Wal Kirsop, Academic Responsibilities, and the Liberality of Communication

In July 2010, Wal Kirsop gave a talk at the annual seminar of the Johnson Society of Australia on "Boulard the Bibliomaniac and Johnson's Rambler." I didn't hear the talk, but Wal gave me a copy of the printed version of his paper. When I was re-reading it today, I was struck by this peroration:

If a summary conclusion is needed, it is that, far from being a sad victim of an overwhelming mania, Boulard was a misunderstood prophet of intellectual entrepreneurship and even liberation. His is not perhaps a voice for our own dreary and boring managerial time, but I like to think that some day it will [be] heard again. In the meantime his affinity with Johnson—whose definition of academic duties and responsibilities is still posted on my office door—should reassure us that we are somewhere on the right path.

Note that Wal doesn't quote Johnson's definition of academic duties and responsibilities. Perhaps, if he used slides during his lecture, he may have shown it at this point, but I doubt he did that. Instead, in a footnote to his paper, the reader is directed to David Fairer's "J. D. Fleeman: A Memoir" (Studies in Bibliography, Vol. 48 (1995): 23–24). Fairer, in turn, provides the reference for the original publication of Johnson's definition, which was as an appendix to John Moir, Hospitality. A Discourse Occasioned by Reading His Majesty’s Letter in Behalf of the Emigrant French Clergy, in St. Dionis Back Church, May 26, 1793 (London: Rivington and Owen, 1793): 42–43 (ESTC T219725).

Presumably, Wal thought everyone should read the Fairer's memoir as well as Johnson's definition. Those who wish to read Fairer's memoir and Johnson's entire "Fragment" will find it reprinted here. Johnson's definition is quoted in a few places online (as here), but Moir's Hospitality is not available, so I have illustrated this post with images of the title-page and the final page of text from the Bodleian Library copy on ECCO.)

Having chased Wal's allusion back to Fairer's Memoir, I could offer the complete text of Johnson's definition to my readers, but I will, instead, just quote the parts of it that I think Wal had in mind (the rest is available via the link above):

An academick is a man supported at the public cost, and dignified with public honours, that he may attain and impart wisdom. He is maintained by the public, that he may study at leisure; he is dignified with honours, that he may teach with weight. The great duty therefore of an academick is diligence of inquiry, and liberality of communication. Of him that is appointed to teach, the first business is to learn, an unintermitted attendance to reading must qualify him to be heard with profit. … For such service he can be fitted only by laborious study, and study therefore is the business of his life; the business which he cannot neglect without breaking a virtual contract with the community. Ignorance in other men may be censured as idleness, in an academick it must be abhorred as treachery.

"Diligence of inquiry, and liberality of communication" captures nicely Wal's own "unintermitted" activities. In addition to what might be considered his formal scholarly publications—book-length studies, essays published in scholarly journals etc.—Wal's "liberality of communication" extended to scores of pamphlet publications, under the imprints of the Ancora and Chaskett Press, for Louis Green and Foxcroft lectures, among others. One indicator of the present managerial malaise that Wal identifies is that—regardless of the eminence of many of the authors of these Ancora and Chaskett Press publications, and the quality of their writing—none of them would be considered "Quality publications" by Monash, based on their flawed model of bibliometrics.

Although I hadn't read Johnson's definition of academic duties and responsibilities when I started this blog in June of 2009, it has long been a part of my own attempt to fulfil Johnson's ideal. Being a generation younger that Wal, my "liberality of communication" has taken the form of a blog, rather than printed pamphlets. It is likely that Wal's Ancora and Chaskett Press publications will long outlive any of my blog posts, but they are treated with equal contempt indifference by Monash. Nevertheless, like Wal, I will continue to be liberal in my communications.

(Given the long gap in my blog posts between mid-2023 and the start of 2026, close readers of this blog may wonder at this declaration. Close personal acquaintances, will not. All I will say here is that I was obliged to take a lot of leave to care for someone close to me who barely survived a series of traumatic brain injuries. I have struggled to regain both my scholarly and blog-posting momentum since then, and have not wanted to say even this much about my hiatus until I managed to make some progress. My immediate goal was to submit for publication at least two fresh articles (which I have now done) and to publish more than 27 posts in a year, which I succeeded in doing with my last post (28 being now my highest number of posts in a year, since 2011). Hopefully, I have not jinxed myself by offering this explanation, and that scholarly publishing and my blog-posting will continue to be regular in future!)

