Robert Louis Stevenson's Nights: Part One

Colvinian Preamble
In an essay found in his collection: Memories and Notes of Persons and Places 1852-1912 (London: Edward Arnold, 1921), Sir Sidney Colvin (1845-1927), who had been Slade Professor of Art at Cambridge, director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and later, the Keeper of prints and drawings at the British Museum, reflected upon the nature of the latter position which he held for many years:

For one thing, it is a chief part of his duty to win regard and confidence of private collectors, to help and stimulate them in their pursuits, putting his knowledge at their disposal but making them feel the while that their prime, their binding, duty is to acknowledge such help by destining their collections in the long run to enrich the institution which he serves. It is open to a collector to do one of three things with his treasures after his death: leave them intact to his heirs: leave them to be dispersed by auction, or leave them to enrich some public gallery or museum. . . .The third offers the reward of the permanent recognition which will await his name as that of an enlightened amateur and national or civic benefactor. It is the value and excellence of this last reward which those public guardians of such things whom he may count among his friends are bound with all their power to impress upon him. (p.205).

Colvin was referring to prints, etchings, paintings and other works of art, but it made me think about rare book librarians, books and their collectors. The three choices Colvin mentions are equally applicable to them, and this made me think of the rather interesting dynamic between the specialist—Museum Keeper, or Rare Books Librarian—the seller—Bookseller or Auction house—and the passionate collector. The specialist and the seller seem to have a symbiotic relationship for they benefit from each other in the moment, but they are also competing for the endgame, as they both may be hoping that the collector will think of them when the legal will is made and the decisions of what to do with a collection—whether books or art, or both—are ultimately made. I imagine auction houses win out a great deal of the time—cash flow, it seems, is always in demand, even for the wealthy—therefore keeping collectors and sellers—new and old—taking part in that particular cycle of life. Once a collection, or specific work of art or book, goes to a museum or special library collection, however, collectors and sellers must think that the stock of possibilities has decreased. This must be more truly felt in the world of art when a certain work is donated to a museum thereby diminishing the prospects for private hands.

The rarefied atmosphere at the top-end of art and book collecting is not one familiar to me at all, but it is interesting to read about on occasion. In looking into Robert Louis Stevenson's life, I returned to a memoir of a bookseller who did inhabit that rarefied air somewhat, Walter T. Spencer. His memoir, Forty Years in my Bookshop, edited with an introduction by Thomas Moult (London: Constable & Company, 1923), is an attractively printed and bound issue (Robert Maclehouse and Co., University Press, Glasgow) and somewhat resembles the issues from the publisher T. N. Foulis in its typography, paper and binding, the edges untrimmed and the top edge gilt. Walter T. Spencer's father ran a picture shop that sold prints, drawings and paintings and the son grew up working in the shop, which was a good grounding for opening his own business in the month of June 1883 at 27 New Oxford Street, London. Unlike many booksellers who had to move from location to location , he was fortunate or wise in his choice of location, for he writes: "But through all these changes and chances in this great city I am, I think, one of the few, among booksellers, at any rate, that have pitched an unmoved tent." He describes New Oxford Street as: "a sort of Mecca for the pilgrimage of bibliophiles and picture-hunters, autograph collectors and antiquaries. Here, for long absorbing hours, time has no meaning and the clock ticks in neglect."

I imagine New Oxford Street has changed a great deal over the years, and is not quite what it was, but there is the rather extraordinary James Smith & Sons, a firm which began in 1830 and has been at 53 New Oxford Street since 1857, a visual touchstone for the Victorian Age. One can imagine Sherlock Holmes and Watson rubbing shoulders with Prince Florizel and Col. Geraldine surrounded by sword sticks, dagger canes, Malacca canes, Irish Blackthorns, riding crops, umbrellas and walking sticks of all types. It is quite likely that Spencer being fairly close, purchased an item or two from the firm. Sidney Colvin, Robert Louis Stevenson were also likely customers, although I have to wonder if Louis ever did use an umbrella; certainly not a tightly rolled version so common with bowler hats. I rather imagine he just used a large brimmed bohemian hat and got wet.

