer was made to the vendor of $90,000. The vendor refused this valuation but agreed to ‘split the difference’ at $94,000 and a week later after further discussions the Library cabled acceptance of the offer subject to inspection. Mr H. A. Levinson, a Los Angeles dealer, was duly commissioned and reported to the Library’s satisfaction on 22 August.

By August the rumours of a devaluation of the New Zealand dollar were widespread and the vendor’s bankers advised strongly against acceptance of payment in New Zealand currency and in late September a devaluation of nine percent against the U.S. dollar was announced. A further round of negotiations resulted in the Library agreeing to payment in U.S. dollars. The arrangement, if the current relationship between the two currencies remains unchanged for the next five years will result in the payment exceeding NZSIOO,OOO. The vendor, in recognition of the Library’s agreement to accept the risks involved in exchange rate fluctuations, has offered the Library advantageous terms for future purchases. In mid-October the first shipment arrived by air freight and in early February the remainder of the collection moved on to the shelves of the Alexander Turnbull Library.

11. The impact on the Turnbull Collection In July 1892 Alexander Turnbull wrote to the London antiquarian bookseller, Bernard Quaritch, asking him to obtain copies of the 1645 and 1673 editions of the Poems of John Milton. The two volumes were to form part of a Milton collection which Turnbull intended eventually to make as complete as possible. He insisted at the outset that he be sent genuine copies (‘not made up at all’), leaving the price to Quaritch’s discretion. The new project was no idle extravagance. Turnbull, at 23, knew precisely what he wanted.

The collection was not limited to early editions or to works by Milton. Turnbull sought to build a research collection including works of criticism and interpretation and Miltoniana of every kind. It was an ambitious design which required not only heavy dependence on overseas dealers but also judicious selection on the part of the collector. Although not the only bookseller on whom Turnbull relied, the firm of Quaritch appears to have provided many of the rarer items including a copy of Justa Edovardo King naufrago (1638) offered for £lll in July 1896 and of the first edition of Comus sold for £6OO in April 1913. At his death, in the space of 26 years, Turnbull had succeeded in assembling a collection of international standing.

In the years that followed the Library attempted to build on the foundation Turnbull had established. But with the range of Turnbull’s original collections and the modest funds at its disposal it could, until recently, do little more than add modern material and an occasional older edition, mainly those published in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. The quality of the collection remained but its international stature declined with the growth of comparable collections in the United States. When an independent census of world holdings of seven-teenth-century Milton editions was published in 1968, the Turnbull collection ranked eleventh equal behind those of six American and four English libraries. In the absence of complete records it is difficult to determine the exact size of Turnbull’s contribution but it is likely that of the 72 seventeenth-century editions held by the Library in November 1974, 66 were acquired by Turnbull himself.

The neglect of the collection in the 56 years following Turnbull’s death is redeemed by the acquisition of the G. William Stuart Collection. The purchase includes obvious highlights such as the copy of the sixth titlepage of Paradise lost (1669) which completes the Turnbull set of the six issues of the first edition. But it is in its breadth and depth that the collection is most remarkable. It will increase the Library’s total holdings of editions of Milton’s works from 523 to 611, adding nine new seven-teenth-century editions and 44 published in the eighteenth century. On the basis of the 1968 census such an improvement would place the collec-

tion among the top six in the world. But important also is the increase in the number of copies held of each edition. The Stuart purchase strengthens the former collection immeasurably in this respect. It is in the field of Miltoniana, however, that the new collection will make perhaps its greatest impact. Here alone the purchase adds 323 new titles or editions including 186 published in the seventeenth century and 108 in the eighteenth century. The Library was already strong in material of this kind which supports the main collection of Milton editions but an improvement of this order must be seen as a major advance. The acquisition will here strengthen other areas of the Rare Book Collection and possibly provide new growing points for the future.

The Stuart Collection arrived at the Library early in February and has yet to be catalogued. Any report on its composition and strengths must remain preliminary. It is clear, however, that its acquisition will restore the Milton collection to a position approaching its former eminence. The purchase also affirms the wisdom of the young Turnbull’s original decision to establish in New Zealand a Milton collection of extraordinary depth and quality.

111. The Tercentenary Exhibition On 8 November 1974 Professor D. F. McKenzie of Victoria University of Wellington opened a display mounted in the Exhibition Room to commemorate the tercentenary of the death of John Milton. The exhibition was also intended as a tribute to the Library’s founder, Alexander Turnbull, and it was fitting that it should open in the week in which news of the Stuart purchase, the first major addition to the Milton collection since Turnbull’s death, was released.

The display was based on the Library’s collection of seventeenthcentury Milton editions including titles in which work by Milton was published. The 76 editions, starting with the Shakespeare Second Folio of 1632 and ending with the 1698 Complete collection, were arranged chronologically by the date of the first edition of each title. To accompany the exhibition, a printed catalogue was prepared giving brief notes on the content and early publishing history of the editions displayed. The exhibition also included a number of portraits of Milton and his contemporaries. The Library is indebted to the National Portrait Gallery, London, for permission to reproduce ten pictures, including the Onslow portrait of Milton at the age of 21, and to the Princeton University Library for allowing reproduction of the Bayfordbury portrait. The William Faithome engraving of Milton, aged 62, for which the Bayfordbury crayon may 1 have been the original drawing from life, also

featured in the display and served as the cover portrait for the catalogue. All the illustrations, including a number of engravings drawn from the Library’s collection, were contemporary works consistent with the limitation placed on the books exhibited. The debt to Alexander Turnbull was acknowledged with the mounting on the far wall of the Exhibition Room of an enlarged reproduction of his letter to Bernard Quaritch of July 1892 in which he stated his intention to form a Milton collection. Beneath, in a separate case, ten items from the newly acquired Stuart Collection were displayed. These volumes were airfreighted from California especially for the occasion. The exhibition closed early in February, coincidentally in the week in which the remainder of the Stuart Collection arrived.

* Parker, William Riley. Milton; a biography. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1968. v. 2, p. 1213.