New York Book Magnates

“If I were rich,” said a well-to-do broker to me recently, “I’d spend a few hours every day in one of those book dens on Fifth Avenue. Their proprietors are delightful people; the surroundings are as comfortable as a club library. Only it is so intimate there, and they always seem to have the very things that one wants—and they are so darned expensive. They seem to be in touch with the whole world, and the mere fact that they always have new things whenever I drop in is sufficient proof that the genus of book-worms is not on the dying-out list, and that people buy costly books even in our times of so many other lures.”

Of course, there are book buyers today who expend thousands and thousands of dollars for rare books, but whom we would not class with the enthusiastic broker who wished to be rich in order to be able to follow his hobby. Rich men often buy their books as investments. They have their brokers who attend auctions for them, and one day we read that Mr. So-and-So bought such-and-such a book for a staggering sum of money, and six months later we receive a catalogue from an auction house telling us that the very same “book lover” will dispose of “duplicates” from his library at auction. And, lo! we find the very same much-advertised rare book in this catalogue. If we compare the price he receives with the price he paid several months ago; we will invariably understand why a stock gambler was induced to become a book-lover.

But, as I said, we still have antiquarians of the old school with us, and we also have book-sellers who have preserved Ben Johnson’s spirit in the book dealers’ guild.

Gabriel Wells

It is not so very long ago that Mr. Wells did not occupy his palatial suite on Fifth Avenue, and the enthusiasm he then had for his books and for their authors is his today. Fine sets of well-known authors and also of the minor lights, are his specialties. Printed on beautiful papers, wonderfully bound, marvelously extra-illustrated, inscribed by their authors, they are there on his shelves. They seem alive, they seem to talk to you, they seem to smile to you a welcome—if Mr. Wells feels you a friend, a brother lover of books. The whole world knows about Mr. Wells’ beautiful sets of books, and whoever wants a rare, unusual edition comes to Mr. Wells, or writes to him, or wires to him, or cables to him, dealers as well as private buyers. And if he has time, he may ask you to view the original manuscript of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “New Arabian Nights,” or of Victor Hugo’s “Ninety Three.” Or he will show you a bundle of letters written by Thomas Payne, the draft of a speech in Lincoln’s own hand ... he could fill a museum with the material wrapped up in his safe. And the most delightful thing is the free air of hospitality in his den. I don’t know another place where one can lounge around more comfortably ... and not to forget his assistant, Mr. Royce, the Balzac enthusiast, who compiled the only Balzac bibliography in existence.

Mr. Drake

Opposite the library in a white stucco house with a narrow stairway and gothic arched windows is the sanctum of Mr. James F. Drake. He is a jovial old gentleman who knows more about the first editions of English and American authors than any other book dealer. It is his pride to be the first in New York to specialize in first editions, and he is as well known in London as on this side of the ocean. First editions inscribed by the authors line the book cases along the walls, and rare prints and pamphlets nod and invite you behind their shining glass cases.

Mitchell Kennerley

Some day (I hope in the near future) some one will write a true appreciation of Mitchell Kennerley, the great Pathfinder in the American publishing field. He has done more for us here than any other English book dealer ever anywhere, with the exception perhaps of Heineman in London. In America, Mitchell Kennerley remains unique. Endless is the list of English and American authors he introduced to his readers for the first time. We know, for instance, that Dutton’s sold in one month the complete first edition of Leonard Merrick’s collected works, and thousands of copies of his books since. But Mitchell Kennerley introduced him to us twelve years ago, when no one knew his name. Or Hergesheimer, a best seller ever since the Saturday Evening Post placed him among its regular contributors, but Mitchell Kennerley published his best seller of today many years ago. He gave us the tragic poets Middleton and Davidson, and no one has printed them since. The first part of his catalogue is a roll of honor of the English nineties. He always kept a sharp eye for American contemporary authors, and usually got the best of the work they had done and, I am sorry to say, ever will do. There is Harry Kemp, for instance. He didn’t beat his first book yet, published by Kennerley a half dozen years ago. Horace Traubel found his life’s dream materialized when Mitchell Kennerley published his diaries With Walt Whitman in Camden. Not to forget Alexander Harvey’s masterful short stories. One of them (The Toe) is worth a whole bookshelf of short stories. And dear Michael Monahan, whose charming books he published, whose magazine, The Papyrus, he gave a temporary home.

Mitchell Kennerley also claims the honor of having introduced Frank Harris to America.

Possessor of 60,000 Original Drawings

A new type of bookseller has developed during the last twenty-five years—a man who combines part of the knowledge of the antiquarian of yore with the qualities the modern collector and book buyer will request from his agent. Books and literary property have become commercial values equal to stocks which are listed upon the stock exchange; subject to corners created by shrewd buyers and holders, to fluctuations caused by selling en masse. The successful rare-book dealer of today must operate with his wares like a stock broker. The banker who starts his business with a limited capital and operates on a legal interest basis has very little chance to become rich. But if he succeeds in acquiring with his limited capital the entire stock of a mine which proves a success after he acquired it has equal chances to make money as the rare-book dealer who has had the good fortune to buy for a farthing the entire literary property of a man who proves a celebrity after his death and whose manuscripts are worth a hundred times their weight in gold.

Harry Stone is a book dealer of the new type. He acquired his knowledge here and there. The desire to wander from his earliest youth made him pass the entrance exam into the university of hard knocks. He always loved books. He was always buying books. Eagerly he absorbed books on books, articles about books and authors and ... Auction Prices Current. After he had acquired a collection of curious books which would fill the shelves of a good-sized store, he started his shop on Fourth Avenue, that avenue that once led to the Astor Library and that was lined with bookshops on both sides.

He not only appreciated the commercial value of books, but he read them. Especially those that were scarce and more valued than other works by the same authors. And he learned to respect the men who wrote these books. His shop became the gathering-place of literature. Wrecked hopes of authors and publishers found in Stone’s shop a safe harbor. He paid a fair price for everything of value offered him and soon he was known as the dealer in quaint and curious books and pamphlets.

Good fortune knocked on his door. One rich find came after another. He was able to supply collectors and other book dealers with long-sought-after items.

Recently he acquired the most complete collection of American drawings by magazine illustrators that was ever gathered under one roof. Sixty thousand specimens of American and foreign artists whose works have appeared in American illustrated magazines he bought from the files of leading publishers.

In an astonishingly short time he made himself acquainted with his new field. He became a walking encyclopaedia of American illustrators. He searched libraries and other resources for biographical data of lesser-known artists whose works are included in his collection. He studied the different periods of art development in America and again he made his shop not only the gathering-place of his customers but an interesting meeting-place of artists and of connoisseurs.

He is very young—not thirty yet—a bright young fellow with a keen sense of appreciation; because he knows that only the good will stand the proof of time and will last and will eventually become a good investment. He knows the border-line between artist and businessman; he never transgresses into foreign territory, and therefore one can call him justly an idealist, at times—when he talks about art.

1919