The Spedding Collection of Baconiana, 1916

Sadly, and as I explain below, "The Spedding Collection of Baconiana" is not the Patrick Spedding collection of books by and about Francis Bacon, but, rather, the rather more famous James Spedding collection of books by and about Francis Bacon, catalogued and offered for sale by Quaritch (inauspiciously) in the middle of WW1.

I feel a quite a bit of affinity with my childless kinsman, James. This is partly a matter of convoluted family connections, but I have a modest collection of books by Francis Bacon, including a handful of seventeenth-century editions, which in no way compares to the collection James assembled, but which did lead me to wonder to what extent our collections may have overlapped (answer: not much).

I started buying books by Bacon four decades ago. Bacon’s Essays are still among my favourite works. Indeed, Bacon’s Essays are partly responsible for my love of both the essay (as a genre) and, by association, seventeenth and eighteenth-century character writing too—the focus of another sub-collection of mine—but I think that the first book I read by Bacon was actually his unfinished utopia New Atlantis.

For what it is worth, I don’t think that New Atlantis is a particularly good utopia (sorry), but I really enjoyed the experience of reading it, in January of 1989, in (what was then) a lovely, newly-acquired 1639 folio edition, in its original binding. I spent a lot of money buying this folio from a Kenneth Hince; at a time when I was a poor student, living off Austudy, so I suppose must have sold a lot of my books in order to make the purchase. (Sometimes, I remember very nice books that I once had, and which I must have sold, and I wonder what possessed me to do sell them. This is an instance of the “what possessed me”!)

Anyway, since it is my ambition to have a collection of my books catalogued and offered for sale as a collection by Quaritch—or a dealer of a similar stature—I thought I’d buy this copy of James’s catalogue. If my ambition is ever realised it won’t, however, be for an armload of editions of Bacon’s essays, or his other works, it is will be my own working library of books by and about Eliza Haywood.

When I bought my copy of James’s catalogue, I wanted to see how our collections compared—not in terms of titles, rarity or value, but in terms of a working library, or scholar-collector-utility. This desire became even stronger once it occurred to me that, while James was focussed on the works of Bacon (mostly published two and a half centuries earlier), I was similarly focussed on the works of Haywood (mostly published two and a half centuries earlier).

Looking at James’s collection, I am struck by how many volumes are NQR—like my own! (Not my Bacon volumes, which are all unusually beautiful, but my Haywood volumes.) Just focussing on two titles in James's collection: the margins are "defective" on his 1625 Essayes and the title-page "mounted" on his 1632 edition; the portrait is “missing” from his 1627 and 1628 editions of Sylva Sylvarum (which contains his New Atlantis), ten pages are missing from a second copy of the 1628 edition, and the Dedication is missing from a copy of the 1670 edition. Indeed, a search of the catalogue for "missing" locates 25 instances in 24 pages!

I am not sure what benefit James’s kin got from the sale of his collection (see below), but it is a shame that none of his books came my way—even the many nineteeth-century editions—and that I have been only able to find the catalogue of his collection since I started looking for his books.

* * * * *

James Spedding (born 26 June 1808), M.A. (Camb. 1834), younger brother of Thomas Story Spedding (see my post here), died on 9 March 1881, after he was hit by a cab crossing a street in London. Thirty-five years later, Bernard Quaritch offered "The Spedding Collection of Baconiana"—lightly "salted"— for GBP400 (the Cornell University copy is here; The Columbia University copy is here).

(The catalogue is undated but was issued by November 1916; library catalogue assertions asside, it appears in a list of "Recent Bibliographies" in The Library Journal, Vol. 41, no. 11 (November 1916): 860; here.)

As well as being undated, the catalogue is unnumbered. The opening description of the collection (transcribed below) states that it contains “363 vols, in 318”—which seems to mean 318 items in 363 volumes rather than 363 items in 318 volumes. (I am too lazy to go through the catalogue, number the items for myself, and count or estimate the total volumes; and ChatGPT seems to be not up to the task yet.)

