A PRE- POST-MORTEM ADDITION TO A BOOK COLLECTION
Book collectors can all recount the many ways in which this or that
item entered our collections. Gleeful purchases from dealer catalogues,
bloodily won auction acquisitions, tips from friends leading to
"finds," book show or antiquarian book store trophies, all help to form the
collector's background mosaic of sources. This is just a little story of
yet another avenue, a story of how I acquired a book which I would give
all the world to personally return to its previous owner's animate hands.
My collection of books and materials relating to the Mosher Press had
become a marvelous research base from which the new bibliography, Thomas
Bird Mosher--Pirate Prince of Publishers... (Oak Knoll Press & The
British Library, 1998), would come into existence. In the process of
writing that book I sought someone who would be THE best person to write
the book's Introduction. Through a rather tortuous search I finally found somebody
in Canada who was indeed the most fitting choice: a highly respected and
revered expert on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, on the Pre-Raphaelites and
Victorian literature, and an avid collector of The Mosher Books to
boot -- Dr. William (Dick) E. Fredeman.
At first Dick Fredeman and I corresponded by snail-mail and then later by
e-mail with an occasional phone call in between, and when I finally
asked him
to write the Introduction he gave an unqualified "Yes!" Dick was in the
process of editing the collected letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but
he
took a break from that work to write the Introduction which perfectly
complements the new bibliography and for which I owe this man an
unpayable
debt of gratitude. Beyond that Dick also offered criticisms and changes
in
the book's entries and for three years we were in weekly and many times
even
daily contact.
You've heard about how love affairs have happened over the
Internet? Likewise
a deep friendship can develop with confidences shared and secrets
kept. Along
the way we discovered some coincidences which seemed to make our e-mail
"meeting" special. Dick often marveled that my own initials "PRB" formed
what was
the object of his life-long studies: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. I
too was amazed
to find out that Dick was adopted and that his pre-adoption name was
Richard Merrill
which just happened to be the pen name --unbeknownst to Dick-- of the
object of my
own passionate study: the publisher Thomas Bird Mosher. It seemed as
though we
were long meant to be life-long friends.
Understand now that I never met this man in the flesh, or
at least not until "the word" came to me from his son: "Dad was dying
and
probably won't last until this Saturday" he said in a Monday morning
phone
call to me. The Canadian doctors misdiagnosed Dick's three-month illness
and
it turned out to be pancreatic cancer. I was stunned, but moved quickly
to
purchase a plane ticket to fly across the continent to Vancouver that
Wednesday.
Dick had told me that if he died shortly before his 71st birthday, his
four regrets in life
would be leaving his wife, not seeing his son and grandchildren grow up,
not
finishing the Rossetti letters project, and lastly never having had the
opportunity to meet with me face to face. I was determined that at least
one
of those regrets would be forever erased from his regrets list.
When I was in Canada visiting Dick Fredeman for four days, I was unsure
about
just when I would return home. I could have stayed longer with the
length of
his illness possibly extending several days, a week, or even longer. I
finally decided that my original arrangements to leave on Saturday, July
10,
should hold fast. The family was in good hands and I felt I played my
helpful
role with a certain dignity and to a meaningful conclusion. I only had
my
parting words to give to Dick before leaving.
Our final parting was far more dramatic than I had anticipated with all of
us
in tears. On this last day Dick wanted to make a final trip down to his
library to give me something. He was quiet but adamant about it, and
lamented
that he hadn't realized that my leaving was so eminent. His son and I
carried
him down the steps in his wheelchair but when we finally got down to his
library he was unable to recall just what it was that he wanted to give.
After waiting for several embarrassing minutes--embarrassing for Dick,
to us
just filled with pity and sorrow--with his son unsuccessfully trying to
revive his father's memory, I finally intervened and said I knew just
the
thing.
I rushed upstairs and picked a book of my own choosing having previously
gone
over his library and other rooms of books in detail over the previous
three
days during Dick’s resting periods. I avoided all the obvious choices
of
books which included books of great monetary value, and opted instead
for
what I considered an apt choice to remember this friend, world renown
Pre-Raphaelite scholar, and helpmate. I took a book off a hallway shelf,
rushed back downstairs, and handed Dick a copy of a Pre-Raphaelite work:
William Bell Scott’s A Poet’s Harvest Home: Being One Hundred Short
Poems.
With an Aftermath of Twenty Short Poems (London: Elkin Mathews and
John
Lane,
1893) also from the library of Thomas Bird Mosher with his
bookplate. Dick
held it in his hands and pressed it to his forehead like he was trying
to
decide something. He finally said under his breath that this was good
choice.
I think he grasped the significance of the gift.
I asked Dick and the family for one of Dick’s own WEF leather
bookplates. We
wheeled him over to a small chest of drawers and he slowly pulled out a
binder filled with his leather bookplates in three different colors. I
selected the black one and Dick feebly indicated that he wanted it
affixed to
the facing recto side of the first free flyleaf directly across from
Mosher’s
bookplate. The book now carries both plates recalling that this book
once
found its loving home in the libraries of these two significant
individuals.
This diminutive book now resides with the other steadily growing but
presently 295 volumes from Mosher’s library downstairs in the Mosher
collection. My eye usually alights upon it when I enter the M&M (Mosher
&
Music) room. All those books from Mosher's library had been dispersed
far and wide after the two 1948 sales, each book being sent on its
separate
journey. What stories they would tell if they could recount their many
owner's homes and the different shelves they rested upon. Some of them
neglected, to be sure, but others are infused with meaning far beyond
what
their authors or their publishers ever foresaw. The story above is just
a fraction of what this little volume has been through, a small glimpse
to the personal side of provenance one might say.
Later upon closely inspecting this little book, I noticed a familiar
design which
I had seen elsewhere in Mosher's publications. Indeed, if you had a copy
of
Mosher's 1911 catalogue you'd be able to turn to page 5 and there see
the
result of yet another "borrowed" image from England's book productions.
The catalogue's reproduction of the image--designed by William Bell
Scott--is
the same size as the image in the book: a mystical scene of an old oil
lamp
burning brightly with a nude torso of a human being forming its handle,
and
the light illuminating an open book which prominently features a large
star
on its page. Dick knew how much I appreciated making connections
involving
British graphics found in Mosher's productions, and this would have
pleased
him as much as it did me. It's a wonderful addition to the Mosher
collection,
but I'd rather personally have Dick back so I could put it in his
outstretched
hands. I miss you Dick; I always will.
Fredeman, William Evan, Ph.D., FRSC, FRSL, Emeritus
Professor
of English at the University of British Columbia; noted
author on the
Victorians, especially the Pre-Raphaelites; Guggenheim
Fellow; avid
book, antique, and art collector; died at home in
Abbotsford on July
15, 1999, four days before his 71st birthday.
There you have it, a little story--albeit a sad one--out of the pages of a
Mosher collector here at the Bishopric of Lancaster County.
-- Philip R. Bishop