Henry B. Wheatley

The exact date of the first introduction into England of the convenient plan of selling books by auction is known to us through the amiable weakness of the auctioneers for writing prefaces to the sale catalogues; and this history, therefore, is singularly unlike that of most other inventions and customs, the origin of which is usually open to doubt, because the originators have not thought it worth while to explain that they were doing some new thing. The auctioneers, on the other hand, tell us which was the first sale, and which were the second, the third, and the fourth. After this the freshness may be said to be exhausted, and we are contented with less exact particulars.

The custom was prevalent in Holland in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the honour of introducing it into England is due to William Cooper, the bookseller of Little Britain, about whom some notice has been given in a former chapter. He was largely interested in alchemy, and three years before he sold his first sale he published a “Catalogue of Chemical Books.”

We must not, however, suppose that this was the introduction of auctions into England, for sale by inch of candle had long been practised here, a plan adopted by the Navy Office for the sale of their old stores.

The earliest use of the word auction, quoted by Dr. Murray in the “New English Dictionary,” is from Warner’s translation of Plautus, 1595: “The auction of MenÆchmus, ... when will be sold slaves, household goods,” &c.; and the next quotation is from the Appendix to Phillip’s Dictionary, 1678: “Auction, a making a publick sale and selling of goods by an outcry.” We shall see that the word was far from familiar to the general public, as the auctioneers considered it wise to explain the word, thus: “Sale of books by way of auction, or who will give most for them.” The more usual words in old English were outcry, outrope (still familiar in Scotland as roup, cf. German ruf) and port sale.

The first sale by auction was that of the library of Lazarus Seaman, a member of the Assembly of Divines, and chaplain to the Earl of Northumberland. He was also minister of All Hallows, Bread Street, and Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. In the latter college a Diary written by him between 1645 and 1657 is preserved. He seems to have been an active man on his own side in politics, and we find that he was a member of the Committee for ejecting Scandalous Ministers for London and the Counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon. It is therefore not surprising to find that at the Restoration he was ejected both from his living and from the Mastership of Peterhouse. He died at his house in Warwick Court, London, in September 1675, and in the following year his library was sold in his house by Cooper, who makes the following interesting remarks in his preface—

“Reader, it hath not been usual here in England to make sale of Books by way of auction, or who will give most for them: But it having been practised in other countreys to the advantage both of buyers and sellers, it was therefore conceived (for the encouragement of Learning) to publish the sale of these Books this manner of way, and it is hoped that this will not be unacceptable to Schollers....”

Mr. Alfred W. Pollard, in a very valuable article on English Book Sales, 1676-80 (Bibliographica, vol. i. p. 373), quotes an interesting letter from David Millington to Joseph Hill, an English Nonconformist minister in Holland, dated June 1697, and now preserved in the British Museum (Stowe MS., 709), in which the writer tenders to the divine his thanks for the “great service done to learning and learned men in your first advising and effectually setting on foot that admirable and universally approved way of selling librarys amongst us;” and distinctly states that it was Hill who “happily introduced the practice into England.” Mr. Pollard goes on to say that “Hill, who from 1673 to 1678, owing to his publication of a pamphlet which gave offence to the Dutch Government, was resident in England, must have advised the executors of Dr. Seaman, a theologian of principles not widely different from his own, to adopt this method of selling his friend’s library to the best advantage.” Seaman was the author of “A Vindication of the Judgement of the Reformed Churches, &c., concerning Ordination, &c.,” 1647, and the chief class of books in his library was what we might expect to find, viz., theological works that he required in his vocation. Some few books (such as the Eliot Bible of 1661-63, nineteen shillings) fetched small prices as compared with their present value, but Mr. Pollard says that “nine-tenths of the books sold for more than they would at the present day.”

The library was a large one, and the lots numbered between five and six thousand, and the amount realised by the sale was a little over £700, which may be roughly estimated at about £3500 of our present money.

