Colby Quarterly Volume 2 Issue 6 May Article 3 May 1948 "With Admiration and Love" Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq Recommended Citation Colby Library Quarterly, series 2, no.6, May 1948, p.85-108 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Quarterly by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Colby. et al.: "With Admiration and Love" Colby Library Quarterly Series II May 1948 No.6 "WITH ADMIRATION AND LOVE" ACK in 1893, Edwin Arlington Robinson agreed to lend a highly prized book to his friend Harry De­ B Forest Smith (Bowdoin, '91). In sending it, Robin­ son wrote: "Be as careful as possible of the book, for I think a great deal of it.... You have no idea how much associa­ tions are to me. Some little thing, almost ridiculous in it­ self, acquires a value in my eyes that sometimes makes me ashamed of myself." The lVIaine poet is not the only one who has ever felt embarrassed by his sentimental attachment to "some little thing." We all do. Yet as long as human friendships con­ tinue, books that are associated with those friendships ,viII not cease to "acquire a value." As John "r. Winterich puts it, "everyone who owns books ... owns association copies. ... It may be a prize won at school. It may be ... a book that has felt the touch of a loved but vanished hand.... It may have been a faithful companion on a far journey. Once removed from the protection of a hand that loves them, association copies of this class are obviously of little value. But consider such association books as the follow­ ing: Shakespeare's copy of Florio's translation of Mon­ taigne's essays, with Shakespeare's autograph on the fly­ leaf ... [or] the copy of Keats's Lamia which was found in Shelley's pocket after his body had been recovered from the sea; [or] the Yellow Book from which Browning created The Ring and the Book Here are association books of obvious, enduring, and universal interest."l 1 A Primer oj Book-Collecting by John T. Winterich and David A. Randall (New York, 1946),45-46. Published by Digital Commons @ Colby, 1948 1 Colby Quarterly, Vol. 2, Iss. 6 [1948], Art. 3 86 Colby Library Quarterly Of the enduring nature and mounting value of this in­ terest, one illustration may be given. In 1813 the poet Shel­ ley had a small edition of Queen Mab printed, for private distribution. One of the copies he eventually gave to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, and in it he subsequently wrote: "You see, Mary, I have not forgotten you." In 1816 they were married, and two years later, when they left England for Italy, Mrs. Shelley carried the Queen l\![ab witll her. The poet died in 1821. Upon Mrs. Shelley's death thirty years later, her copy of Queen ]\![ab passed into other hands and in 1888 it was bought for $100 by.General Brayton Ives. In 1891 he sold it for $190 to Charles W. Frederickson, a cotton broker of American Civil War fame. After his death (in May 1897), his library was sold at auction and the Queen Mab was bought for $650 by Harry B. Smith, who made it a part of his famous "Sentimental Library." About the time of World War I, Dr. i-\. 8. ,tV. Rosenbach bought this library en bloc, and shortly sold the Queen Mab (along with other volumes) to William K. Bixby of St. Louis for $12,500. Bixby in turn sold the book in 1918 to Henry E. Huntington, and it is 110W in the Library at San Marino which Mr. Huntington turned over to the public in 1920. He was once quoted as having said: "The ownership of a fine library is the surest and swiftest way to immortality." The Queen Mab is only one of many association-volumes that help to make the California collection "a fine library.H Henry E. Huntington would not have called the Colby College Library'''a fine library," but it lIas its own modest share of association books. No attempt has been made to collect at Waterville a Sentimental Library along Harry B. Smith lines, but the sentimental interest of many of its volumes is not the less "obvious and enduring." Until this year no effort had been made to assemble these association books, either for exhibition or for listing; but the following descriptive check-list of a representative selection of Colby's sentimental items has now been prepared to ac­ company an exhibition of the books, and is here offered for your information. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq/vol2/iss6/3 2 et al.: "With Admiration and Love" Colby Library Quarterly 87 1. ABBOTT, JACOB: The Corner-Stone. Boston: William l>eirce, 1834. First Edition; gray-green cloth; with pre­ sentation inscription to: "Miss Mary H. Merrick with the sincere regards of the Author." In 1835 this book became the object of an attack by the Rev. J. H. (later Cardinal) Newman. When Tract 73 appeared at Oxford, en­ titled "On the Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Reli­ gion," The Corner-Stone was charged with "savoring unpleasantly of pantheism." Abbott later became well-known as the author of the "Abbott Histories" and as the creator of Little Rollo. 2. AIKEN, CONRAD: Scepticisms: Notes on Contemporary Poetry. New York: Knopf, 1919. First Edition; red cloth; presentation copy given by the author to Edwin Arling­ ton Robinson, to whom there are fifteen references in the book (indexed on page 304). On the front fly-leaf there is this certificate: "This book was given to me by Edwin Arlington Robinson in the summer of 1919. It was a presen­ tation copy, sent him by the author. Esther 'Villard Bates." With Miss Bates's book-plate. 3...,A.LDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY: Flou1er and Thorn. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1882. Fourth edition; copper­ colored cloth; with inscription: "Take them and keep them, silvery thorn and flower, .... T. B. Aldrich. Christ­ nlas 1881." Presented by Mr. Talbot Aldrich. 4. ALDRICH, THOl\1AS BAILEY: The Story oj a Bad Boy. A llew edition illustrated by A. B. Frost, with a new Preface (dated 1894 from "The Crags," Tenant's Harbor, Maine). Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1895. Gray cloth; top edges gilt. Aldrich's own copy, with his black-crow-and­ clown's-mask book-plate. On February 16, 1895, Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote to his friend Harry DeForest Smith: "I hope you may find something better than Aldrich's for a book-plate." This book was presented by Aldrich to his Rockland (Maine) friend, William O. Fuller (M. Litt., Colby, 1929). Fuller's autograph appears on page 286, with his record of hav­ ing first read this story in Our Young Folks in 1869, and of having read it in this copy in 1904, in 1908, and again in September 1932-"the story as fresh today as then, and even more enjoyed." 5. ALLEN, HERVEY: Anthony Adverse. New York: Farrar Published by Digital Commons @ Colby, 1948 3 Colby Quarterly, Vol. 2, Iss. 6 [1948], Art. 3 88 Colby Library Quarterly '& Rinehart, Ig33. First Edition; blue cloth; inscribed: "To E. A. Robinson, Esq. Dear Robinson: With profound best wishes and cordial regards. Hervey Allen." Given by Rob­ inson to his friend George Burnham (see Numbers 22 and 85 below), and by Mr. Burnham bequeathed to the Colby College Library. 6. ARCHER, WILLIAM: Play-Making: A Manual of Cra:fts­ manship. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., Ig12. First Edi­ tion; green cloth; top edges gilt. This copy once belonged to W. S. Braithwaite and carries his autograph 011 the front fly-leaf. Braithwaite is identified by Robinson's biographer Hagedorn as the author of the first and most penetrating review of The Town down the River (1910). This review led the poet to hunt up his reviewer, whom he found to be "a man of unusual perceptivity." In the Boston Public Library, they "laid the foundations of a friendship." Two years later, Braith,vaite gave this book to Robinson, whose interest in play-writing once led him to say: "When I die, they ought to put D.D. -Defeated Dramatist-on my tombstone." (See Colby College Mono­ graph No. II.) 7. ARNOLD, THOMAS: A Manual oj English Literature. London: Longmal1s, Green, & Co., 1867. Brown cloth. Thomas Arnold was the younger brother of Matthew i\rnold, father of Mrs. Humphry Ward, and grandfather of Aldous Huxley and Julian Huxley. This book was pre­ sented to: "T. Hardy from lVIr. Sergeant .Lt\tkinsol1," in 1873. With Thomas Hardy's Max Gate book-label. 8. AUSTEN, JANE: Mansfield Park. New York: F. A. Stokes Co., 18go. Three-quarters maroon cloth. E. A. Robinson's copy, with his autograph-an unusual one in two respects:" his first name is signed in full: "Edwin A. Robinson, Nov. 18g1," and the handwriting is large and fluent, not the microscopic half-illegible scratclling to which Robinson later came. This book is the second of the three Jane Aus­ ten novels which Robinson studied at Harvard. g. AUSTEN, JANE: Pride and Prejudice. New York: F. A. Stokes Co., 18go. Three-quarters maroon cloth. Auto­ ,graph on the front fly-leaf by the poet: "Edwin A. Robin­ :son, Oct. 18g1," shortly after his enrollment at Harvard. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cq/vol2/iss6/3 4 et al.: "With Admiration and Love" Colby Library Quarterly 89 Robinson nlade frequent references to Jane Austen in his corre:.