Evening journal., 1911-12-07
NEW NEWS OF YESTERDAY
A Mystery Of Antiquarian
Book Lore
By Holland

In the year 1889 Thoreau. with his
brother, built a boat and in it made an
excursion from Concord, Mass, down
the Concord river through the canal
which connected the Concord with the
Merrimac river at what was then a
struggling little village, but is now
Lowell, Mass, and thence up the Mer-
rimac as far as Concord, n II. Thor
eau and his brother sailed or padded
all the way, camping out at night at
some convenient or sheltered place
upon the rivers bank.
This excursion Thoreau described in
a book entitled "A Week Upon the
Concord and Merrimac Rivers" He
could not get any publisher to take the
risk Of publishing it. so he borrowed
the money and published il himself.
A thousand copies of the book were
printed, but less than 100 were sold
or given to the critics, and as a re-
suit Thoreau had to work as a sur
veyor for several years in order to
secure the money with which to repay
the loan he had contracted for the pub
lication Of the book Two years after
the book had been published 800 copies
of II were lugged by Thoreau from the
sidewalk in front of his house in Con-
cord, Mass, and stored by him IN an
attic room, as he thought permanent
ly And it was of these volumes that
Thoreau wrote the now famous SEN
tence: I am the possessor Of a Ii
brary of 1000 volumes, 900 of which
l wrote myself
Bearing in mind this sentence when
I was in Concord few years ago, |
inquired Of an aged citizen who knew
both Thoreau and his sister Sophia
what had become of the 900 volumes
Of the library that Thoreau had writ
ten himself.
They've disappeared, like the boat
in which he made his river trip" was
the reply Nobody nowadays can tell
what became of either books or boat,
although It is known that the boat
was sold to Nathaniel Hawthorne at
time when he was living in the Old
Manse, which gave the title to his
book, 'Mosses from an Old Manse.' But
no one now living knows what became
of the books after Thoreau put them
in the attic of the house that Louisa
Alcott bought after the death of Tho
reau and his sister"
The hint that nine-tenths of Tho
reau's famous library had absolutely
disappeared, leaving no trace of its
disposition, impelled me to make some
inquiries. Indeed, the most diligent
search on my part resulted in no in
formation respecting the disposition
of the volumes. Perhaps they were
eventually sold for old papers-who
knows? But if they were, a great pecu-
mary loss was thereby made, as | dis
covered when l extended my inquiries
/ to Boston.
81 have tried in vain for many years
! to secure copies of that book" said
! one of the country's leading authori-
ties on old books and secondhand
volumes-"that is, copies of the first
edition of the book that were not sold
or given to critics; some of the 90t
volumes that Thoreau stored away il
his attic / have several customers
who would gladly give q hundred dol
lars for an authentic copy; and have
lol the ollbuAcol uOubA Nllab az VI NAN
copies could be sold today for as much
as ten to twenty dollars apiece as an
tiquarian cuTiosties.
THE absolute disappearance oi
these 900 volumes of the first edition
of Thoreau's first book is one Of the
queerest of mysteries connected witt
antiquarian book lore. In fact, the
whole history of Thoreau's first bool
is one of the amazing annals Of oul
literature. A book that would not sci
that was cast away in the rubbish o
the garret-has, since Thoreaul
death, been published in many edi
tions; and one superb edition, pub
lished at cost Of about twenty thous
and dollars, was completely sold out I
few weeks after publication"
Copyright, 1911. by E. J. Edwards
All rights reserved)
Tomorrow Mr.. Edwards viii tell o
"a Tale Of the Draft Riots OF 1888.