The
general inspiration for this “bibliocatechism” came from John T. Winterich’s Collector’s Choice (1926), a gathering
of essays offering advice to book collectors.
He devoted a chapter to his own bibliocatechism of fifty questions. His was more weighted to general literary
topics than this. I thought a version
focusing on rare book hunters would be an appropriate homage. The questions are wide-ranging within the
subject and carry no theme beyond whatever came to mind. May this entertainment stretch your
biblio-knowledge and provide a few moments of pleasant distraction. Answers are found at the end. For Part One see http://www.bookcollectinghistory.com/2018/02/a-book-hunters-bibliocatechism-part-one.html
26. This collector
claimed 160 acres of government land in Oklahoma based on his mother’s Creek
Indian bloodline. The land turned out to
be oil-rich and he was a millionaire before he turned twenty-five. His collection of art, books and manuscripts
on all phases of Indian culture became a well-known museum.
a) Edward Ayer
b) Thomas Gilcrease
c) Everett DeGolyer
d) Thomas W. Field
Bonus fact: His
wife was the winner of the 1924 Miss America contest.
27. In 2019, she became
the first woman to head the Christie’s NYC book department following in the
steps of such prominent bookmen as Stephen Massey, Francis Wahlgren, and Tom
Lecky. She is:
a) A. N. Devers
b) Heather O’Donnell
c) Christina Geiger
d) Gigi Austin
28. The infamous
Titanic disaster took many lives including a book collecting prodigy who died
at age 27. He was planning to attend the
next session of the Robert Hoe auction in NYC.
His grief-stricken mother built a great library at Harvard in his honor.
a) Harry Widener
b) Henry Folger
c) John T.
Rockefeller, 3rd.
d) Pierpont Morgan,
Jr.
29. One of the
foundation collections of the Humanities Research Center at UT-Austin was
acquired in 1958 (second batch in 1964).
This mighty collector assembled a spectacular library of modern
literature including association copies, manuscripts, and letters by James
Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Beckett, Shaw, and many more. He is little known because his collection was
absorbed into the institution.
a) Richard Oram
b) T. E. Hanley
c) Robert Lee Wolff
d) Thomas Staley
Bonus fact:
His second wife was an exotic dancer who became deeply interested in the
collection over time and wrote a racy autobiography late in life.
30. Called “Lefty” by
friends, this charismatic collector immersed himself in eighteenth century
English life via Horace Walpole. For
fifty years he gathered all things Walpole including printed works,
manuscripts, letters, books from Walpole’s library, portraits, drawings,
architectural designs, and artifacts. He
also gathered similar material of Walpole’s contemporaries. The massive collection is housed in
Farmington, Connecticut under the auspices of a major university close by. It is an essential research stop for anyone
researching 18th-century English life and letters.
a) Robert H. Taylor
b) James Harden
c) Wilmarth Lewis
d) Chauncey Tinker
31. She had a
fondness for John Keats above all, forming a major collection of his works and
writing an in-depth two volume biography of the poet. However, her 12,000-volume library (gifted to
Harvard) also contained important book, manuscripts and letters of many 18th
and 19th century authors including Hardy, Austin, Bronte and Ben
Johnson. In her own time, she was better
known as a writer. Who was she and what
was her best-known genre?
a) Margaret Fuller,
journalist
b) Emily Dickinson, poetry
c) Amy Lowell,
poetry
d) Gertrude Stein, novelist
Bonus fact:
She once graced the cover of Time magazine, reading a book.
32. He was an early
champion and collector of Joseph Conrad and authored Fishers of Books, a
first-hand view of the fevered collecting excitement of the 1920s. He also compiled a bibliography of Booth
Tarkington. Pummeled economically by the
Great Depression, he became disenchanted with expensive high spot collecting
and later focused more on his writing. He
had a lengthy career as editor of Country Gentleman, Ladies’ Home Journal¸
and World’s Work.
a) Richard Curle
b) Barton Currie
c) Christopher Morley
d) Barton Roscoe
33. She trained under
Wilberforce Eames and George Parker Winship.
She mentored a young Frederick Goff.
