  | PAGE | | CHAPTER I | | My Antecedents—How and Whence the Passion came to Me—My Father’s People—And My Mother’s—My Uncle—His Genuine Feeling for what was Old and Curious—A Disciple of Charles Lamb—Books My First Love—My Courtship of Them under My Father’s Roof—My Clandestine Acquisitions—A Small Bibliographical Romance—My Uncle as a Collector—Some of His Treasures—His Choice, and how He differed from My Father—An Adventure of the Latter at a Bookstall—Bargains—The Author moralises upon Them—A New View—I begin to be a Bibliographer—Venice strikes My Fancy as a Subject for Treatment—My Want of Acquaintance with It—Mr Quaritch and Mr Ruskin do not encourage Me—I resolve to proceed—I teach Myself what was Requisite to enable Me to do so—Some of My Experiences—Molini the Elder—The London Library Forty Years Ago—What became of My Collections for the Work—Preparing for Another and Greater Scheme, | 1 | | | CHAPTER II | | I survey the Ground before I start—I contemplate a New British Bibliography—Richard Heber—His Extraordinary Acquirements—His Vast Library—His Manuscript Notes in the Books—A High Estimate of Heber as a Scholar and a Reader—He eclipses all Other Collectors at Home and Abroad—A Sample or so of His Flyleaf Memoranda—A Few very Interesting Books noticed—A Historiette—Anecdotes of Some Bargains and Discoveries by Him and His Contemporaries—The Phoenix Nest at Sion College—Marlowe’s Dido—Mystery connected with the Library at Lee Priory—The Oldest Collections of English Plays—A Little Note about Lovelace—Heber’s Generosity as a Lender—His Kindness to Dyce—Fate of His Rarest Books—How He obtained some of Them—The Daniel Ballads and Their True History—Result of a Study of Heber’s Catalogue and other Sources of Knowledge—The Handbook appears—Mr Frederick Harrison and Sir Walter Besant pay Me Compliments, | 19 | | | 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, | 41 | | | CHAPTER IV | | Literary Results of My Acquaintance with Mr Huth—The New Bibliography in Progress, and the 1867 Book gradually superseded—Some Other Literary Acquaintances—George Daniel—John Payne Collier and Frederic Ouvry, His Son-in-Law—The Millers of Craigentinny—‘Inch-rule’ Miller—He purchases at the Heber Sale by Cartloads—My Efforts to procure Particulars of all the Rare Books at Britwell—I let Mr Christie-Miller have One or Two Items—An Anecdote—Mr Miller’s London House formerly Samuel Rogers’s—His Son—Where They are all buried—The Rev. Thomas Corser—His Fine Library—What It cost and what It fetched—His Difficulties in Forming It—Whither Much of It went—My Exploits at the Sale—Description of the House where the Books were kept—Mr Corser’s Peculiar Interest in My Eyes—His Personal Character—The Sad Change in the Book Market since Corser’s Day—Mr Samuel Sanders—A Curious Incident—Mr Cosens, Mr Turner and Mr Lawrence—Their Characteristics—Some Account of Mr Cosens as He gave It to Me—His Line of Collecting—My Assistance requested—A Few of His Principal Acquisitions and Their Subsequent Fortunes—Frederic Locker—His Idiosyncrasies—His Want of Judgment—His Confidences, | 57 | | | CHAPTER V | | Mr Henry Pyne—His Ideas as a Collector, and My Intercourse with Him—His Office One of My Regular Lounges—His Willingness to Part with Certain Books—I buy a Pig in a Poke, and It turns out well—Mr Pyne’s Sale—A Frost—I buy All the Best Lots for a Trifle—The Volume of Occasional Forms of Prayer and Its History—Pyne’s Personal Career and Relations—His Investigation of the Affairs of a Noble Family—The Booksellers—Joseph Lily—His Sale—His Services to Mr Huth—The Daniel Books in 1864—Daniel’s Flyleaf Fibs—The Event an Extraordinary Coup—The Napier First Folio Shakespear knocked down and out at £151—Why some Books are Dear without being Very Rare—F. S. Ellis and the Corser Sale—My Successful Tactics—He lends me Sir F. Freeling’s Interleaved Bibliotheca Anglo-poetica | 73 | | | CHAPTER VI | | My Transactions with Mr Ellis—Rarities which came from Him, and how He got Them—Riviere the Bookbinder—How He cleaned a Valuable Volume for Me—His Irritability—A Strange Tale about an Unique Tract—The Old Gentleman and the Immoral Publication—Dryden’s Copy of Spenser—The Unlucky Contretemps at Ellis’s—A Second Somewhere Else—Mr B. M. Pickering—Our Pleasant and Profitable Relations—Thomas Fuller’s MSS. Epigrams—Charles Cotton’s Copy of Taylor the Water-Poet’s Works—A Second One, which Pickering had, and sold to Me—He has a First Edition of Paradise Lost from Me for Two Guineas and a Half—Taylor’s Thumb Bible, | 93 | | CHAPTER VI
Confessions of a Collector
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