The publisher of "The Spedding Collection of Baconiana" notes that "A few volumes have been added by me to strengthen the collection, but the great bulk is as Spedding owned it." The language here doesn’t quite gel: "a few volumes … added" implies rather less "salt" (books added by a bookseller to fill out a catalogue) than "the great bulk" leaves room for.

Here is the opening spiel:

BACON COLLECTION. The Collection of Books used by JAMES SPEDDING (1808–1881), the accomplished Editor of the Works of Sir Francis Bacon, as his working library in bringing out that "unsurpassable model of thorough and scholarlike editing." 363 vols. in 318, folio, 4to., and 8vo. v. d.

Price of the Collection, £400 net.

This collection should be an invaluable acquisition to a public library or to a collector of Baconiana, as it includes a number of the first and early editions of Bacon's Works and those of his contemporaries, some of them of great rarity, and also a valuable collection of books in Baconian literature. Additional value is given to many of the books from the fact that they are enriched with Spedding's MS. notes (all the cases in which they occur are not mentioned below). A few volumes have been added by me to strengthen the collection, but the great bulk is as Spedding owned it.

* * * * *

If an institution had taken Quaritch's bait (as they should have done)—and bought the collection as a whole—it might now be an easy matter to identify how many works and volumes were in Spedding's working library. Unfortunately, it seems that, after a period, Quaritch broke up the collection and sold the items separately. Searching ESTC and Copac, it is possible to identify a few Spedding items, each at a different library:

The essaies of Sr Francis Bacon Knight (1612) [Baconiana, p.4, item 2] is at King's College, Cambridge [Keynes.A.08.20].

Francisci de Verulamio, Summi Angliæ Cancellarii, Instauratio magna (1620) [Baconiana, p.6, item 7] is at the Huntington Library [601344].

The remaines of the Right Honorable Francis Lord Verulam Viscount of St. Albanes (1648) [Baconiana, p.8, item 1] is at the University of Toronto, Library [bac B33 R45 1648] (online here).

A declaration of the demeanor and cariage of Sir Walter Raleigh (1618) [not in Baconiana] is at the Folger Shakespeare Library [STC 20653 Copy 1].

If, I future, I find any more Spedding items, I will add them here.

The Life and Times of the Kings and Queens of England series

The series, The Life and Times of the Kings and Queens of England, edited by Antonia Fraser, was established in 1972. It was first published by Weidenfeld [and] Nicolson, and reprinted by Book Club Associates, London.

It took a suprising amount on time (hours—plural) wrestling with Google, Library Thing, and ChatGPT, to get a satisfactory answer to the simple question of "how many volumes are there in this series?" (For details of why this was so hard, see my postscript below.) Consistent with other posts on this blog, having finally got my answer, I thought I'd post the resulting research to save others from the hassle of duplicating my efforts.

The answer is: there were a total of 31 volumes in the series The Life and Times of the Kings and Queens of England: 25 volumes in what I will call the First Series, from 1972–74, and another six volumes in what I will call the Second Series, from 1980–81. These are listed below in monarch order.

In 1976, Fraser prepared a single volume, under the ttle The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England, which covers all the monarchs, including those omitted in the series (this is the fat volume, second from the right, in the first image above). If this was a first attempt at a sop to the completists, it clearly was not enough, since in 1980 the series was restarted (or, rather, Weidenfeld and Nicolson expanded the series with their Kings and Queens of England, in matching bindings, so completists could fill some gaps), but the demand for the missing monarchs must have been slight since the series faltered after only six volumes.

Since the quarto volumes have matching spines, are well illustrated, and were once quite common, they were a tempting collecting target. Even if you were only really interested in one era of history, you would easilly, inadvertently accumulate two or three volumes—which you might be tempted to shelve together, at which point you were doomed. Before you know it you might find yourself accumulating more volumes, and then start actively looking for all of the monarchs in your era, or all eras. If you look on eBay (*), you will see the resulting more-or-less complete collections which illustrate this post.