Her area of focus was incunabula, but she wrote on a variety of
bibliographic subjects. She was long-time librarian of the Annmary Brown
Memorial Library at Brown University.
Her autobiography Librarians are Human is one of the
underappreciated gems of biblio-literature and is filled with entertaining
vignettes of many well-known bookmen and women.
a) Henrietta Bartlett
b) Belle da Costa Greene
c) Margaret Stillwell
d) E. Miriam Lone
34. This renowned
urologist and teacher built several important book collections but his most
notable focused on Leonardo da Vinci. He
worked closely with bookseller Jake Zeitlin who supplied many of the gems over
four decades. His library of Vinciana
was gifted to UCLA.
a) Herbert E. Evans
b) Elmer Belt
c) John F. Fulton
d) Harvey Cushing
Bonus Fact: He
was a pioneer in sex reassignment surgery.
35. Formed over forty-five years, this extensive collection
documenting women at work contains well-known examples of women’s history and the
arts complimented by a wide range of material produced by women “scholars,
printers, publishers, laborers, scientists, artists, and political activists.” In 2015 the collection found at home at Duke
University’s Rubenstein Library. The collector
who assembled it is:
a) Lisa Ungar Baskin
b) Dorothy Sloan
c) Priscilla Juvelis
d) Mary Hyde
36. His recent untimely
passing sent reverberations throughout the rare book trade. He apprenticed with Jake Zeitlin before
opening his own book shop in partnership with his then wife. The two printed twenty-five titles under
their Press of the Pegacycle Lady in the 1970s.
Although an expert bookman in many areas, his Sixties roots were exemplified
by his formation of important collections on psychoactive drug related
literature and Vegetarianism, now at Harvard and the Lilly Library,
respectively. Later in life he bought and
renovated the Hacienda Hot Springs Spa in Desert Hot Springs.
a) William Dailey
b) William Reese
c) Michael R. Thompson
d) Frank Klein
37. His Principles
of Bibliographical Description forever changed the field of bibliography
drawing many disciples and not a few detractors.
a) Charlton Hinman
b) Philip Gaskell
c) William B. Todd
d) Fredson Bowers
Bonus fact: He
was avid breeder of dogs and judge at dog shows, his first book being a
handbook on dogs.
38. This collector
was chairman of Ginn & Heath publishers and built a world-class collection
of textbooks including manuscripts, incunabula, primers and hornbooks, now at
Columbia. He authored two well-received
books based on the collection, The Education of Shakespeare and The
Education of Chaucer. He also presented
a large library of Italian literature to Wellesley College in memory of his wife
and formed an extensive library on the French and Indian War.
a) George A. Plimpton
b) John Shaw Pierson
c) William Speck
d) Winston Coleman
Bonus fact:
His grandson was a notable journalist, literary editor, and sports
writer.
39. His father avidly
collected Stephen Foster. He decided to
pursue a much wider field, using many of the “most famous” biblio-lists as an
outline to construct a formidable collection with exceptional holdings in
literature, Americana, medicine, and science.
The collection became the foundation for one of the great rare book
libraries in the United States.
a) Henry Folger
b) Henry Huntington
c) J. K. Lilly, Jr
d) Walter Beinecke
Bonus fact: He
underwrote the funding for Jacob Blanck’s Bibliography of American Literature.
40. Thomas Streeter
ranks high on any list of legendary book collectors, but he was also a
formidable bibliographer, authoring the monumental Bibliography of Texas
1795-1845 based on his own collection. The auction of his Americana library at Sotheby
Parke-Bernet from 1966-1969 was a landmark sale. However, his Texana collection was not
included. Where did it go?
a) University of Texas-Austin
b) Alamo Research Center, San Antonio
c) Beinecke Library, Yale
d) Retained by the family and viewable by appointment
41. The Grolier Club
of NYC formally began admitting women members in 1976. (Although women gave guest lectures as early
as the 1890s.) The first woman to serve
as president of the Grolier Club (2002-2006) was this Churchill collector.
