book must have pleased Herford, judging from what the output of a group of American publishers active he wrote in the copy he gave Small. between and , including all those named Apparently Herford enjoyed creating elaborate above as well as a considerable number from the next presentation inscriptions, even to autograph seek- generation. A copy of any of these publishers’ books ers. Laurence Hutton, who made a habit of asking that was presented by the author to the publisher authors for signed copies, was rewarded by Herford (or vice versa) is naturally of particular interest to with a verse on the divisional title following the me, and I was delighted to add the Herford book copyright page of the Alphabet: “H is for Hutton / to my collection. and Herford (that’s me) / Who made all this won- Another of the pleasures that comes from focusing derful picture book — / see?” At the lower right, on a group of publishers with a common sensibility is below the verse, Herford drew a tiny rendition of to fi nd that some of the same authors keep turning a self-portrait similar to the much larger one in up on the lists of diff erent publishers in the group. my copy. ($ is page is reproduced in Hutton’s Herford is no exception. My collection of Mitchell book, Talks in a Library.) I would not be surprised Kennerley’s publications includes Herford’s adapta- if versions of Herford’s self-portrait appear in other tion of Ferenc Molnár’s # e Devil (), his book inscribed copies as well. Happy Days (written with John Cecil Clay, ), I purchased my copy of the Alphabet from William and A. S. W. Rosenbach’s # e Unpublishable Memoirs Dailey of Los Angeles in December . ($ e let- (), which he illustrated. I have two other books ter I bought in April at the Alta California he illustrated in my R. H. Russell and Stewart Kidd Bookstore, then in Berkeley; it shows signs of its life collections. And my Paul Elder books include the in the autograph trade, with “Herford” in blue pencil whole run of the “Cynic’s Calendar” series (–), and “(Oliver Herford)” in black pencil at the top of which he created with the writer-artist Ethel Watts- the fi rst page of text, and “” stamped in blue on Mumford Grant and the architect Addison Mizner. the second.) My reason for acquiring the book (and $ us my copy of An Alphabet of Celebrities has asso- then the letter) was not an interest in Herford but in ciations for me in addition to the Herford-Small the publisher. For fi fty years I have been collecting association that is evident in the book itself.
with Conan Doyle. While Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, Starrett immortalized them. . Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett (–) was ! e Hound upon My Bookshelf born in Toronto and moved with his family to Chicago as a boy. A legendary Chicago newspaperman, he J L made himself one of America’s best-known bookmen, Private colle4 or thanks to volumes like Buried Caesars (), Et Cetera (), Books Alive (), Bookman’s Holiday (), and Books and Bipeds (), and the many years that A. Conan Doyle. his weekly “Books Alive” column ran in the Chicago ! e Hound of the Baskervilles. Tribune from to . London: George Newnes, . Starrett loved many diff erent writers and schools of literature, but the author of whom he was fond- est was the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Starrett’s f you deeply love the ground-breaking book, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes storiesI by A. Conan Doyle (– Sherlock Holmes, defi ned the great detective’s life and ) — not just enjoy them, but fall in love with times for Americans, and prompted the creation of them for keeps — it is only a little while before you the Baker Street Irregulars (BSI), a club whose busi- become as familiar with Vincent Starrett as you are ness is, according to its founder Christopher Morley,
. Lellenberg: # e Hound upon My Bookshelf Entry .
Sherlock Holmes affi cionado and Chicago bookman Vincent Starrett enhanced his copy of the fi rst English edition of # e Hound of the Baskervilles by inserting into the book fi ve illustrations by Sidney Paget from the fi rst American edition, bringing the total number of plates to twenty-one.