The second auction sale (February 1676-67) was also carried out by Cooper, and consisted of the library of Thomas Kidner, Rector of Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, who died 31st August 1676. The library, like that of Dr. Seaman, consisted largely of theological works. It is evident from Cooper’s preface to this catalogue that Seaman’s sale had given considerable satisfaction, although the reference to an attempt to stifle this manner of sale shows that there were some opponents of the system. Cooper writes—

The third sale (February 1677-78) was of the library of Thomas Greenhill, a Nonconformist minister of some repute, who died in 1671, seven years before his books were sold. This sale is worthy of note, for the auctioneer was Zachariah Bourne, and not Cooper, as in the two former cases. It took place at the Turk’s Head Coffee-House in Bread Street (in Ædibus Ferdinandi Stable, CoffipolÆ, ad insigne Capitis TurcÆ). Bourne states in his preface that—

The fourth sale (25th May 1678) was occupied with the library of Thomas Manton (1620-77), one of the ministers appointed to wait upon Charles II. at Breda. It took place at the house of the late possessor, in King Street, Covent Garden. More English literature was included in this library than in the former three. The auctioneer was Cooper, and his preface is worth quoting. It will be seen that the plan of allowing an inspection of the books before the sale had now been adopted—

Cooper was not satisfied with the catalogue, which had been made by one considered by him to be incompetent, and of whom he writes thus—

The sale of Benjamin Worsley’s library (May 1678) is interesting, as being the first auction in which a fair representation of old English literature occurs, in addition to the ordinary theological works. Chaucer (1602) fetched £1, 3s. 6d.; Ben Jonson’s Works (1640), £1, 13s. 6d.; Shakespeare, second folio, 16s., and third folio, £1, 8s. 6d. The auctioneers were John Dunsmore and Richard Chiswell, and the sale took place over against the Hen and Chickens, in Paternoster Row. The sixth sale consisted of the libraries of John Godolphin and Owen Philips, and took place in November 1678, when a Caxton—“Geffrey Chaucer’s translation of Boethius’ De Consolatione PhilosophiÆ in English”—fetched five shillings. We thus see that in two years there were only six sales. After this time they became more frequent, and in this same month of November 1678 an attempt was made at rigging a sale; the booksellers were so well satisfied with the prices obtained, that they thought it would be a good stroke of business to lift some of their old stock under the cover of a good name. Moses Pitt adopted this expedient, and issued a catalogue of books described as including “the library of a worthy and learned person deceased, with a considerable number of the choice books of most sciences, some of which have been bought out of the best libraries abroad, particularly out of the late famous and learned Gilbert Voetius’s.”

This fraud was greatly resented by the book-buyers, and it was felt by the other auctioneers that a blow had been dealt to the newly-established system of sale; so when in December of this same year the libraries of Lord Warwick and Gabriel Sangar came to be sold at the Harrow, over against the College of Physicians, in Warwick Lane, Nathaniel Ranew, the auctioneer, thought it expedient to make a statement in the preface to the catalogue, where he informed his patrons that this is “no collection made by any private hand (which hath been imputed to some auctions as a reflection), but the works were really belonging to their proprietors deceased mentioned on the title-page, and by the direction of their respective executors exposed to sale.”

Moses Pitt made up another sale in February 1678-79, chiefly of books printed at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, which took place in Petty Canons Hall, near St. Paul’s Churchyard. In June 1679 William Cooper sold the libraries of Stephen Watkins and Dr. Thomas Shirley (the catalogue of which contained an appendix of Richard Chiswell’s books) at the Golden Lion, over against the Queen’s Head Tavern, in Paternoster Row. John Dunsmore sold in November 1679 the library of Sir Edward Bysshe, Clarenceux King at Arms, at his house, near the sign of the Woolpack, in Ivy Lane. This library was more varied in its character than many of those that were sold before it, and it contained a considerable amount of French, Italian, and Spanish literature, including some early editions of MoliÈre. This catalogue is deserving of particular attention, because the books are described as “curiously bound and richly gilt.” Hitherto no mention had been made of bindings in the various catalogues. This attention to binding was to grow, and Thomas Hearne protested against it some years after. In his memoranda under date 15th February 1725-26 he wrote respecting the sale of John Bridges’ library: “I hear they go very high, being fair books in good condition, and most of them finely bound. This afternoon I was told of a gentleman of All Souls’ College (I suppose Dr. Clarke) that gave a commission of eight shillings for a Homer in two vols., a small 8vo, if not 12mo. But it went for six guineas. People are in love with good binding more than good reading.”38

The British Museum Library contains a valuable collection of early sale catalogues, and one of the volumes, containing the first eleven sales from Seaman to Bysshe, is of considerable interest from having the following note in Richard Heber’s handwriting—

Heber paid six shillings for this volume at Gough’s sale in 1810, and Charles Lewis’s labours in sizing and binding in 1824 cost £2, 15s. At Heber’s sale the volume sold for £3.

