Only a minority of book collectors write about their collection, but some collectors actually enjoy writing about the books they surround themselves with.
One such collector and author was Lawrence Clark Powell (1906-2001), a bookseller turned University Librarian on the Los Angeles campus of the University of California and Director of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.
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| Lawrence Clark Powell, Books in My Baggage (1960) [cover] |
In May 1949, he published an essay titled "Nine by Nine" in Hoja Volante, the magazine of the Zamorano Club. (He was a member of all the significant bibliophile societies in the USA.) The essay was later published in Books in My Baggage (1960). [I am indebted to antiquarian Nick ter Wal (Artistiek Bureau) who drew my attention to this essay.]
In this essay, Powell describes the books in his study, which housed half of his collection: 1,000 books. The room measured nine by nine feet.
This compels me to discipline my tastes and to choose for roommates only those volumes which I feel I must see every day.
Note that I said "see" every day, not necessarily read. For next best to reading books is to sit at slippered ease and look at their backs.
For example, there are childhood books, little books, a collection of Greek lyric and pastoral poetry, Chinese poetry in translation and the works of Peter Lum Quince (Ward Ritchie).
Close by is my favorite book of the 1890s - John Gray's Silverpoints, exquisitely designed by Charles Ricketts as a tall, narrow octavo.
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| Lawrence Clark Powell, Books in My Baggage (1960) [page 21] |
This copy is now at Occidental College Library, Los Angles, California, Mary Norton Clapp Library: Special Collections & College Archives: Fine Printing 821.89 G779s 1893, as 'Gift of Lawrence Clark Powell'.
He eventually relinquished it, after years of watching its back from his easy chair. Incidentally: an unremarkable back: green and slender, but undecorated!
You have to know the book well to think of the fantastically vivid design of the covers when looking at its spine.
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| John Gray, Silverpoints (1893) [spine] |
