While reading through Vincent Starrett’s letters, I will periodically find one where he announces that he has ceased buying books because he can’t afford to do so any longer.

Inevitably, the next paragraph will find him asking a dealer about a certain volume he saw in a recent catalogue and if, by chance, that book was still available for him to purchase.

I always chuckle when I read this, because it reminds me of my own (mis)adventures in collecting. I have been fortunate to acquire the major pieces that I’ve wanted. And while I no longer bid at auctions or pester dealers for odd and unusual things, I do periodically find bargains that need a good home. Who am I to leave them out there in the wild, unloved and forlorn?

Here then, in no particular order, are a few items which came in recently and have found a home on my shelves.

Who is L.S. Mitchell?

Arthur Machen: A Novelist of Ecstasy and Sin was one of Starrett’s first books, published in 1918 by the legendary Chicago bookseller Walter M. Hill. Starrett collected a few columns he had originally written for Reedy’s Mirror, fleshed them out a bit, added a few previously uncollected Machen poems, and created the first book in his long campaign to have Machen championed among America’s literati.

Regular readers will recall that Starrett’s adoration for Machen would build until the Welsh writer felt Starrett was pirating his work. A very public spat ensued which left both feeling like they had been badly used.

This copy is inscribed to L.S. Mitchell and includes a Latin saying Starrett frequently utilized at the time: “calix meus inebrians, quam præclarus est.” It comes from the 23rd Psalm and, depending on which version of the Bible you’re reading, can have multiple interpretations. “My cup runneth over,” is perhaps the best known, and shows Starrett’s joy in promoting his idol. Another translation reads “my cup, which inebriates me, how brilliant it is.”

Who was L.S. Mitchell? It is a pretty common name so we’re just taking a stab in the dark, but I like to think it was Lucy Sprague Mitchell, who was a writer and the first dean of women a the University of California at Berkeley. She was a native of Chicago, a graduate of Radcliffe and the author of more than 20 books over her long and impressive lifetime. She died in 1967, at the age of 89.

Having said that, I can’t definitively place her in Chicago in 1922. If you have a more likely candidate for L.S. Mitchell, please pass it along.

Honce Gets a ‘D’

Charles Honce was putting together his bibliography of Starrett’s work in the early 1940s. Honce asked for Starrett’s thoughts on his past books. When it came to the 1924 Flame and Dust (published by Pascal Covici in Chicago) poetry collection, Starrett grumbled “If it can be called poetry.”

Honce goes on to discount the author’s opinion, offering instead the view of famed poet William Rose Benét. In The Saturday Review of Literature, Benét said Starrett’s verse “usually has either a twinkle in its eye or is wrapped from nose to toes in the black cloak of the macabre.” Benét goes on to call Starrett “an absorbed observer of the oddities of life.”

It’s a pleasure to add the volume that Starrett inscribed to Honce to the shelves. There were 450 copies of Flame and Dust printed at the time. This is an out of series copy, listed as ‘D.’

Mrs. Bailey Gets Plated

Last in our overview of new books comes a copy of Penny Wise and Book Foolish, Starrett’s first book of essays devoted to book collecting, published in 1929 by Covici, Friede of Chicago. The book itself lacks a dust jacket and has surely sat facing the sun, for the spine is faded from green to gray.

It is what is inside the front endpapers that brings a smile.

First is the handsome bookplate of one Merton G.L. Bailey. There’s a lot going on here: The names of famous authors along the border, the Bowdoin College seal in the upper right, a tall-masted ship at sea, a gryphon and at the bottom is a wicker trout fishing bag and pipe. (You can even make out the artist’s name, Edward C. Caswell, and the date 1926.)

It should be no surprise that Bailey was a graduate of Bowdoin College and lived in the Augusta, Maine region. According to his September 1969 obituary, he worked for many years at Vickery and Hill publishing, which produced such comforting magazines as Hearth and Home and The American Needlewoman. His wife was Lula Barbara Bailey. I couldn’t find an article on, or an obit for Mrs. Bailey.

It appears that Mrs. Bailey wrote to Starrett and asked for copies of his bookplates. He wrote back to her on December 15, 1937 on paper he picked up during his time in China.

Dear Mrs. Bailey—

Thank you for your very pleasant letter. I am glad to send you four of my five bookplates. The fifth happns to be just now out of print.
All good wishes.

Sincerely,
Vincent Starrett

Perhaps Mrs. Bailey’s request was inspired by one of the books essays, “Bookplates and Their Vanities.”

Sadly, the bookplates are not with the letter, which has been glued to the inside endpaper as you see here.

But wait, that’s not all.

While flipping through Penny Wise and Book Foolish, a Spring 1929 catalogue of books by Covici, Friede fluttered to the floor. You can see Penny Wise and Book Foolish listed for $1 and described as “A book for the expert and the beginner, and charmingly written. The Odyssey of a book collector.”

Set your eyes over to the right-hand page, and you’ll see another familiar name in the listing for Keith Preston’s book, Pot Shots from Pegasus. Preston’s book was introduced by none other than Christopher Morley. I always love it when I see Starrett and Morley on the same page.

So there you have it, a few of the more recent additions. Hope you enjoyed roaming along the shelves as much as I have.