In April 1680 was sold “the Library of the Right Hon. George, late Earl of Bristol, a great part of which were the curiosities collected by the learned Sir Kenelm Digby, together with the Library of another Learned person.” It is impossible from the catalogue to tell which lots belonged to Sir Kenelm; and there seems to be little doubt that few of the books which he left in Paris when he came to London, and which were confiscated by the French Government on his death in 1665, were included in this catalogue. According to M. Delisle,39 Sir Kenelm’s books eventually reached the French national library. The proceeds of the sale of 3878 lots was only £908, and this does not look as if there were many of Digby’s books, nobly bound by Le Gascon, in this sale.

In 1681 Edward Millington’s name came into notice as the seller, in May of that year, of the libraries of Lawson, Fawkes, Stockden, and Brooks.

Richard Chiswell sold in 1682 the Bibliotheca Smithiana, or library of Richard Smith, Secondary of the Poultry Compter, who is better known to us as the author of the useful “Obituary” published by the Camden Society in 1849. This was probably the finest library brought to the hammer up to this date. Oldys wrote of the possessor, that “for many years together [he] suffered nothing to escape him that was rare and remarkable”; and he added, that his “extraordinary library makes perhaps the richest catalogue of any private library we have to show in print, making above four hundred pages in a very broad-leaved and close-printed quarto.” Richard Chiswell sold the library in May “at the auction house known by the name of the Swan, in Great St. Bartholomew’s Close.”

The auctioneer made the following remarks in his Address to the Reader—

Dibdin condemns the compiler of the catalogue severely, and adds—

Smith was one of the earliest collectors of Caxtons, and eleven books produced by our first printer sold for £3, 4s. 2d. at his sale. But one of the greatest points of interest connected with Smith’s library is that it included the books of Humphrey Dyson, collected at a much earlier date. Hearne notes in his “Collections”—

Under date 4th September 1715 Hearne says—

In another place Hearne describes Dyson as—

The following interesting entry from Smith’s catalogue corroborates Hearne’s statement as to Smith’s acquisition of Dyson’s books—

This lot only fetched seven shillings and sixpence.

The number of sales seem now to have increased annually, but it was some years before a library that could rank with Richard Smith’s was sold. In April 1683 the books of Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester, were sold (twenty-two years after his death) “by Samuel Carr, at his house of the King’s Head in St. Paul’s Churchyard.” About this time auction sales took place in various parts of the country, and Edward Millington was largely employed as a peripatetic auctioneer. In September 1684 he sold books at Stourbridge Fair (Bibliotheca Sturbitchiana). In 1686 two sales occurred at Trumpington (Obadiah Sedgwick in March, and William Whitwood in May) and two at Cambridge (Dr. Edmond Castell in June, and Rev. J. Chamberlaine, of St. John’s College, at Stourbridge Fair, in September). When we forget the change that has taken place in the value of money, and express our surprise that rare books should only realise a few shillings, we should note that the cost of the hire of thirteen carts for conveying Dr. Castell’s books from Emmanuel College to the sign of the Eagle and Child, where they were sold, was only three shillings.43 In 1685 and 1686 occurred the famous sales of the stock of Richard Davis, the Oxford bookseller, which was satirised in the Auctio Davisiana, noticed in an earlier chapter.

In 1682 William Cooper published a list of book-sales up to that date, and again a fuller list in 1687, which contained a note of seventy-four sales in the ten years 1676-86. The following note is printed on the back of page 33 of Catalogus Librorum BibliothecÆ viri cujusdam Literati, 14th February 1686-87—

This list is reprinted by Hartshorne in his “Book Rarities of the University of Cambridge,” 1829 (pp. 454-57), and it forms the text for two excellent articles by Mr. A. W. Pollard in Bibliographica.

In 1687 Millington sold the valuable library of Dr. Thomas Jacomb, a Nonconformist minister (Bibliotheca Jacombiana), which realised £1300; and in February of the following year the library of a counsellor of the Parliaments of Montpelier, which had been brought from France to be sold in England (Bibliotheca Mascoviana).

T. Bentley and B. Walford sold in November 1687 an interesting library of an anonymous but distinguished defunct—Bibliotheca Illustrissima, which is described as follows in the Address to the Reader—

A considerable number of sales took place between this date and the end of the century, but few were of any particular mark until the fine library of Dr. Francis Bernard came to the hammer in 1698.