(*) I.e., here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

If you have landed here on this page because you are on the edge of this collecting precipice: stop while you can! The First Series is not complete—it does not cover all monarchs—and the Second Series does not complete it. The First includes, for instance, George I and George III (both of which I have had), but not George II (which I wanted)—and there is no George II in the Second Series. There are plenty of other monarchs ommitted too, frustrating the would-be completist. (When I discovered that there was no George II, I was so annoyed that I disposed of my George I and George II volumes.)

* * * * *

Series 1, twenty-five volumes (1972–74)

1. Alfred the Great, Douglas Woodruff (1974)
2. William I, Maurice Ashley (1973)
3. Richard I, John Gillingham (1973)
4. King John, Maurice Ashley (1972)
5. Edward II, Caroline Bingham (1973)
6. Edward III, Paul Johnson (1973)
7. Henry V, Peter Earle (1972)
8. Richard III, Anthony Cheetham (1972)
9. Henry VII, Neville Williams (1973)
10. Henry VIII, Robert Lacey (1972)
11. Mary Tudor, Jasper Ridley (1973)
12. Elizabeth I, Neville Williams (1972)
13. King James, Antonia Fraser (1974)
14. Charles I, D. R. Watson (1972)
15. Charles II, Christopher Falkus (1972)
16. James II, Peter Earle (1972)
17. William and Mary, John Miller (1974)
18. Queen Anne, Gila Curtis (1972)
19. George I, Joyce Marlow (1973)
20. George III, John Clarke (1972)
21. George IV, Alan Palmer (1972)
22. Victoria, Dorothy Marshall (1972)
23. Edward VII, Keith Middlemas (1973)
24. George V, Denis Judd (1973)
25. George VI, Keith Middlemas (1974)

Series 2, six volumes (1980–81)

26. The Saxon Kings, Richard Humble (1980)
27. The Norman Kings, James Chambers (1981)
28. Edward I, John Chancellor (1981)
29. Richard II, Michael Senior (1981)
30. Edward IV, Gila Falkus (1981)
31. William IV, Anne Somerset (1980)

Since numbers 26 and 27 duplicate (in part) numbers 1 and 2, these can't really be intersorted above, so the ideal shelf arrangement of the series woud probably be as follows:

26* The Saxon Kings, Richard Humble (1980)
1. Alfred the Great, Douglas Woodruff (1974)
2. William I, Maurice Ashley (1973)
27* The Norman Kings, James Chambers (1981)
3. Richard I, John Gillingham (1973)
4. King John, Maurice Ashley (1972)
28* Edward I, John Chancellor (1981)
5. Edward II, Caroline Bingham (1973)
6. Edward III, Paul Johnson (1973)
29* Richard II, Michael Senior (1981)
7. Henry V, Peter Earle (1972)
30* Edward IV, Gila Falkus (1981)
8. Richard III, Anthony Cheetham (1972)
9. Henry VII, Neville Williams (1973)
10. Henry VIII, Robert Lacey (1972)
11. Mary Tudor, Jasper Ridley (1973)
12. Elizabeth I, Neville Williams (1972)
13. King James, Antonia Fraser (1974)
14. Charles I, D. R. Watson (1972)
15. Charles II, Christopher Falkus (1972)
16. James II, Peter Earle (1972)
17. William and Mary, John Miller (1974)
18. Queen Anne, Gila Curtis (1972)
19. George I, Joyce Marlow (1973)
20. George III, John Clarke (1972)
21. George IV, Alan Palmer (1972)
31* William IV, Anne Somerset (1980)
22. Victoria, Dorothy Marshall (1972)
23. Edward VII, Keith Middlemas (1973)
24. George V, Denis Judd (1973)
25. George VI, Keith Middlemas (1974)

Alternatively, you could re-number the series as follows:

1. The Saxon Kings, Richard Humble (1980)
2. Alfred the Great, Douglas Woodruff (1974)
3. William I, Maurice Ashley (1973)
4. The Norman Kings, James Chambers (1981)
5. Richard I, John Gillingham (1973)
6. King John, Maurice Ashley (1972)
7. Edward I, John Chancellor (1981)
8. Edward II, Caroline Bingham (1973)
9. Edward III, Paul Johnson (1973)
10. Richard II, Michael Senior (1981)
11. Henry V, Peter Earle (1972)
12. Edward IV, Gila Falkus (1981)
13. Richard III, Anthony Cheetham (1972)
14. Henry VII, Neville Williams (1973)
15. Henry VIII, Robert Lacey (1972)
16. Mary Tudor, Jasper Ridley (1973)
17. Elizabeth I, Neville Williams (1972)
18. King James, Antonia Fraser (1974)
19. Charles I, D. R. Watson (1972)
20. Charles II, Christopher Falkus (1972)
21. James II, Peter Earle (1972)
22. William and Mary, John Miller (1974)
23. Queen Anne, Gila Curtis (1972)
24. George I, Joyce Marlow (1973)
25. George III, John Clarke (1972)
26. George IV, Alan Palmer (1972)
27. William IV, Anne Somerset (1980)
28. Victoria, Dorothy Marshall (1972)
29. Edward VII, Keith Middlemas (1973)
30. George V, Denis Judd (1973)
31. George VI, Keith Middlemas (1974)

Postscript: the volumes themselves do not seem to contain a series title or a list of other volumes in the series, and I was unable to find any advertisement for the series, or any series listing online. Library Thing lists Fraser's one-volume work, and her Introduction or Editorship for only five volumes in the series; it seperately lists (as a Publisher Series) "Kings and queens of England: Weidenfeld and Nicolson" here, in which it conflates what I have called Series 1 and Series 2, and duplicates Charles II by mistakenly including Fraser's 1979 biography as part of the series to get a total of 32 volumes (in the conflated and mistitled series). The various and incompatible claims for "complete" collections on eBay add to the confusion. If there are better collecting resources online, I didn't find them, but if anyone points them out for me, I will add links below—or corrections above if I have messed up anything here.

Dorothy Furman, collector of books and bookplates

Dorothy Furman (fl. 1895–1926), was a well-connected bibliophile, a staff member at the New York Times Literary Review (writing bookish-reviews and book-auction reports in the late 1890s) and was later a book dealer. She built an extensive collection of rare books, mostly first editions (but including treasures such as a fourth folio of Shakespeare's works) and bookplates—being a customer, if not a patron of sorts, to a number of bookplate artists, and corresponding widely within a community of bibliophiles.

Furman was a member of The Bibliographical Society (UK) from 1895–1917 (see here), appears in the Almanach du bibliophile pour l'année 1898 (here), was a Member of the Ex Libris Society in 1895 and 1900 (see here and here); the Bibliographical Society of America in (at least) 1905 and 1908 (see here), the American Bookplate Society in 1913 and 1918 (see here and here), and the Grolier Club in 1914.

Female members of these bibliographical and book-collecting societies were not common. In the fifty years between 1892 and 1942 The Bibliographical Society had approximately nine hundred UK members and four hundred and fifty US members (see cumulative member list here). Of these, there are 17 (UK) and 13 (US) with a "Mrs" prefix and 25 (UK) and 18 UK with "Miss"; that is, a total of 73 female members, or approximately five percent.

Given the rarity of bibliographicaly-inclined female book collectors in this period, and the significance of her bookplate collecting, it is suprising that there is so little information about Furman available online. Having just bought her copy of J. Roger Rees, The Brotherhood of Letters (New York: Lockwood and Coombes, 1889), I did some digging and am posting what I found here to save other collectors the trouble, and perhaps enable them to carry this research forward—something that can probably only be done in situ in New York.

Why New York? Well, Furman lived at a commuting distance from New York for at least two decades. Her reported addresses being 35 State Street, Flushing, Long Island, NY (1898–1905; see Almanach du bibliophile pour l'année 1898 and Ex Libris Society link above); 58 Clark Street, Glen Ridge, NJ (1905–8; see here); and 6 De Hart Street, Morristown, New Jersey (1913 and 1918; see American Bookplate Society links above), opening a bookshop there in 1919 (see here): The Publishers Weekly reporting: "Morristown, N. J.—Miss Dorothy Furman has opened a bookshop at 6 De Hart street, specializing in old, rare and current books, association copies and autographs."