Spencer dealt not only in books--mostly of contemporary writers, but of the upper-shelf variety--but also in letters, manuscripts, and personal items connected with authors, as well as prints, drawings and pictures, specifically of the artists who illustrated Charles Dickens. He comes across as keen as Col. Mustard in the library with a paper knife, for he was certainly one to seek out such items for sale. His memoir is no doubt a book well-known to English booksellers and is interesting for the bibliographic gleanings and period values and prices of various books, and it is enjoyable for its many anecdotes and stories of unusual customers and authors. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) dropped by his shop on one occasion in 1885, stereotypically dripping from the rain. His shoe, he told Spencer, had suffered a leak. The bookseller settled the author in a chair to dry out and provided brandy and water. Spencer relates this story of his visit:

I thought it would interest Mr. Stevenson to see a catalogue I had just issued, in which the first edition of his "New Arabian Nights" (two volumes, published in 1882) was listed at 8s 6d. in the original cloth. A moment earlier he had been depressed by the sight on my shelves of some sixty copies of the book, a library surplus which I had purchased from Mudies for a shilling a volume. I can see now the change on his face as he looked up from the catalogue.
"But, Mr. Spencer," he said wistfully, "no-one asks about first editions of my books, do they?"
Poor Stevenson's lack of self-confidence was never justified, for the book gradually increased in price, moving to four guineas, to six, to eight. At the sale of Colonel Prideaux's library I gave 47 pounds for a copy. But neither R. L. S. nor I, as we sat there talking on that rainy day, ever thought I should live to see the day when, knowing how limited is the edition, I had to bid 101 pounds, as I did in 1921, for a book which, thirty-seven years earlier, I had priced at 8s6d. A record experience, surely, in a bookseller's own lifetime.

I imagine that Spencer's 'record experience' has no doubt been broken many times by modern booksellers. The present value of the two volume first edition does not seem to be too high considering a supposedly small print run. In reviewing the online sites, there was a recent listing for the Chatto & Windus first issue, first state for $2500. The New Arabian Nights was Robert Louis Stevenson's first collection of fiction, but not his first attempts in that area. Some of his stories from the early 1870s were destroyed, but a few survived such as the story, When the Devil Was Well which eventually found its way to a typographer in 1921 when The Bibliophile Society of Boston issued a limited edition with an introduction by William P. Trent. It seems to run in the $100 to $150 range. If possession is not a requirement, you can read it here.

Colvinian Serendipity
During the 1870s, Robert Louis Stevenson was still emotionally, psychologically, and financially tethered to his parents, and when his father heard of his son's confessed atheism, RLS was sent to stay with relatives in Suffolk. This minor rift led to the wonderful and important meeting with Sidney Colvin.

Mrs. Frances Sitwell--married, 34 years of age--was staying with the said relatives in Suffolk and was very impressed with RLS and so invited her good friend Sidney Colvin, then at Cambridge, to come and meet him. Colvin wrote of this first meeting, he was twenty-eight, and Louis was twenty-three:


I had landed from a Great-Eastern train at a little country station in Suffolk, and was met on the platform by a stripling in a velvet jacket and straw hat, who walked up with me to the country rectory where he was staying and where I had come to stay. I had lately been appointed Slade Professor at Cambridge; the rectory was that at Cockfield, near Bury St. Edmunds; the host was my much older colleague Professor Churchill Babington, of amiable and learned memory; the hostess was his wife, a grand-daughter of the Rev. Lewis Balfour of Colinton, Midlothian; the youth was her young first cousin by the mother's side, Louis Stevenson from Edinburgh. The first shyness over I realized in the course of that short walk how well I had done to follow the advice of a fellow-guest who had preceded me in the house--to wit Mrs. Sitwell, my wife as she came later to be. She had written to me about this youth, declaring that I should find him a real young genius and urging me to come if I could before he went away. I could not wonder at what I presently learnt--how within an hour of his first appearance at the rectory, knapsack on back, a few days earlier, he had captivated the whole house-hold. To his cousin the hostess, a woman of a fine sympathetic nature and quick, humorous intelligence, he was of course well know beforehand, though she had never seen him in so charming a light as now. With her husband the Professor, a clergyman of solid antiquarian and ecclesiastical knowledge and an almost Pickwickian simplicity of character corresponding to his lovable rotund visage and innocently beaming spectacles--with the Professor, "Stivvy," as he called his wife's young cousin, was already something of a favourite. (Memories and Notes, pp. 102-03).