Millington continued his travels in the country, and sold, among others, the library of Mrs. Elizabeth Oliver at Norwich in 1689, and some modern English books at Abingdon in 1692; and John Howell sold the Rev. George Ashwell’s library at Oxford in 1696.

Dr. Francis Bernard, physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, was also physician to James II. He was a good judge of books, and collected a very fine library, which was sold by auction in October 1698 at his late dwelling in Little Britain. Dibdin says he was “a stoic in bibliography. Neither beautiful binding nor amplitude of margin ever delighted his eye or rejoiced his heart; for he was a stiff and straightforward reader, and learned in literary history beyond all his contemporaries. His collection was copious and excellent.”

The account given of the doctor in the Address to the Reader prefixed to the catalogue is of considerable interest—

He had thirteen Caxtons, which sold altogether for less than two guineas, less than these books fetched at Richard Smith’s sale. A curious volume of Tracts, consisting of “The Bellman’s Night Walks” (1632), “The Bellman of London” (1608), “Life of Ned Browne,” “Cut Purse,” &c., sold for 2s. 8d.; Stubbe’s “Anatomie of Abuses” (1585), for 8d.; and Tusser’s “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry” (1590) for 4d. In spite of these low prices, the total amount of the sale was £1600, the expenses of the sale—4s. in the pound = £320—being deducted.

The catalogue was charged 2s. 6d.

The last sale in the seventeenth century to be recorded is that of John Lloyd, Bishop of St. Davids, sold in 1699 by John Bullord at Tom’s Coffee-House.

When auctions were first started conditions of sale were formulated, and with the exception of a little elaboration, they remain pretty much what they were at first; but there were certain peculiarities which are worthy of mention.

The catalogues were not at first divided into day’s sales, but as many lots as possible were sold in the time fixed for the sale. The hours were usually from nine to twelve, and from two to six. Sometimes the sales only took place in the evening. In 1681 we learn that an average sale of 544 lots in a day was considered satisfactory. In the Conditions of Sale printed in the Catalogue of Seaman’s library we read—

The early hour was found a disadvantage, and books often sold for low prices at the beginning of sales, so that Cooper was forced to make a rule that the sale should not be commenced unless there were twenty present. At this time biddings of a penny were common.

Two great evils came to light on the first institution of auctions; one was due to the buyers, and the other to the auctioneers. It was found that in cases where the buyer thought he had given more for a book than was wise, he often forgot to pay and fetch away the books. Millington refers specially to this in 1681—

The other evil was the attempt of the booksellers to get rid of some of their old stock by introducing it into the sales of collectors’ libraries. This trick has already been alluded to.

The frequenters of auctions seem to have been very jealous of being bid against by any one interested in the sale. This jealousy found voice in the complaints of Wanley and others at Bridges’ sale in 1726.

The lots were not numbered throughout in the catalogues, but the octavos, quartos, and folios were each numbered separately, the number of each section running on from the previous day’s sale. This is very confusing, as when you look at the end for the purpose of finding the total number of the lots, you only find the number of folios in the sale. Millington found that it was not advisable to bid for books, in case it might be supposed that he was running them up in price, and Mr. Pollard believes that he adopted a plan of getting men to bid for him.

In corroboration of this view Mr. Pollard refers to a copy of the catalogue of the libraries of Button, Owen, and Hoel, 7th November 1681, in the British Museum which belonged to Millington. It has two receipts by persons whose names are among the bidders for money received from Millington for various books. “At first sight this seems a reversal of what we should expect, but after the first few sales the auctioneers had renounced the right of making bids themselves, lest they should be accused of running up prices, and Millington had obviously employed these friends to bid for him.”45

Another evil connected with auctions comes from knocks out, which are thoroughly dishonest, and in fact, criminal, being, as they are, a form of conspiracy, but the agreements of two persons not to bid against one another are not necessarily to be condemned. Mr. Henry Stevens was very urgent against any kind of agreement, and in his reminiscences amusingly describes his frustration of a knock-out; and it has been said that when the Duke of Roxburghe and Lord Spencer made an agreement, they were parties to a knock-out; but this view is founded on a fallacy, viz., that whatever price a book fetches at public auction is the proper price. We know, however, that this is not correct; for instance, the Valdarfer Boccaccio fetched its huge price at the Roxburghe sale because two great book-buyers with long purses bid against one another. When one of these buyers died and the book was again in the market, seven years after the first sale, the survivor obtained the book at a smaller price. Hence who is to say whether £2260 or £918 is the actual value of the book!