For Collectors Only

For Collectors Only EDITED BY RALPH G. NEWMAN 18 East Chestnut Street Chicago 11, Illinois ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO COLLECT many estimates have been made as to the number of books that exist relating to the Civil War. A standard guess seems to be around 100,000 volumes, this total including all military and political books on the subject , as well as all novels, books of poetry, and biographies of leading figures both military and political. Someone once said (I believe it was Carl Sandburg) that if you wanted to build an all-inclusive collection of every Civil War title known, you would have to shelve the Grand Canyon to make a place to put it While there are today perhaps more Civil War enthusiasts than we have had since the days when the G.A.R. and the members of the Loyal Legion were reliving their youth, the restrictions of the modern home or small apartment do not permit the building of complete collections running into thousands of volumes. We no longer have collectors like those of another generation — such men as Nicholson, Lambert, Leiter, and DeRenne, who actually set out to try to collect every book in their fields. Perhaps the last of these Titans is Alfred Whital Stern, of Chicago, who several years ago transferred his Civil War collection to the Illinois State Historical Library because he felt it was impossible to continue collecting within the confines of even his large apartment. Though he continues to support the collection, it is classed with other great institutional holdings. This doesn't mean that the modern collector has disappeared, or that a man living in a moderate-sized home or apartment can't collect. It merely means that he has to be more selective, and the increased scarcity of the better books in the field and competition of more collectors, coupled with 97 RALPH G. NEWMAN the fact that so many rarities go into institutional collections every year, thereby lowering the number of available copies, makes large collections physically and financially difficult. The tendency these days is therefore to the selective collection, either toward a certain phase of the War, some special campaign, or perhaps to a certain type of writing or the works of one particular Civil War writer. There is no reason why the same rules that apply to general collecting, where a man might seek to own all of the first editions of Charles Dickens or all the writings of Ernest Hemingway might not today seek to own everything, for example, that was written by Douglas Southall Freeman, Lloyd Lewis, James G. Randall, or Carl Sandburg. It isn't quite as easy as it sounds, either. Any collector with proper bookshop connections can acquire fine first editions of Freeman's Robert E. Lee or Lee's Lieutenants . But can he get a copy of The Last Parade, Dr. Freeman's superb essay, beautifully and privately printed, and never generally offered for sale? He enjoyed "bestowing" copies on his favorite friends. Or can the collector who has James G. Randall's four volumes of Lincoln the President or Dr. Randall's fine Civil War and Reconstruction, boast of owning a copy of his doctoral dissertation on the confiscation of private property during the Civil War, published in 1913? There are those who feel that there is a much greater reward for the collector who picks a comparatively narrow field or a single author and acquires every possible thing that can be obtained in connection with the subject or the writer. It is such privately built collections that, when ultimately transferred to institutions , result in the writing of fine histories and biographies. In addition to his regularly published works, every writer of importance , during his long career, is responsible for numerous articles for periodicals, for pamphlets, for contributions to other works, and for various ephemeral productions. Money alone isn't sufficient to acquire these things. Sometimes it takes effort, not finance. Each collector must give something of himself to his project. I know I have written as many as 50 letters in the course of my quest for a single printed item for my own Carl Sandburg...