There was a rapport between the two young men, so much so that a year later Colvin was backing Louis's membership in the Savile Club. Started in 1868 by Auberon Herbert, The Savile Club's initial principles were "(1) A thorough simplicity in all arrangements and (2) The mixture of men of different professions and opinions." (The Gentlemen's Clubs of London by Anthony LeJeune and Malcolm Lewis, Dorset Press: 1984; p. 260.) It was ideally suited to Louis's talent of conversation, storytelling, and conviviality for the long communal dining table provided an environment for robust and creative interaction while the members and guests lunched or dined on what was considered rather casual or simple fair, roast beef. Their cold apple tart might have interested Mycroft Holmes, but not the garrulous nature of the club. It was first known as the 'New Club" but upon moving to a house on Savile Row, they adopted the street name. It moved again in 1882 to a house in Piccadilly and then again in 1927 to Brook St. where the club resides today. Robert Louis Stevenson was familiar with the Savile Row and Piccadilly locations. Edmund Gosse who was introduced to RLS by Sidney Colvin recalled in an essay in his book Sihouettes (1925): "Sir Sidney Colvin, ever since 1871 an officer of the club, of which he is still a trustee, is undoubtedly its present father. Young members are sometimes persuaded to believe that he was its founder as well, the initials S. C. being confidently pointed to." (p. 378). The initials for 'social club' and 'soldalitas convivium' as Gosse pointed out at the beginning of his essay would have backed up that fanciful claim. Gosse recalls fond memories of his experiences at the club:

The conversations in the 'eighties in which the two Stevensons--R. L. S. and his wonderful cousin R. A. M. S.--took the predominant part, were not so vociferous nor so purely anecdotal. Day after day, these met at the luncheon-table with, to name only the dead, Andrew Lang, W. E. Henley, William Minto, H. J. Hood, sometimes Coventry Patmore and Austin Dobson. . . .The talk was not noisy when these men met in the absolute liberty of 15 Savile Row, but it was worthy of the finest traditions of eager, cultivated communication. (p. 380).
His dashing cousin Robert Allan, 'Bob', Stevenson, was a handsome, adventurous figure, an artist, a talented musician, attractive to women, and full of fantastic stories and concepts. He was instrumental in introducing RLS to the bohemian aspects of Paris and the south of France, and it was his idea which inspired the initial stories in RLS's New Arabian Nights. . . .

Anecdotage: Arthur Machen, Ernest Benn, A. L. Greening and the Stage

In discussing the two publishers Greening & Co. and Ernest Benn in recent posts, memories of Arthur Machen were aroused. Arthur Machen was a "reader" for Ernest Benn in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and upon being let go of this position at age 70, Benn commissioned a short novel from him for 50 pounds. Machen was not a young man, and yet he managed to finish the novel called The Green Round for this rather lukewarm-hearted commission and it was eventually published in 1933. Benn wanted it for his Ninepenny Novelist series. In a letter to his friend Colin Summerford, Machen wrote:


"Poor Uncle Ernest. What he will say to The Green Round, I do not know. Gollancz told me that Sir Ernest was a man absolutely without religion; but I trust that this is not the case. He will want consolation." (quoted on page 149 of Arthur Machen: a Biography by Aidan Reynolds and William Charlton).


The book did not sell well. This was not unusual for Machen. For another commission for The Faith Press, he wrote The Great Return which was published in 1915. This too did not sell at all well. A few years later, Machen was browsing in a bookshop and came across a large dusty stack of the title. Reynolds and Charlton in their biography relate that: "The bookseller had not sold one for a long time, but when Machen told him who he was, he had not the heart to charge him for a copy." (ibid., p. 116).

The trial of Oscar Wilde created a backlash among publishers towards any type of literature which could possibly be considered decadent, and though Machen's works were not, he suffered from this reluctance, making the last half-decade of the 1890s a rather challenging period. Machen eventually tried his hand as an actor. He made his debut in 1901 and became a strolling player with Sir Frank Benson's company. An interesting crossover, writing to acting. Arthur Greening, the publisher, had been involved with light theatre, variety, musicals, and he switched over to publishing. I have yet to find if Machen ever met Greening but I rather doubt they would have gotten along. Different fish altogether. The only connection I have found so far, is the journalist and hack writer, T. W. H. Crossland who was involved with Greening and edited an edition of Hudibras for the publisher. Crossland reviewed books for various periodicals, and was a rather malicious enemy of Machen. He always referred to him as "MacHen".