The Walpole Galleries in New York sold at auction collections of her Modern First Editions in July 1920 (advertised in The New York Times on 29 and June 1920 here and here), bookplates and books on bookplates in September and November 1923 (see here and here), and China, Glass, Brass, Prints, Furniture, Pewter Objects of Art, Etc. in September 1926 (see here).

* * * * *

Regarding Furman's writing for the New York Times Literary Review: I have found four articles by her (too long to quote in full). Undoubtedly, she wrote many more since each appears to be only a sample of a series: "Books Worth Reading Again. VII. Dorothy Osbourne's Letters" The New York Times, Vol. 47, Iss. 15029 (12 March 1898): 170c–171b (see here); "Books Worth Reading Again. IX. Louisa May Alcott's Life and Letters" The New York Times, Vol. 47, Iss. 15053 (9 April 1898): 238c–239c (see here); "Books at Auction. Features of the Final Part of the Ashburnham Library Sold This Week in London" The New York Times, Vol. 47, Iss. 15083 (14 May 1898): 324a–b (see here). "Books at Auction. Prices at the Fine Mackellar Sale—Bibles and Manuscripts" The New York Times, Vol. 48, Iss. 15251 (26 November 1898): 794a–b (see here); "Two Noble Lives. Maurice de Guierin and His Sister Eugene—The Journals They Wrote" The New York Times (4 March 1899): 137a–c (see here).

Regarding Furman's collection of books: I can't find an auction catalogue for this 1920 sale, but The New York Times advertisement explains that it contained "First Editions of Modern Authors including Stevenson and Kipling; Riverside. Doves, Kelmscott, Ashendene and other Presses; best library editions of the works of famous authors; bindings; rare early English literature and autographs; being mainly the library of Miss Dorothy Furman." There was a review of the sale published in The Publishers Weekly, which reads:

The library of Miss Dorothy Furman consisting of modern first editions, books printed by private and special presses, fine sets of standard authors, rare early English literature and choice miscellaneous books, was sold at the Walpole Galleries July 1 and 2. The sale was well attended, and prices were very satisfactory. Mr. Turnbull is a careful cataloger and in sales of this character he handles them with a high degree of efficiency. A few of the items, indicating the trend of prices, were as follows: Andrew’s "Gossip about Book Collecting," New York, 1900, $50; same author, "Paul Revere and His Engraving," New York, 1901, $55; Sir Thomas More’s "Utopia," Chelsea, 1906, Ashendene Press edition, $42.50; Beaumont and Fletcher's "Fifty Comedies and Tragedies," London, 1679, second edition, $35; Lord Byron’s "Works," 13 vols., London, 1898–1901, large paper edition, $44; Blanchard's "Life of George Cruikshank," 2 vols. extended to 4 with 140 extra plates, many in colors, $75; De Morgan’s "Collected Works," 8 vols., London, 1906-14, first editions, $26; Drayton's "Poems," London, 1619, $25; Genest's "Some Account of the English Stage from the Restoration in 1660 to 1830," 10 vols., 8vo, prepared for extra illustrating with cases, $120; Hallam's "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," 4 vols., 8vo, London, 1837–39, $60; Ireland's "Records of the New York Stage from 1750 to 1860," New York, 1866-67, large paper copy with extra illustrations, $40; Keats's "Poetical Works," 4 vols., London, 1883, original library edition edited by H. Buxton Forman, $65; Livingston's "Bibliography of Kipling," New York, 1901, Japan paper, $35; Masefield's "Tragedy of Nan and other Plays," London, 1909, first edition and presentation copy, $52.50; Montaigne's "Essays," 3 vols., folio, Boston, 1902, Riverside Press special edition, $65; Shakespeare's "Comedies, Histories and Tragedies," 1685, fourth folio with imperfections, $375; Stevenson’s manuscript of the first draft of "St. Ives," 500 pages, written by Isobel Strong, at Stevenson's dictation with revisions and additions by the author, $340; and Stevenson's "Verses," original wrappers, privately printed, 1912, very scarce, $65.

