The Confessions of a Collector

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The Handbook of 1867 and Its Fruits?Mr Henry Huth ?His Beneficial Influence on My Bibliographical Labours?He invites Me to co-operate in the Formation of His Library?I edit Books for Him? He declines to entertain the Notion of a Librarian ?My Advantages and Risks ? A Few Heavy Plunges?A Barnaby's Journal?A Book of Hours of the Virgin?The Butler MSS.?Archbishop Laud?Montaigne?Mr Huth answerable for My Conversion into a Speculator?The Immense Value of the Departure to My Progress as a Bibliographer ?A Caxton from the Country?Why I had to pay so Much for It?Mr Huth's Preferences ? His Americana?Deficiencies of His Library gradually supplied?His Dramatic Series ? Beaumont and Fletcher and Ben Jonson?Mr Huth a Linguist and a Scholar?His First Important Purchase? Contrasted with Heber ?The Drawer at Mr Quaritch's kept for Mr Huth?His Uncertainty or Caprice explained by Himself?His Failing Health becomes an Obstacle?The Fancy a Personal One. THE appearance of the Handbook introduced me to the late Mr Henry Huth, and gave me the free range for years of his fine library, with the incidental advantage of assisting in its enlargement, and in the preparation of the catalogue. I had written to Mr Huth in the winter of 1866, soliciting the title and collation of a unique book in his hands, and he wrote back, furnishing the information not quite correctly, but stating that he was always, when in town, at home on Sunday afternoons. This slight incident produced a ten years' intimacy, and was instrumental in inaugurating a new era in my bibliographical career. It was when I had reached the letter K in the alphabet that I added Mr Huth to my acquaintance, and thenceforward my book, as it appeared in parts, reflected in its pages the beneficial fruit of weekly visits to that gen...