Like anyone involved with the theatre, there are stories and anecdotes galore. Arthur Machen had his store as well. Reynolds and Charlton quote from O. B. Clarence's autobiography No Complaints, where he describes Machen's initial steps as a strolling player: "It pleased him [Machen] later on to make one of the crowd in several of the productions. I remember him among the rioters in Coriolanus. We were all brandishing clubs and shouting ourselves hoarse--'Down with him. Traitor', etc., and there at the back stood Machen muttering softly in mild disapproval of Coriolanus--'Down with him. Traitor. Oh, yes, distinctly traitor, oh impossible fellow.' Before long, however, he was shouting with the best." (ibid., p. 84).

Machen seems to have found his footing--and possessed natural talent--for in 1907 playing Sir Daniel Ridgeley in Pinero's His House in Order, in such small venues as Market Driffield, Hexham, and Ledbury, he was quite a comic turn. Reynolds and Charlton write: "Whenever Machen appeared, there were howls of mirth--'by the end of the show there was an old fellow in the front row who was reduced to nothing but a rattle and a wheeze and an agony in the region of the ribs'. There must have lived about Ledbury then a dreary long-winded, long-bearded bore ejecting moral sentiments in a pompous voice. Years later members of the company were still calling Machen 'The Ledbury Pet.' " (ibid., p.93).

Septimus and the Magician: a Fable

uring the mid-nineteenth century, the talented magician and ventriloquist, Signor Mortiz, travelled the North American continent charming audiences--to the chagrin of most clerics--and made a great name for himself. The Great Signor Mortiz became a name that any householder in any city would be familiar with. The great magician and ventriloquist, however, began to discover that impostors were living off his reputation, travelling in advance of him on his own circuit, calling themselves by his name and even using his advertising handbills. Some purported to be his son, others to be his nephew, but the majority of these impostors pretended to be the very man himself. It became commonplace, upon arriving in a city for a show, to be served with unpaid bills for food, lodging, clothing and other amenities, bills left unpaid by his impostors. The vexatious nature of these demands and the damage to his reputation were becoming much more than a nuisance, they were threatening his very means of existence.

One day, after leaving the constabulary office in a mid-western town after having explained he was not responsible for the unpaid bills there, he stopped to light a cheroot, and looking down to toss away the spent match, he noticed a rather tame old tom cat, a handsome thing he had to admit, and upon closer inspection, sporting seven toes on each front paw. It was at this moment that Signor Mortiz--his real name was really Walter McLaughlin--thought of employing this unusual feline as an accomplice. What is a necromancer without a cat he thought? And how could his impostors manage to duplicate his very unusual assistant. Looking down, he asked the cat if he would like to join Signor Mortiz on his travels and see a bit of the world, meals included. The Tom cat tilted his head and scratched his side with his hind leg in response, so Signor Mortiz threw his voice and replied on behalf of the cat that indeed that was an appealing offer and he would very much enjoy a bit of travel.

And so it was that Signor Mortiz made up new handbills advertising "Signor Mortiz and Septimus, the seven-toed cat."

But a year later, Septimus disappeared. Mortiz had been extremely careful in the security of his feline companion, but somehow he was outwitted. A month later, he found himself in a city jail, with numerous unpaid bills. The jailer was chuckling at his newspaper and wandered over to poor Signor Mortiz to show him that the real Signor Mortiz had entertained John Jacob Astor at a special event for the rich man at his home, and that it said Septimus the seven-toed cat dined on filet mignon. Signor Mortiz responded by saying he was the real Signor Mortiz. The jailer asked, "But where is your cat, Sir, where is your cat?"