Regarding Furman's collection of bookplates: Walpole Galleries described it (well in advance of the sale, in 1921) as "The Important Collection of Bookplates of Miss Dorothy Furman of Morristown, N. J., being over 8,000 plates—one of the largest collections in this country" (see here); elsewhere the number is inflated to "about" ten thousand (see "Prospects For The Coming Season," The Publishers Weekly, Vol. 102, No. 18 (28 October 1922): 1553–54: "It includes the sale … the bookplates, about 10,000 in number, of Miss Dorothy Furman, for many years on the staff of the New York Times Literary Review; a superb …" (here).

Furman participated in an exhibition of bookplates in New York in 1895 (see here); she commissioned bookplates from Edwin Davis French in 1902 (see here), Arthur Nelson MacDonald by 1895 and in 1907 (see here and here [and at the head of this post]); J. Winfred Spenceley in 1907 (see here).

The bookplate contained in her, now my, copy of The Brotherhood of Letters is above. This plate is described (and so, a terminus ad quem established) in Ladies' Book-plates: An Illustrated Handbook for Collectors and Book-lovers (London: George Bell and Sons, 1895), 200 (see here):

"The following lines are familiar to many:

O for a Booke and a shadie nooke,
  eyther in-a-doore or out;
With the grene leaves whispering overhede,
  or the Streete cryes all about.
Where I maie Reade all at my ease,
  both of the Newe and Olde;
For a jollie goode Booke whereon to looke,
  is better to me than Golde.

This is taken from Dorothy Furman's plate, consisting of the name written on a garter."

(For an excellent investigation into the 1860s origins of this ye-olde verse, see here.)

One of the books she owned have been scanned and are online with her bookplate: Arthur Conan Doyle, Through The Magic Door (London: Smith, Elder [and] Co., 1907) here.

A few odd bits of evidence for Furman's patronage of book plate artists: she made donations of bookplates to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in 1901 and 1902 (see here); she made a similar donation to the British Museum by 1912 (see here); and to the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1917 (see here).

Finally, I am indebted—once again—to the blog "My Sentimental Library," on which Jerry Morris (sadly, now dead) collected some information about Furman in 2018 (see here), which I have tried not to duplicate here.

Thieving Canadians versus Elon Musk

A recent analysis puts the cost of launching 1kg into low Earth orbit (LEO), on Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket, to approximately USD1500 per kg.

Musk is developing his Starship launch vehicle in the hope of significantly reducing this cost of launching mass to orbit. He has stated that his target is about USD10.00 per kilogram to LEO, which assumes full and rapid reusability and a very high launch cadence for Starship. But this is an aspirational long-term operating cost; it seems that more conservative estimates put Starship launch costs at about USD100–200 per kilo.

* * * * *

The above Coronet edition of John Wyndham's Stowaway to Mars of 1972 weighs 110 grams. If we add 90 grams for minimal packaging (to reach a total of 200g), it seems that Elon Musk would presently charge approximately USD300 to launch a copy of this book into LEO, but he expects to be able to eventually be able launch a copy into LEO for USD2.00 (while more conservative estimates put it at USD20). This is good news for LEO book collectors.

As you can see below, one thieving bastard bookseller (JMCbooksonline, of Cheverie, NS, Canada) is presently asking USD140 [A$196] to launch, I mean post, this book to Australia (see listing here). For the record, I can post 250g to Canada for A$23.05—less than one eighth of this.

This postal charge is the equivalent of USD700 per kilo—more than double the present cost of launching Wyndham's Stowaway to Mars into orbit via a Falcon 9, soon to be thirty-five times the cost of launching it into LEO via Starship, and, if Musk's dreams are realised, three hundred and fifty times the cost of launching it into orbit.

* * * * *

Anyone in Australia who buys books from overseas soon learns that postage from Canada is extremely slow and extremely expensive—possibly the slowest and most expensive postal service in the world, but certainly the slowest and most expensive postal service I am familiar with.

When buying from Canada, there are no bargins to be had, and few books are rare enough to justify stuffing the pockets of either Canadian postal services or Candian Booksellers.

I wonder how long it will be before Musk realises that international parcel post represents an arbitrage opportunity, and that he can use Starfall—the uncrewed reusable re-entry/cargo capsule being developed by SpaceX—to massively reduce the cost of postage of 1970s paperbacks from Canada (or the US) to Australia?