a) Mary Hyde
b) Anne Lyon Haight
c) Susan Jaffe Tane
d) Carolyn Smith
42. At age 11, he
purchased from the Henkels auction house an illustrated edition of Reynard
the Fox. Admitting afterward he was
insolvent for the amount, owner Stan Henkels laughed, put him on a payment
plan, and proclaimed he was “the very first baby bibliomaniac to come my way.” He would later be instrumental in building some
of the greatest collections of the 20th century and leave his own
collection to establish a museum.
a) Henry Huntington
b) A.S.W. Rosenbach
c) Henry Folger
d) Lathrop Harper
43. His family
business catalogues were groundbreaking and world renowned. His book collection of early illustrated books
and prints was arguably equal to the professional fame. He would gift the Library of Congress his
collection of books but retained it during his lifetime and added to its
holdings.
a) William Clements
b) William Andrews Clark
c) Walter Beinecke
d) Lessing Rosenwald
Bonus Fact:
The family business, Sears, rivaling the size of Walmart and Amazon in
its day, has descended into bankruptcy and dismemberment.
44. He was a prominent book collector
who made a fortune as a Broadway producer during the Twenties only to lose all
of it in the Depression. He also
published several distinguished literary limited editions via his Watch Hill
Press. In the 1930s and 40s he became
known for his writings on fine foods and wine.
David Randall in Dukedom Large Enough recounts how he acquired
and sold the collector’s books, a story not without adventure and tribulations. Randall notes that “the reason [he] stored
his library was to keep this asset from his creditors, as I found out when I tried
to sell it.”
a) Crosby
Gaige
b) Mitchell
Kennerley
c) Harry
B. Smith
d) Jerome
Kern
45. This champion water skier in his youth rose to prominence
in the accounting field. His collection
of Baskerville printings and biblio-material, particularly his auction / private
library catalogues, are world-class. He has
printed many pamphlets and ephemera on his private press for over fifty
years. He also has the ex-Folger Library
Hinman collator in his dining room.
a) William B. Todd
b) William P. Barlow, Jr.
c) Thomas Tanselle
d) Michael Winship
46. A transplanted
Englishman, he was a prominent Bay Area book dealer for decades. His autobiography Infinite Riches captures
his humor and personality along with telling many fine book stories.
a) Peter Howard
b) David Magee
c) John Windle
d) Jeffrey Thomas
47. This rare bookstore
was established in New Haven, Connecticut in 1915. It has had three owners including E. Byrne
Hackett, Franklin Gilliam, and the current proprietor, John Crichton. The shop’s various locations in its
illustrious history include Princeton, New York City, Austin, Houston, and San
Francisco.
a) Heritage Book Shop
b) Howell Books
c) Brick Row Book Shop
d) Serendipity Books
48. Rising to
prominence as a Texas novelist and man of letters, relatively few people know
that he has been an avid bookman since his days at Rice University. For many years he owned used /rare bookstores
in Washington, D.C. and Houston. Later,
he bought entire bookstores en bloc to establish a massive book emporium
located in Archer City, Texas. In 2012,
citing health concerns, he auctioned much of the stock off.
a) John Jenkins
b) John Graves
c) Larry McMurtry
d) Dan Jenkins
Bonus Fact:
His private library, housed in his residence, once the country club of
his hometown, holds a reputed 30,000 volumes.
49. An expert in
detective and mystery fiction, he has published and edited many volumes in the
field. He is the proprietor of the Mystery Bookshop in New York City. His
massive private collection of first / important editions, numbering almost
60,000 volumes, is housed in his chateau in rural Connecticut.
a) Peter Stern
b) Jim Pepper
c) Dan Posnansky
d) Otto Penzler
50. He was an avid fisherman
and published a well-regarded history of angling and its literature. He is more well-known for establishing a
famous bookshop whose logo was “Anything that’s a book.”
a) Charles Goodspeed
b) Walter M. Hill
c) Lathrop Harper
d) Peter Howard
Answers:
26. b
27. c
28. a
29. b
30. c
31. c
32. b
33. c
34. b
35. a
36. a
37. d
38. a
39. c
40. c
41. d
42. b
43. d
44. a
45. b
46. b
47. c
48. c
49. d
50. a