After entertaining the police constables with his ability to throw his voice, Signor Mortiz was finally released and following up the newspaper article, he arrived at his imposter's advertised show the following week at The Egyptian Theatre. He found himself a seat at the extreme right of the stage and was appalled by the lack of talent of this impostor, and the degradation of his good name. Rising to his feet, Signor Mortiz made his way to the small staircase at the side of the stage and made his way up. He called out the name of his cat, and Septemus immediately sprang over to his true companion and wrapped himself around his pant leg. Addressing the audience, he told them that this man was not who he pretended to be, and throwing his voice into Septemus, the cat announced the other man an impostor. At this the audience roared with laughter. Signor Mortiz swept his large cape dramatically from his shoulders and approaching the impostor who was trying to get the house management to do something about his unwanted intruder, threw his cape over the impostor and with a puff of smoke, Signor Mortiz transformed this impostor into a monkey. Giving the monkey a large sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal, the monkey scrawled, to the astonishment of the audience, the words "Applause for the Magnificent Signor Mortiz," which Signor Mortiz held up for the audience to see. The crowd responded inspiring the monkey to a flurry of awkward imitation, and Signor Mortiz took his bow, deeper, longer and with more relish than he had ever experienced before, so much so, that he wondered if he were dreaming.

{inspired by the life of Signor Blitz, the real Signor Mortiz}

Publisher's Devices: Houghton, Mifflin and Company: Tout Bien ou Rien

Like James and John Harper of Harper & Brothers, Henry Oscar Houghton , born in Sutton, Vermont in 1823, had his beginnings in the printing trade. Coming from a family that struggled financially, he began his printers apprenticeship at the age of 13. Later, when he wished to attend University, he used his trade skills to finance his studies by working for a printer in Burlington, Vermont. Even though he had worked while attending courses, he still had a debt of $300 owed to the University upon his graduation in 1846. Working for a Boston printing firm, Freeman & Bolles, he worked off his debt and began to establish himself in the world. In 1848 he was given the opportunity to enter into partnership with the firm, but the required investment money was difficult to raise. Just as the deadline for his investment was coming due, and it looked like he would have to pass on the opportunity, good fortune stepped in by way of a family connection and upon telling him the story, the friend provided the needed shortfall, and the printing firm was established in 1849 as Bolles & Houghton. One of their important clients was the publisher Little, Brown and Company who were well known at the time for their publishing of law text books, and books of essays, and speeches. The proprietor, James Brown, owned a building on the Charles River in Cambridge, and offered it as a new location for Bolles & Houghton's expanding printing business, which they accepted, and moved their business from Boston to this newly renovated building. Upon the retirement of Bolles, the printing firm became H. O. Houghton & Company at the "Riverside Press" in 1852. The press was kept running not only by Little, Brown and Company, but also by the important client of Ticknor & Fields who published many of the best American writers of the day.

So, Henry Oscar Houghton, born of humble origins, had established himself as an emerging businessman by the age of 30. One would think that a printing firm would be enough of a challenge, but upon meeting the interestingly named Melancthon M. Hurd, a printer with common interests and ideas to those of Houghton, they decided to embark on another venture, a publishing firm which would use the Riverside Press as their printer; in 1864, Hurd & Houghton was formed. Houghton made a trip to England in 1864 to seek out master printers and binders to employ in his expanding business, and while there, had a publisher's device, or monogram (two "h's" interlocked) designed by Miss Charlotte Whittingham, the daughter of the Chiswick Press proprietor, Charles Whittingham II (1795-1876). It shows that Houghton was seeking out connections with the very best printers. Whittingham had five children who in various capacities, worked for their father's Chiswick Press. The daughters Charlotte and Elizabeth were artists who designed monograms, embellishments, borders, head and tail pieces for the press. It was Charlotte who married Benjamin Franklin Stevens who also became a partner in the Press for a number of years; Stevens, an American born in 1833 in Barnet, Vermont but a few counties south of Houghton's birthplace, had followed his brother to England to work in his bookselling business. Benjamin and his brother Henry Stevens went on to become well-known bibliographers. According to B. F. Stevens's obituary in the New York Times, March 7, 1902, he married Charlotte Whittingham in 1865. Looking at G. Manville Fenn's Memoir of Benjamin Franklin Stevens (London: Printed at the Chiswick Press, 1903 for private distribution), B. F. Stevens first met Charlotte in 1862 when he was invited to visit at their country home by Charles Whittingham whom he had befriended through his brother. I cannot find a reference to Houghton ever crossing paths with Stevens while he visited the Chiswick Press, but it would have made an interesting meeting. The proverbial small world as they discovered that they both came from the same area back in Vermont and had both attended University in Burlington.