Other People’s Books “to perpetuate the myth that Sherlock Holmes the name Starrett chose for it was “$e Hounds of is not a myth.” Starrett has been co-identifiable the Baskerville (sic).” with the BSI ever since. He attended the club’s first $e mo first edition of #e Hound that is the annual dinner in New York in , he edited its first focus of this essay is from Starrett’s second and best anthology of BSI scholarship in (B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes collection, assembled from the late Sherlock Holmes), and he remains its patron saint to s into the early s, and reluctantly sold in this day. A facsimile first edition of #e Private Life, . Overseeing the sale was David A. Randall, then with new scholarly apparatus, was published in manager of the rare-books department of Scribner’s to mark its seventh-fifth anniversary.¹ Book Store on Fifth Avenue in New York. Later Financially, Starrett nearly always skated on thin the head of the Lilly Library at Indiana University, ice. His income from writing was not great, and his Bloomington, Randall was a Baker Street Irregular second wife, whom he married in , had serious himself. For this sale, he and Starrett created the and sometimes costly health problems. $ree times he memorable Catalogue of Original Manuscripts, and managed to amass a great Sherlock Holmes collec- First and Other Important Editions of the Tales of tion; each time he was eventually forced to sell it. Sherlock Holmes, as Written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. $ough Starrett’s collections could boast many Together with Important Biographies, Pastiches, Articles, precious, even unique items, The Hound of the Etc., and a Few Extraordinary Association and Unique Baskervilles held special importance for him. After Items, which contains a strong streak of whimsy. Conan Doyle had killed off his most popular charac- Alongside legitimate entries for items in Starrett’s ter in , #e Hound of the Baskervilles brought him collection are convincingly written but entirely fanci- back onto the printed page in , when Starrett was ful ones, for items such as monographs by Sherlock an impressionable fifteen-year-old. In his book Holmes that exist only in Dr. Watson’s tales — such on Holmes, Starrett called the novel: as Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos, in which, said Holmes in the novel #e Sign the most celebrated of the many adven- of Four, “I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of tures of Sherlock Holmes. $e immortal tale cigar, cigarette, and pipe tobacco, with coloured plates began its career in the pages of the Strand illustrating the difference in the ash.” [Magazine] in , and was in covers under About Starrett’s copies of The Hound of the date of the following year. It was in this same Baskervilles, though, there was no whimsy. $e cata- year — — that Conan Doyle received his logue offered two copies of the first edition and one of knighthood and became Sir Arthur. Editorial the first U.S. edition.³ Even a poor man like Starrett gossip of the period had it that the honour could manage to own them in those days because #e was bestowed in recognition of his work in Hound of the Baskervilles was not an explicitly rare South Africa, and his history of the Boer book. As Starrett wrote in #e Private Life, War; but devotees of Sherlock Holmes knew better. It was a mark of royal gratitude for the . . . the book appeared in March of , and return of Sherlock Holmes, one ventures, and became a classic overnight. The enormous positively nothing else.² popularity of Holmes, however, dictated a large first printing of the volume; in consequence $e novel’s appearance launched the Holmesian of which, it is still possible, without great dif- mock-scholarship of which Starrett’s Private Life ficulty or expense, to obtain a copy of that first was both a landmark and a new foundation, and edition. Decidedly, it is a book to own.⁴ which the Irregulars practice to this day. When Starrett, with another Tribune columnist, Charles $at same year, in a letter to Holmes collector and Collins, and the presidents of Chicago’s Newberry scholar Dr. Gray Chandler Briggs of St. Louis, Library and Ethical Cultural Society — Stanley Starrett called .s (approximately six dollars) “a Pargellis and Horace Briggs, respectively — founded trifle high” for a first edition Hound, “but not so much a local chapter of the Baker Street Irregulars in , so if it’s a fine copy.”⁵
. Lellenberg: #e Hound upon My Bookshelf Ten years later, one of his copies of the first edition along its left side’s bottom half; and the additional was offered at twenty dollars, but a second copy — the sixth, correctly printed plate from the first U.S. edi- one under consideration here — was priced at twice tion, showing Holmes and Watson shadowing Sir that, because Starrett had taken some pains with it. He Henry Baskerville down Regent Street, is missing. described it in the Scribner’s catalogue as follows: $ere is a further detail about the illustrations not mentioned in the Scribner’s catalogue. $e Extra-illustrated reading copy of this master- first edition’s plates all bear, beneath the bottom piece, enhanced by the insertion of the plates right corner of the image, the page number on which from the New York edition. $ese are five in the corresponding text appears. In all but one case, number and occur at pages , , , those plates in the first edition as published were and . The other New York illustrations located opposite or before the corresponding pages. duplicate the illustrations in the London But the one bearing page number (“$e Hound edition. I have, however, included, at page of the Baskervilles,” showing the beast in homicidal , the picture showing Holmes and Watson pursuit of Sir Henry) was opposite page in the in Regent Street, as correctly printed for the first edition. In his copy, Starrett moved it to face New York edition. In the English edition the page , close to the corresponding text, and on figures are reversed, as is the artist’s signature. the book’s list of illustrations he corrected the page From both editions many admirable illustra- number in pencil. tions are omitted, and may be found only in Precisely when Starrett acquired this copy is the original issues of the Strand Magazine. unknown. His first Holmesian writing occurred in : a review of His Last Bow, Conan Doyle’s next- Who purchased this copy sixty-six years ago is to-last volume of Holmes stories, for the Chicago unknown. Some fifteen years ago, it came into the newspaper Reedy’s Mirror. In Starrett composed hands of London book dealer Nigel Williams, who what is still regarded as the finest Holmes pastiche, sold it to a private collector. In it was offered The Adventure of the Unique Hamlet, published in for sale again, this time by Adrian Harrington Rare an edition of two hundred copies by the Chicago Books, London, making it possible to bring the vol- bookseller Walter M. Hill.