In 1878, Melancthon Hurd retired, and Houghton went into partnership with the publisher James Osgood & Co., which was the successor to the well-known Ticknor & Fields, and later, Fields, Osgood & Co. The new firm was named Houghton, Osgood & Co. This business move brought Houghton the wonderful back list of fine American writers which had been published by Ticknor & Fields and their successors, all good to keep his prized Riverside Press running. It was only two years later, in 1880, that Osgood retired. It was at this moment that Houghton brought in George Harrison Mifflin as full partner in the business calling the firm, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Unlike Houghton, Mifflin had come from a wealthy background and began his relationship with Houghton by working in the counting room of the Riverside Press, and later, in charge of the Bindery. He became a partner in Hurd & Houghton in 1872 and worked his way up in various capacities.

Henry Oscar Houghton's Riverside Press was, in our modern terminology, Houghton's important and cherished "brand" which he protected by making sure everything was of the highest quality. They issued the "Riverside Classics" and the name came to be known for quality and substance. Horace Elisha Scudder recounts in his excellent memoir of Houghton, entitled Henry Oscar Houghton: a Biographical Outline (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1897)--from which a great deal of the information here is derived--that Houghton told him once that "'Riverside'. . . is like a diamond which I can hold up before my eyes, and turn it this way and that, and let the light fall on it, and see it sparkle." Scudder realises that in Houghton's publishing and printing business he "was building an institution; he was creating something which should have an organic life of its own." (p. 92).

Publisher's Device
Having recently looked over McKerrow's book and other items on printers marks, I can see the possible influence of certain Parisian printers devices from around the 1490s upon the design used for the Riverside Press of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. The border structure with lettering and the detailed cut for the image can possibly find their inspiration in the printer's devices of Antoine Caillaut or André Bocard among others. The motto "Tout Bien Ou Rien" was a one that appealed to Houghton for it fit nicely with his strong feelings of the importance of perfection and hard work, and if one was going to do something, it should be the best possible. He had used the motto for his personal bookplate and it started to be used in his publisher's device in the 1880s.

Sources cite that the original inspiration for the design of the publisher's device was one of the illustrations by Elihu Vedder for the fine edition of Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in 1894. Sidney L. Smith--who seems to be known now for his bookplate designs--was given the design job, and though perhaps inspired by the Vedder illustration, it certainly feels informed by the historical precedence of Parisian printer's marks. The first example (from a late 1890s edition of Out of the East by Lafcadio Hearn) with the text border, the heavy cut, the classical figure with the double-piped instrument or aulos, the oil-lamp or lucerne of classical antiquity, the image of a printing press, the meandering stream or river, the shield with the initials of the publishing firm, the tree of knowledge, and the rising sun combine to create an image of a certain density and heaviness which harkens back to a much earlier age and would not be too out of place with printer's devices from Paris in the 1490s.

The second example, (from a 1920 issue of Charles Eliot Norton's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy) is the work of Bruce Rogers who worked for firm between 1895-1912; it retains the essential elements, but there is a much more open feel, with a cleaner aesthetic appeal, the old border design and the sun having been dropped. The lucerne in the foreground becomes more of a focal point, and the shield with the firm's initials is also much more prominent, while the motto is placed on a banner draped in the tree and the choice of typography, although not modern, is slightly updated.
The third example (from Editorials by Lafcadio Hearn edited by C. W. Hutson, 1926), breaks free from the original design, shifting the tree to the side and having the figure sitting on a classical plinth. The shield is now the bearer of the motto and the lucerne is even more prominent. Though more overtly classical in its allusions, it has a much more contemporary feel within its compact, clean circular design. This device is also blind-stamped on the upper board of this particular edition, but upon looking closely, it is a slightly different, and later cut, the figure poorly executed. (There are many other variations of the device such as can be found here, here, and here.)

In 2007, Houghton Mifflin acquired Harcourt publishers and is now known as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Their device retains a semblance of the piper, Arion-like, riding a dolphin.