⁷ He met Conan Doyle ume back to Chicago where Starrett lived out his life in , when the author’s American speaking tour and died in at the age of eighty-seven. brought him to Chicago. As mentioned above, #e The copy is in good but not fine condition; Private Life of Sherlock Holmes came out in , and seldom if ever could Starrett afford the luxury of B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes in . $en in , immaculate first editions. His bookplate is on the with Britain under attack by Nazi bombers, Starrett inside front cover, and his signature on the flyleaf penned a sonnet that quickly became, and remains, in ink. In pencil he ticked off, as in his possession, the American Holmesian movement’s credo: presumably, most of the other Conan Doyle titles listed opposite the dedication page as “By the Same Here dwell together still two men of note Author.” As for the copy’s illustrations, the – Who never lived and so can never die: Strand Magazine serialization of #e Hound of the How very near they seem, yet how remote Baskervilles had been illustrated by Sidney Paget $at age before the world went all awry. (–), who between and his death did But still the game’s afoot for those with ears more than anyone else to create the public image of Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo: Sherlock Holmes. Sixteen of the sixty Strand illustra- England is England yet, for all our fears — tions for #e Hound were used in the first edition; to Only those things the heart believes are true. those sixteen, Starrett added the five additional Paget plates from the first U.S. edition.⁶ A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane Time and handling have taken their toll. One of As night descends upon this fabled street: the extra-illustrated plates is loose; another is loose A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
Other People’s Books $e ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet. you ought to start another. Why not start with Here, though the world explode, these mine? It is small but goodish — it contains a two survive, number of the better pieces that you might And it is always eighteen ninety-five.⁸ have difficulty duplicating — and I am boxing it up this afternoon and getting it off to you Having to sell his collection the following year tomorrow morning. You will really take a load was a terrible blow. But there is a welcome postscript off my mind if you will accept it.” to the tale, related by Starrett in his autobiog- raphy Born in a Bookshop about a fellow bookman “I suppose no finer thing ever was done for one col- and Irregular, his friend Dr. Logan Clendening of lector by another,” said Starrett. “It was the nucleus Kansas City, Missouri: of a new collection and, touched and overwhelmed by the gift, I began upon it at once.”⁹ Once more when financial disaster threatened, Vincent Starrett’s extra-illustrated copy of #e I was obliged to sell some of my books. I had Hound of the Baskervilles sits on a bookshelf in my brought together perhaps the finest collection library, inside a red-leather box some previous owner of Sherlockiana in the world, which I prized had made for it. $e book is more precious to me above gold and rubies; but when the rub came than any mint copy of the first edition could be. It it had to go. I was pretty sick about this catas- is part of the history that made Sherlock Holmes trophe and, for a time, I thought I never would literature’s most universally recognizable character, collect books again. Then a beautiful thing and part of the spirit that animates the Baker Street happened. My loss had been well publicized Irregulars, of which Starrett was still a member when by the appearance of Scribner’s fine catalogue I joined it thirty-seven years ago. One of his last of my collection, and one other collector at acts was to send greetings to those attending the least knew how I was feeling about it. It was BSI annual dinner on January , ; the following a casual sort of letter. “My dear boy,” it said in afternoon we learned that he had died that day. effect, “I find that I am not getting as much For many of us raised on Starrett’s prose and fun out of my Holmes collection as I had poetry, however, that was not one of the things our anticipated. I have too many other hobbies to hearts believed was true; and this association copy do justice to this one. I hear that you have just of #e Hound of the Baskervilles helps keep Vincent parted with your own collection, and I think Starrett alive for me.¹⁰
Vincent Starrett, #e Private Life of Pages : “$e driver pointed with press of Edwin Hill of Ysleta, Tex. See Sherlock Holmes, ed. Raymond Betzner his whip. ‘Baskerville Hall,’ said he”; the present writer’s Irregular Records of (Indianapolis: Gasogene Books, ). : “His face seemed to be rigid with the Early ’Forties (New York: Fordham expectation as he stared out into the University Press, ), pp. –, . Vincent Starrett, #e Private Life of blackness of the moor”; : “Sir Henry It had already been privately circulated Sherlock Holmes (New York: Macmillan, suddenly drew Miss Stapleton to his among the Baker Street Irregulars, and ), p. . side”; : “It was a prostrate man, face was given broad public exposure in a A. Conan Doyle, #e Hound of the downward”; : “He stood upon a new collection of BSI writings in , Baskervilles (London: George Newnes; chair, and curved his right arm over the Profile by Gaslight, ed. Edgar W. Smith New York: McClure, Philips, ). broad hat and round the long ringlets.” (New York: Simon and Schuster, ). Starrett (note ), pp. –. Both Starrett and Hill were members of Vincent Starrett, Born in a Bookshop $e letter, dated Nov. , , is in the Caxton Club of Chicago, publisher (Norman: University of Oklahoma “Dear Starrett — “/”Dear Briggs — ,” eds. of the present volume. Press, ), pp. –. John Nieminski and Jon Lellenberg First published in Two Sonnets (the I wish to thank my fellow Irregulars (New York: Fordham University Press, other, “Sonnet on Baker Street” by Ray Betzner, George Fletcher, Julie ), p. . $e book is the first volume Christopher Morley) in in the McKuras, and Donald Pollock for their in my BSI Archival History series. Sherlockiana series of leaflets prepared assistance in preparing this essay. by Starrett and printed on the hand
. Lellenberg: #e Hound upon My Bookshelf